Q. –What is the force of λoυτρόv in Ephesians 5:26? Has it the same meaning as in Titus 3:5? Are all Christians being bathed now? or are we only regenerated by the bath once for all, and then throughout our wilderness-journeys get our feet washed?

A. In both places λoυτρόv mean "washing," as it is translated in the common version. The passage in Ephesians is quite general, and speaks of the whole process of cleansing by the Word. On the contrary, the "washing of regeneration" in Titus speaks of the change from the natural to the Christian or new-creation state to which the "renewing of the Holy Ghost" practically conforms us. Of the former, the flood in which the old world perished and gave place to the new seems the Scripture-figure. The latter is not "renewing" in the sense of refreshing, restoring, but vακαιvσις, making entirely new.

Q. 27.-Romans 7:9. How "alive without law once," and when the "commandment came, sin revived, and I died" ?

A. Because the law of God, while holy, just, and good, is the "strength of sin" (1 Cor. 15:56) and not of holiness. This is the sad mistake that so many are making, who suppose, because the law is holy, it is the strength of holiness. It was given for the "very purpose of convicting (Rom. 3:19.) and proving man's im-potence for good, and this it effectually does. The prohibition of sin arouses it, and self-occupation, the necessary effect of being under law, gives no power over it. On the contrary, "I died" is the expression of absolute, utter helplessness, a state of felt corruption and impotence out of which God only can deliver:"O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" The deliverance is found in the apprehension of our place before God in Christ, and ability to turn away from ourselves, and occupy ourselves with Him. "We with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

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Q. 28.-Romans 8:C. Does this refer to the believer:"To be carnally minded is death" and if so, in what sense is death referred to?

A. It is really, in this and in the following verses, the " mind of the flesh," "the mind of the Spirit,"-that is, of the old nature and of the Spirit of God.