Bible Lexicons

Berry's Synonyms of the New TestamentBerry's NT Synonyms

Regeneration, Renovation

παλιγγενεσία, ἀνακαίνωσις.

παλιγγενεσία means new birth. In classical Greek it was used in a weakened sense to denote a recovery, restoration, revival. In the N.T. it is used only twice, but in a higher sense. In Titus 3:5 it means new birth, regeneration, referring to God's act of causing the sinner to pass from the death of sin into spiritual life in Christ. It has a wider meaning in Matthew 19:28, where it is used of the change which is ultimately to take place in all the universe, its regeneration, which is the full working out of the change involved in the regeneration of the individual. ἀνακαίνωσις is renewal or renovation, denoting a continuous process through which man becomes more fully Christ-like, in which process he is a worker together with God. Some, as e.g. Cremer, without sufficient reason, have thought that the early use of παλιγγενεσία as a somewhat technical term, to denote the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration, gave to the word a permanent eschatological coloring, so that in the N.T. it has the meaning resurrection, especially in Matthew 19:28.