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Later text
Titus 3:4-7BSB
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
Earlier text
I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.||||| I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.|||| And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.||
Earlier text
I will put My Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.’”
Earlier text
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more."
Earlier text
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Titus 3:4-7 is the most concentrated expression of new covenant theology in the Pastoral Epistles, demonstrating that salvation is entirely God's work accomplished through Christ and applied by the Spirit. The phrase "washing of regeneration [loutrou palingenesias] and renewal of the Holy Spirit [anakainōseōs pneumatos hagiou]" is a clear allusion to Ezekiel 36:25-27, one of the most important new covenant texts in the OT. Ezekiel promised a future day when God would cleanse his people ("I will sprinkle clean water on you"), give them a new heart and spirit ("a new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you"), and enable covenant obedience ("I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes"). Paul declares this promise fulfilled in Christian conversion—what Ezekiel anticipated as future hope, Paul proclaims as present reality for believers. The parallel structure is striking: Ezekiel's "clean water" becomes Paul's "washing," Ezekiel's "new spirit" becomes Paul's "regeneration" (palingenesia = new birth, re-creation), and Ezekiel's "my Spirit within you" becomes Paul's "renewal of the Holy Spirit." This is not allegorical spiritualizing but straightforward fulfillment: the new covenant blessings promised to Israel are now experienced by all who are in Christ, Jew and Gentile alike.
▸ Ezek 36-37 — A New Heart and Dry Bones