It is remarkable that if we find the word in its human application in Acts 28:22And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. (Acts 28:2), this is the only passage in scripture, where we hear of “philanthropy” or love of mankind predicated of God our Savior. This is worthy of inspiration. The philanthropy of God means His special affection towards man and, as we shall see presently, shown in a way of which the creature is quite incapable. Benevolent men boast of their own philanthropy or of their fellows. What can be more in contrast? The baser metal is displayed very often by Arians, Unitarians, and Deists, by heterodox Agnostics and Positivists. Furthermore Christians of every sort scruple not to join frequently in an unholy alliance with any or all those enemies of the faith. Men glory in these combinations so foreign to God's word and Christ's cross, worldly substitutes for the unity of the Spirit we are enjoined to keep. They rejoice that any merely natural means should be applied to the relief of social distress and personal misery.
In what is purely external and of this creation men can all unite, whatever their faith or lack of faith, yea, opposition to the faith of God's elect. Such is the philanthropy of man, without serious thought of God's word or will, occupied with prisons and workhouses, the hospital and the asylum, and seeking to deal with every degraded class, as well as the misery of the world in general. But our Savior God deals with man and brings in the light which discloses his ruin in the best circumstances, from the throne down to the firstborn of the maid-servant that is behind the mill. God's philanthropy views the human philanthropists as perhaps most of all needing His saving love, because they are blinded to their sins by the consciousness of amiability or benevolence. Many of them in principle believe nothing unseen. They see only the facts of human misery and seek to alleviate it, wholly ignorant that they themselves are wretched before God no less than the lowest of those they would relieve, and this for an eternity, which they not only do not believe but perhaps openly deny.
God's philanthropy is as different as His nature is from man's, and springs from motives of love in Himself, as it is based on the sacrifice of Christ. So we are told in the verse before. No longer hidden as once, it has appeared; and man is the more responsible because it contemplates all, but it is valid only for those who believe. For it is not “By works in righteousness which we ourselves did, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost” (ver. 5). Language cannot be clearer than this.
The works of man as a ground for salvation are excluded; and most mercifully, for how could the unrighteous man—and such we were by nature before God—do works in righteousness? There is no doubt a work done in righteousness, if there ever was such, and an infinite one. Christ, the Righteous One, did it all. For it terminated with His suffering for sin. Thereby have we our blessed portion. We committed sins in unrighteousness abundantly; works in righteousness we ourselves never did till we were justified by divine grace. But according to His mercy God saved us. Thus is He God our Savior. It is not only the title of His character: He has wrought according to His mercy in Christ.
It is not a theory but a fact; according to His mercy He saved us. The best part of Judaism consisted of shadows which prefigured this; but Christianity is founded on facts in Christ come and suffering for us, and these facts are now applied to souls. Christ is the life eternal; and the Christian has that life in Him, not in himself but in Christ. “He that believeth hath eternal life;” yet he was guilty and cannot deny his sins, but confesses and hates them before God. We needed therefore a Savior to die for our sins as much as a giver to us of life everlasting. This in both its parts was in the mercy of God; and thus according to His mercy He saved us.
But a mercy unknown or doubtful in its application to the soul is shorn of half its blessedness. Such is not the philanthropy of God. He loves that we should know what Christ has done and suffered for us. Believing in Him we are saved and know it on His own word and in the delivering power of His Spirit. Hence it is added, “According to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Not only are we set in a new position through Christ's death and resurrection, of which baptism is the sign; but there is the effectual power of the Holy Spirit to renew us, making it an effectual belief in the soul from first to last. It is unbelief alone that doubts God's salvation, if we believe in Jesus. “He saved us,” though it is only in a way most holy and that secures holiness in us.
Regeneration is a new state of things, and not merely “to be born again,” as anyone can see in Matt. 19:2828And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28), “And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” It is the changed state of the earth which the Lord will introduce at His coming, as the kingdom of God pre-supposes according to John 3. That state is not yet come; but there is an action of grace which already apprehends a believer for it the moment he receives Christ. Of this baptism is the sign—not of the new birth, buff of deliverance from sin and its effects, by the death of Christ witnessed in the power of His resurrection that has taken away the sting. Superstitious men, who know not God's grace in Christ, can only misuse the sign and confound it with the thing signified. The gospel may not dispense with the outward side; but it announces an everlasting reality in Christ risen. How blessed to have our part in this new creation even now (2 Cor. 5)! How wondrous to know that “if any one is in Christ, it is a new creation! The old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself through Christ.” Before this is manifested to every eye, the Christian has the washing of regeneration now and renewing of the Holy Spirit also. This makes the force evident. If the washing of regeneration is an objective sign, the renewing is a real and divine work in the soul. In order that it should be so, the Holy Spirit, as He does invariably, takes His suited, and efficacious part, which is no mere token but a reality in power.
It is well known that some are disposed to understand here “the laver of regeneration.” The A. V. did not recognize this; the margin of the Revised Version does. It is well that the Revisers did not venture farther. The notion is absolutely unfounded; for λουτρὸν never means laver but washing, or the water for the washing (in the sense of hath) as is notorious. Never in the N. T. occurs λουτὴρ which is the proper word for “laver.” They are both found in the Septuagint, and even λουτρὼν, a place for washing or bathing-room. It is strange indeed that a commentator of learning could say that λουτρὸν is always a vessel or pool in which washing takes place, here the “baptismal font.” Liddell and Scott do, it is true, give “a bath, bathing place,” but not a solitary instance of such usage. Their abundant references are to hot or cold bathing in the sense of washing, or water for it, or even libations to the dead; but λουτὴρ is the tub or laver, as λουτρὼν is the place or bath-room. Bp. Ellicott and Dean Alford misrepresent the Lexx., of course only through haste or pre-occupation. The word is correctly translated “washing” in our text. There could be no question about the matter unless there had been a prejudice to warp the mind. The wish was father of the thought.