B. The Language and Meaning of Regeneration Regeneration is that work of the Spirit at conversion that renews the heart and life (the inner self), thus restoring the person’s intellectual, volitional, moral, emotional, and relational capacities to know, love, and serve God. The noun palingenesia (“rebirth,” “regeneration”) occurs only twice in the NT. Jesus used the term in Matt 19:28 eschatologically concerning the renewal of the world at his second advent. The implication of this usage is that
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