Spurgeon on Conversion

From Charles Spurgeon:

“One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, ‘I ascribe my change wholly to God.’”

Nine Marks Journal

The newest edition of the 9 Marks Journal is dedicated to the doctrine and implications of conversion. There are some excellent articles here folks. Check it out.

The Beauty of Conversion by Jared Wilson
To many, the Christian doctrine of conversion appears anything but beautiful. They say it’s coercive—“No one will force their beliefs on me!” Or it’s offensive—“Who are you to say that what I believe and how I live is wrong?”

His Arm Is Strong to Save: A Trajectory of Conversion in America by Owen Strachan
Historical changes in America’s doctrine of conversion show up in all sorts of interesting places.

Conversion and the Story of Israel by Thomas R. Schreiner
The New Testament doctrine of conversion doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s anticipated in the Old Testament story of Israel.

Conversion in the New Testament by Thomas R. Schreiner
The promise of redemption becomes a reality in the New Testament—a reality that includes a new covenant, a new exodus, new hearts, and a new creation.

Conversion, God, and the Whole Self by Stephen J. Wellum
Conversion is absolutely necessary for salvation. Why? Because of what our problem is, who God is, and what the gospel demands.

The Corporate Component of Conversion by Jonathan Leeman
Does your doctrine of conversion include the body of Christ? If not, it may be time to rethink it.

Book Review: Revival and Revivalism

The Underestimated Pastoral Power of a Proper Doctrine of Conversion by Jonathan Leeman
Conversion unleashes the power of a new creation life, which is the power our people need.

Conversion and Your Church’s Architecture by Jeramie Rinne
Here’s what one pastor learned through a blocked building project about the link between doctrine and practice.

How “Belonging before Believing” Redefines the Church by Michael Lawrence
“Belonging before believing” is an attractive and seemingly effective idea, yet it fundamentally redefines the church. This article offers a better, more biblical way.

Concepts of Conversion in the Inner City by Shai Linne
From the Nation of Islam to mainline churches to the beginnings of a theological rebirth, this article canvasses concepts of conversion in the inner cities of America.

Testimonies of the Underestimated Gospel
9Marks asked all the T4G plenary and break-out speakers and panelists to provide us with a one sentence answer to this question: What were the human means and instruments of your conversion?

Six Ways to Give Your People False Assurance by Michael McKinley
Many people in our churches have a firm but unfounded belief that they are genuinely converted. Here are six ways pastors contribute to that problem.

Book Review: Finally Alive

From Revival to Revivalism

Iaian Murray's excellent book Revival and Revivalism traces the history of American evangelicalism from 1750-1858 with special emphasis on the birth of revivalism and the troubling practices that ensued. This history matters because it truly helps to explain how specific doctrines and practices deviated (and continue to deviate) so drastically from what is prescribed in Scripture.

The latest edition of the 9Marks Journal includes a review of Revival and Revivalism by Bobby Jamieson. He writes:

By the 1820s and 1830s, two major shifts had occurred throughout American evangelicalism.

The first is a doctrinal shift regarding conversion. Up to 1800, evangelicals almost universally believed and preached that God must sovereignly give someone a new nature to enable him or her to repent and believe. By the 1830s, this was widely replaced by an understanding of conversion in which the decision to repent and believe lay entirely within an individual’s own power.

This led to (or, in some cases, followed) a shift in evangelistic practice. Many evangelicals adopted practices that sought to bring about an immediate decision. The “anxious bench,” the altar call, singling people out personally in public prayer, warning hearers to respond immediately or else lose their chance to repent—all these practices and more grew out of the new belief that conversion is something within a person’s power to achieve, or even to effect in others.

The Result: Revivalism

The result of these two shifts is that church leaders began to regard revival as something that could be infallibly secured through the use of proper means—“proper” being whatever would induce an immediate decision or external token of decision. This understanding was most vigorously promoted by Charles Finney, but by the end of the Second Great Awakening it had become a given among a strong majority of American evangelicals. Historian William McLoughlin even went so far as to say that by the mid-nineteenth century, this new system was the national religion of the United States (277).

Thus, revivalism was born. To be sure, revivalism grew up in the soil of genuine revival. But this new practice of revivalism radically differed from the previous understanding of revival it so quickly supplanted. A “revival” became synonymous with a meeting designed to promote revival. Unlike previous generations, evangelicals after 1830 gained the ability, so to speak, to put a revival on the calendar months in advance.

The goal of such revivals was to secure as many immediate decisions for Christ as possible. As such, awareness of the possibility of false conversion seemed to simply vanish from the evangelical consciousness. Few asked whether their new measures just might create as many false converts as true disciples.

Read the entire review HERE.

Regeneration and Conversion

Infants do not induce, or cooperate in, their own procreation and birth; no more can those who are “dead in trespasses and sins” prompt the quickening operation of God’s Spirit within them (see Eph. 2:1–10). Spiritual vivification is a free, and to man mysterious, exercise of divine power (John 3:8), not explicable in terms of the combination or cultivation of existing human resources (John 3:6), not caused or i nduced by any human efforts (John 1:12–13) or merits (Titus 3:3–7), and not, therefore, to be equated with, or attributed to, any of the experiences, decisions, and acts to which it gives rise and by which it may be known to have taken place.

- J.I. Packer

This week I have had two people ask me for more clarity on what I preached on Sunday. Since I am a sinful and flawed man I always assume that if there is a lack of clarity in what I preach it is my fault. I also assume that for every one person who tells me that I did not make myself clear enough there are many others who are thinking the same thing. So, here goes...

The text for Sunday's message was John 3:1-15 where Jesus speaks to Nicodemus about the new birth. The focus of the message therefore was on the doctrine of the new birth or regeneration.

Regeneration is the sovereign and mysterious work of God. If the new birth is the result of something we do or a commitment we make then Jesus has given us a truly confusing metaphor and he is not the teacher we assumed him to be. This, of course is not an option. In the new birth, God is the actor and we are the responders. Those who are children of God by virtue of faith in Christ "were born not of blood, nor of the will will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). Unfortunately however there has been much teaching about the new birth which clouds the clarity of John 1 and 3. This teaching makes man the actors in the new birth and God the responder. But this simply cannot be.

Regeneration is the sovereign and merciful act of God to breathe life into a dead sinner. Dead men do not raise themselves. The blind do not restore their own sight. Prior to the new birth we are dead Lazarus rotting in the grave until that miraculous moment when Jesus cries "come forth!" We do not control or command this act of God's sovereign grace. Jesus drives this home by not only referring to the experience as being "born again" or "born from above" but by the word play in verses 7 and 8:

Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born uagain.’ The wind5 blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Here Jesus uses the word pneuma which can be translated as "wind" or "spirit." He is comparing the mystery of the Spirit's work in regeneration with the mystery of the wind. We can no more command and control the Spirit's work in regeneration as we can the wind. Further, in regeneration, the Spirit is not responding to something we do or a commitment we make any more than the wind responds to our will. For the one wanting to be told what to do in order to get born again, Jesus offers no answers. Quite the opposite. "The wind blows where it wishes...So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

So where does this leave us? Is deliberately placing our faith in Jesus irrelevant? Do we not have to believe? Are we always entirely passive? Is this not fatalism to some degree? These are legitimate questions based upon what I have written thus far.

This is where conversion comes in.

Conversion is our act of repentance from sin and faith in Christ as our only Savior. But how do hardened sinners who are dead in trespasses come to grieve over sin and delight in Jesus? The only hope the sinner has is through the new birth which is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. Regeneration, therefore, must come before conversion. The new birth is what produces conversion. We can state it like this: Regeneration (the new birth) is the root while conversion (repentance from sin and faith in Jesus) is the fruit. By God's grace, the second will surely follow the first.

So without a doubt, faith in Jesus is absolutely necessary for salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." But how do we come to the place where we willingly and joyfully place our faith in Jesus? Outside of Christ, our hearts are darkened and we are dead in our sins. We cannot understand the things of the Spirit for they are spiritually discerned. So what makes the difference between the one who believes in Jesus and the one who rejects Him? Is it that believers are wiser or more moral? Certainly not. The difference is the sovereign grace of God in the new birth.

If our faith and repentance produce the new birth then we must conclude that regeneration is at least a cooperative effort between God and man. What is more, we must conclude that unregenerate sinners, dead in their trespasses are not able to repent and trust in Jesus before they are brought to new life.

"I say that man, before he is renewed into the new creation of the Spirit's kingdom, does and endeavours nothing to prepare himself for that new creation and kingdom, and when he is re-created has does and endeavors nothing towards his perseverance in that kingdom; but the Spirit alone works both blessings in us, regenerating us, and preserving us when regenerate, without ourselves..."
- Martin Luther from Bondage of the Will, pg. 268

"Faith in the living God and his Son Jesus Christ is always the result of the new birth, and can never exist except in the regenerate. Whoever has faith is a saved man."
- Charles Spurgeon

"Regeneration is monergistic: that is, entirely the work of God the Holy Spirit. It raises the elect among the spiritually dead to new life in Christ (Eph. 2:1-10). Regeneration is a transition from spiritual death to spiritual life, and conscious, intentional, active faith in Christ is its immediate fruit, not its immediate cause. Regeneration is the work of what Augustine called “prevenient” grace, the grace that precedes our outgoings of heart toward God."
- J.I. Packer

"Why do some people repent and respond by faith in Christ to the divine summons to faith while others do not? Concerning those who believe in Christ’s name John immediately says in John 1:13: “[These are they] who have been begotten [egennēthēsan], not by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of a husband, but by God.” By this particular reference to God’s “begetting” activity John refers to regeneration, and clearly suggests by his statement that, while faith is the instrumental precondition to justification and adoption, regeneration is the necessary precondition and efficient cause of faith in Jesus Christ. In short, regeneration causally precedes faith."
- Robert Reymond

A Few Relevant Scriptures:
1. "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved..." (Ephesians 2:1-5)
- Regeneration ("made us alive") happens before any faith response on our part.

2. "And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live...Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD." (Ezekiel 37:14)
- Notice that God says through the prophet that he will make his people alive and THEN we will know that he is the Lord.

3. "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me [i.e. believe in me] unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:63-65)

4. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God." (1 John 5:1)
- Those who believe do so because they have been born of God (regeneration).

Please take time to check out the following excellent articles:
Regeneration Precedes Faith by R.C. Sproul
The New Genesis by R.C. Sproul
Regeneration by J.I. Packer
Regeneration by Wayne Grudem
Regeneration by Robert Reymond

Two Views of Regeneration by John Hendryx

Grace Alone: An Evangelical Problem? by Kim Riddlebarger

Update:

I have corrected a small typo in the final sentence of my post just prior to the Martin Luther quote. Amazing how one little word like "not" makes all the theological difference in the world!

Does the Bible tell us to "ask Jesus into our heart"?

If you grew up in the typical evangelical church from Southern Baptist to Assembly of God then you have heard the phrase, "Ask Jesus into your heart" more times than you can count. But is this biblical? After all, in matters of salvation we had better get it right.

Dan Wallace has written an excellent post examing the biblical language in Revelation 3:20: "Behold I stand at the door and knock..."

In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he [will dine] with me.” The crucial phrase for our purposes is “I shall come in to him.” This text has often been taken as a text offering salvation to a lost sinner. Such a view is based on two assumptions: (1) that the Laodiceans, or at least some of them, were indeed lost, and (2) that the Greek εισελεύσομαι πρό means “come into.”

Both of these assumptions, however, are based on little evidence. Further, the resultant notion is anything but clear. To invite Christ into one’s heart is hardly a clear picture of the gospel.

Regarding the idea that those in the Laodicean church were not believers, note that in the preceding verse, the resurrected Lord declares, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.” Here φιλέω is used for “love”—a term that is never used of God/Jesus loving unbelievers in the NT. This φιλέω is applied to the Laodiceans here, for the verse concludes, “Be zealous, therefore, and repent.” The inferential ‘therefore’ connects the two parts of the verse, indicating that the Laodiceans are to repent because Christ loves (φιλέω) them!

The second assumption is that εισελεύσομαι πρό means ‘come into.’ Such an assumption is based on a less than careful reading of the English text. The ASV, NASB, RSV, NRSV, for example, all correctly render it ‘come in to.’ (Note the space between the prepositions.) The idea of ‘come into’ would be expressed with είς as the independent preposition and would suggest a penetration into the person (thus, spawning the idea of entering into one’s heart). However, spatially πρό means toward, not into. In all eight instances of εισοέρχομαι πρό in the NT, the meaning is ‘come in toward/before a person’ (i.e., enter a building, house, room, etc., so as to be in the presence of someone), never penetration into the person himself/herself. In some instances, such a view would not only be absurd, but inappropriate (cf. Mark 6:25; 15:43; Luke 1:28; Acts 10:3; 11:3; 16:40; 17:2; 28:8).

What, then, is this verse is affirming? First, it is not an offering of salvation. The implications of this are manifold. Among other things, to use this text as a salvation verse is a perversion of the simplicity of the gospel. Many people have allegedly “received Christ into their hearts” without understanding what that means or what the gospel means. Although this verse is picturesque, it actually muddies the waters of the truth of salvation. Reception of Christ is a consequence, not a condition, of salvation. Second, as far as the positive meaning of this verse, it may refer to Christ having supremacy in the assembly or even to an invitation (and, consequently, a reminder) to believers to share with him in the coming kingdom. Either way, it is not a verse about salvation at all, for the Laodiceans were already saved.

Does this mean that those who have come to faith in Christ via Rev 3:20 are not saved? This answer needs some nuancing...

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Regeneration and Church Membership

Southern Baptists cannot find between 50 and 60 per cent of our members. Southern Baptist Church attendance is less than half of the membership we claim. What is more, many SBC churches are populated with baptized individuals who demonstrate scant biblical knowlege and little, if any desire for holiness. Timmy Brister has posted an excellent and timely excerpt from an article by Dr. James Leo Garret published in 1961. I encourage you to read it.

This is an issue that ought to concern us all. For the sake of numbers too many churches have looked the other way while unregenerate children, youth, and adults were accepted into membership. They may have "prayed the prayer," "walked the aisle," or simply signed a card but were never involved in any process by which the genuiness of their conversion might be tested. I cannot remember how many adults I have counseled with over the years who were converted as adults years after being assured of their salvation because they "prayed the prayer." Even after a life of no spiritual fruit and even ungodliness they were assured repeatedly by well meaning pastors and family members that they were okay because of the prayer they prayed as a child. I continue to encounter men and women raised in the church that hold a profoundly unbiblical worldview and demonstrate almost complete biblical illiteracy. Friends, it is time for a radical change.


"Failure to heed these warnings will result in irreparable harm to our churches. The loss of the conviction of a regenerate church membership would be the abandonment of one of our crucial theological distinctives. We would in essence forsake one of our core tenets that has classically and theologically defined us as Baptists in the free church tradition. We would erase the line of demarcation between the church and the world.

"Our churches would become more worldly and carnal and less holy and Christlike. We would witness and increase in the number of inactive, indifferent, uncommitted, and undedicated members in our churches. In our effort to have larger churches with greater numbers of members, we would contribute to the demise of effective evangelism and witness a decrease in the number of new converts. We would also lose our prophetic voice to speak with biblical convictions on the great moral and social issues of our day."

Why I Preach Expositionally (2)

Biblical exposition is the means by which God produces faith in the hearts of sinners.

This sounds strange and unnecessarily narrow in a day when the church places such high priority on subjective experience and popular Christian books promise to help us hear from God in new and exciting ways. But the Bible is clear that the lost will not believe “without someone preaching” to them (Rom 10:14). What is more, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17). “But doesn’t God speak through beautiful music or majestic mountains?” Well, yes and no. Creation, indeed, testifies to God as the Mighty Creator (Rom 1). On the other hand, our knowledge of God’s redemptive work through the cross of Christ is entirely dependent upon what He reveals in His Word. No one will deduce from seeing a mountain that they are sinners hopelessly alienated from God and therefore must trust entirely in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. This knowledge comes from the Holy Spirit as He illumines the inspired Word of God.

The power of the preached Word of God is illustrated through the prophet Ezekiel. God gives the prophet a vision of a valley full of the dead carcasses of a vast number of people. All that is left is dry bones. After viewing the bones God asks Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” God then commands the prophet to “prophesy” or preach to the mass of bones:

"Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord" (37:1-6).

This vision signifies God’s power to create spiritual life through the proclaiming of His Word. In his vision, Ezekiel preaches as the Lord commands him and the results are astonishing.
I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come fro the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army (37:7-10).

Next, God interprets the vision for Ezekiel. God tells the prophet that the bones represent the people of Israel. God’s promise to His people, “I will put My Spirit in you and you will live” (37:14) is illustrated by the vision of the valley of dry bones. And how will God breathe new life into His dead people? It will happen through His Word. There is nothing inherently powerful in the act of proclaiming God’s Word. The power to create new life belongs to God alone. The proclamation of the Word is merely the means that the Sovereign Lord has chosen to use. God commands Ezekiel to speak His Word to His people while they are dead, and as he obeys, those once dead come to life. To this day the Spirit of God uses “that Word above all earthly powers” to bring the dead to life. “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek 36:26).

Spurgeon on Conversion

“One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, ‘I ascribe my change wholly to God.’”

Charles Spurgeon