THOUGHTS ON CONVERSION

The Christian community throws around many words and sayings in regards to salvation like “Believer, born again, faith, repent, once saved always saved, backslider, give your life to Jesus, come forward and give Jesus a chance, Christian, confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, or say the sinners prayer”. But what really constitutes a Christian? What makes for a true convert to Christ? What does it mean to be saved? Born again? What is does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? What part does God play and what part does man play in the salvation process? Today many biblical terms have lost their meaning in the light of 21st century misunderstandings. We live in a day surrounded by unconverted people outside the church and within the church who say and think that they believe in Jesus.

WHAT IS CONVERSION?
Conversion is used in the Bible only once, in Acts 15:3, Paul and Barnabas "passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers." This conversion involved repentance and faith, as the other reports in Acts show.
For example, in Acts 11:18 the apostles respond to Peter's testimony about Gentile conversions like this: "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life." And in Acts 14:27, Paul and Barnabas report the conversion of the Gentiles by saying that "God ...had opened a door of faith to the ¬Gentiles."

Conversion, then, is repentance (turning from sin and unbelief) and faith (trusting in Christ alone for salvation). They are really two sides of the same coin. One side is tails-turn tail on the fruits of unbelief. The other side is heads-head straight for Jesus and trust His promises. You can't have the one without the other any more than you can face two ways at once or serve two masters.

This means that saving faith in Christ always involves a profound change of heart. It is not merely agreement with the truth of a doctrine. Satan agrees with true doctrine (James 2:19). Saving faith is far deeper and more pervasive than that.

CONVERSION IS A GIFT OF GOD

We get an inkling of something awesome and stupendous behind repentance and faith when we see hints in the book of Acts that conversion is the gift of God. "God has granted repentance that leads to life" (11:18). "God exalted [Christ] at his right hand ...to give repentance to Israel" (5:31). God "opened a door of faith to the Gentiles" (14:27). "The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul" (16:14).

We will never fully appreciate what a deep and awesome thing conversion is until we own up to the fact that it is a miracle. It is a gift of God. The truth is that we not only sin, but we also are sinful-blind, hard, dead, and unable to submit to the law of God. And so when we hear the gospel, we will never respond positively unless God performs the miracle of regeneration. We are all radically corrupt and utterly unable to respond to the gospel left to ourselves.

FAITH IS OUR ACT, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE ONLY BECAUSE OF GOD’S ACT

Repentance and faith are our work. But we will not repent and believe unless God first does His work to overcome our hard and rebellious hearts. This divine work is called regeneration or the New Birth. Our work is called conversion. Conversion does indeed include an act of will by which we renounce sin and submit ourselves to the authority of Christ and put our hope and trust in Him. We are responsible to do this and will be condemned if we don't. But just as clearly, the Bible teaches that, owing to our hard heart and willful blindness and spiritual insensitivity, we cannot do this. We must first experience the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

The scriptures promised long ago that God would devote Himself to this work in order to create for Himself a faithful people:
"And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of our offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with a11 your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." (Deuteronomy 30:6)
"I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD), and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart." (Jeremiah 24:7)
"And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God." (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
These great promises from the Old Testament describe a work of God that changes a heart of stone into a heart of flesh and causes people to "know" and we" "desire" and "obey" God. Without this spiritual heart transplant, people will not know and love and obey God. This prior work of God is what we mean by regeneration or the New Birth.

WE ARE CONVERTED (CALLED) THE WAY JESUS CALLED LAZARUS: DEATH TO LIFE

In the New Testament, wee see that God is clearly active, creating converts to Himself by calling them out of darkness and enabling them to believe the gospel and walk the light. The Bible requires that we speak of God’s call in at least two distinct senses. One is the general or external call that goes out in preaching the gospel. Everyone who hears the gospel is called in this sense. But God calls in another sense to some who hear the gospel. This is called God’s internal or effective call. It is the call changes a person’s heart so that faith is secured. It’s like the call of Lazarus , “Lazarus come forth!” It creates what it demands. The key passage is 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, "But we preach Christ crucified (General call), to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called (Effective call), both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen" in Matthew 22:14. Among the "many" or the “generally called” there is a group who are “called” in such a way that they are enabled to esteem the gospel as wisdom and power. The change caused by the effective calling is none other than the new birth or regeneration!

John teaches most clearly that regeneration precedes and enables faith. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. (1 John 5:1) The verb tenses make John's intention unmistakable: "Everyone who goes on believing [pisteuon, present, continuous action] that Jesus is the Chris been born [gennesanta, perfect, completed action with abiding effects] of God." Faith is the evidence of new birth, not the cause of it. This is consistent John's whole epistle (cf. 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:2-3; 4:7).

Since faith and repentance are possible only because of the regenerating work of God, both are called the gift of God:
"Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.... By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:5, 8).
"It has been granted(graced or gifted) to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake" (Philippians 1:29).
"The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge o the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

To be continued...