A word must be given before closing this article on

the passage in Titus which speaks of 'the washing of regeneration' (Titus

3:5).  We cannot believe that Paul would have been less explicit than Peter

(Acts 2:38), had he intended to say 'the baptism of regeneration' here.  He

does not use the word 'baptism' but 'laver', Greek loutron, a word already

used by him in Ephesians 5:26, 'the washing (loutron) of water by the Word'.

This involves more than one figure of speech.  Washing by water is a plain

statement, but washing by the water by the Word is figurative.  Further

loutron does not mean 'washing', it refers to the 'laver' used in the

Tabernacle (Exod. 30:18).  When speaking of it and its ordinances, which

would include this laver, the apostle refers to 'divers washings and carnal

ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation' (Heb. 9:9,10).

Again he had revealed that in the unity of the Spirit, there is 'One

Baptism'.  What Paul intended us to understand in Titus 3:5, was the

cleansing that accompanies regeneration, and makes no reference to baptism in

water at all.  If readers today were in the place and predicament of

Nicodemus, we should have to go into this matter much more thoroughly, but

those for whom we write will have arrived at such an understanding of their

high calling as to leave Nicodemus where the Scripture places him, and not

allow any teaching from other dispensations to lower the standard of their

own high calling.

Bought with a Price.  These words of 1 Corinthians 6:20 would awaken a chord

in the breast of many of the believers in the early church, for a number

either were, or had been slaves.  Deissmann has the following translation of

an inscription from Delphi which deals with the manumission of a slave.

'Apollo the Pythian Bought from Sosibus of Amphissa ... a female slave ...

With a Price'.  This solemn rite of the fictitious purchase of a slave by

some divinity, has been actually accomplished by the Redeemer, and the words

of 1 Corinthians 6:20 are a part of a number of texts which reveal that

redemption has released those who were in bondage to both sin and death.  In

the same inscription we read that this female slave was bought 'for freedom',

which is the literal translation of Galatians 5:1 -13, 'For freedom did

Christ set us free ... ye were called for freedom'.  For a fuller dealing

with this wondrous theme, see Redemption7; Ransom7; and Liberty7.

Brimstone.  This word which enters into the description of Divine judgment

both in the Old and in the New Testament, was originally spelled brumstone or

brymstoon, and means burnt stone or sulphur, which is a non -metallic

element, and is both inflammable and asphyxiating.  The word 'sulphur' does

not occur in the A.V.  Brimstone occurs seven times in the Old Testament and

seven in the New Testament.  The Hebrew word thus translated is gophereth.

This word is allied with gopher, the wood used in the building of the Ark

(Gen. 6:14) and Dr. Young renders it, 'bitumen or pitch'.  The LXX

consistently renders the seven occurrences of gophereth by the Greek word

theion.  The occurrences are as follows:

Old Testament

New Testament

LXX.  O.T.

Theion Gk.

Theion Gk.

Gen. 19:24

Deut. 29:23

9:17 (theiodes), 18

Job 18:15

Psalm 11:6