Titus 3:5

‘Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,’

And this work of salvation which He has wrought in us if we are Christians, was not because of any works that we had done in righteousness. It was not deserved in any way. It simply resulted from His compassion and mercy. And it was through ‘the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit’. This does not mean that it was outwardly through baptism and inwardly through the Holy Spirit. That is totally to misunderstand the picture. (How we love to bring baptism in when water is mentioned as though water was never used for anything else. Even in a context like this we still have to keep God under our control). It is a picture drawn from the Old Testament where the coming of the Holy Spirit was likened to the pouring out of rain from above, washing the earth and regenerating it. See Isaiah 32:15; Isaiah 44:1-5; Isaiah 55:10-13; Ezekiel 36:25-27). And the result was to be life and fruitfulness. It was to be the renewal of the Holy Spirit which had been so long awaited.

Alternately the washing of regeneration may have in mind the Old Testament examples of the washing away of sin (not defilement) as found in Isaiah 1:16; Isaiah 4:4; Jeremiah 2:22; Jeremiah 4:14 where it is a picture of the removal of sin, not of a ritual washing. The new birth washed away all their old sins and their old ways (compare 1 Corinthians 6:11), and they became new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). In this case the regeneration is seen in terms of the positive removal of their sin, not of ritual washing.

All the Gospels emphasise that it was a prime ministry of Jesus, to drench men in the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; compare John 7:37-38; Acts 2:33). And it is this work of Jesus that Paul is describing here, a work that began while He was on earth (John 3:1-6; John 4:10-14), continued in the Upper Room (John 20:22), flowered at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), and has gone on ever since, a work that takes place in men and women when they hear the Gospel and truly believe (1 Corinthians 1:18).

In fact baptism is never described as ‘washing’ (Acts 22:16, the only possible exception, is debatable). It is always seen as an indicator of life from the dead through the Holy Spirit. Nor did ritual washings in the Old Testament ever cleanse (‘you shall not be clean until the evening’ was the constant refrain). They simply washed away earthly defilement so that men could then reach out to God, and Peter makes clear that that is not what baptism is all about (1 Peter 3:21). What baptism does of course signify is the working of the Holy Spirit, picturing it in terms of the heavenly rain. The Christian is baptised as a picture of what has happened to him, and as an act of his resulting total commitment to Christ as his Lord.