Washing
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Loutron means a washing or bath. Paul uses it twice, once for Christ's cleansing of the church by the washing of water with the word and once for the washing associated with regeneration and the Holy Spirit's renewal.
Reader summary
Full entry for λουτρόν (G3067) · Open the biblical lexicon
Loutron means a washing or bath. Paul uses it twice, once for Christ's cleansing of the church by the washing of water with the word and once for the washing associated with regeneration and the Holy Spirit's renewal.
The BSB source-word alignment has 2 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include [the] washing (1), washing (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Ephesians 5:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Ephesians (1), Titus (1).
Loutron means a washing or bath. Paul uses it twice, once for Christ's cleansing of the church by the washing of water with the word and once for the washing associated with regeneration and the Holy Spirit's renewal. The noun presents salvation through cleansing imagery, but neither occurrence invites confidence in a bare ritual detached from Christ, the gospel, faith, or the Spirit.
Ephesians emphasizes the Bridegroom who gives Himself to sanctify His people; Titus excludes works done by us and grounds salvation in God's mercy. Christian traditions differ over the precise baptismal relation, so teaching should state the imagery and contexts clearly without claiming that water mechanically saves or that embodied baptism is insignificant.
Loutron evokes the decisive washing by which Christ cleanses His church and God saves according to mercy through regeneration and Spirit-given renewal. Both contexts center divine action rather than human achievement.
To sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
Ephesians 5:26 says Christ gave Himself for the church in order to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word. The washing belongs to His covenantal, self-giving purpose.
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.
Titus 3:5 denies salvation by righteous works we performed and attributes it to God's mercy through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
This is the Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
Titus 3:6, supporting context rather than a separate occurrence, says God poured out the Spirit richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. It identifies the personal and trinitarian source of renewal.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. washing
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
2 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a bath, washing, baptism
Read versea bath, washing, baptism
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
λουτρόν is built from this root:
Loutron gives salvation a cleansing shape without making cleansing a human project. In Ephesians, the Bridegroom first gives Himself and then sanctifies His church, so the washing flows from Christ's sacrificial love and aims at a radiant holy people. In Titus, Paul explicitly removes righteous works as the cause and locates salvation in God's mercy, regeneration, and the Holy Spirit poured out through Jesus Christ.
Baptism fittingly embodies cleansing, union, and entrance into the confessed community, but the noun cannot bear a theory of automatic salvation by water alone. Nor should fear of sacramental confusion flatten the physical imagery. The church receives, remembers, and lives from a washing God accomplishes and baptism publicly signifies.
Titus.3.5
Loutron denotes a bath, washing, or the act and means of washing. Its two New Testament uses are metaphorically and theologically dense, while their water language naturally invites relation to baptism.
Priestly washings, cleansing from defilement, and promises of clean water prepare for God's inward renewal. Ezekiel joins cleansing water, a new heart, and God's Spirit without reducing renewal to external washing.
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