Recently, I led a church service at a Nursing Home in Central Illinois.  I gave a simple salvation message and, afterwards, I wanted to see if the people understood what I was saying.  So I approached an elderly lady in a wheelchair and asked her if she attended church before coming to the home.  She said that she had and that she was a Methodist.  I then asked her if she had ever heard that Jesus Christ died for her sins and what she said next shocked me.  She said, “No I haven’t.  Who teaches that?”

We live in very confusing times.  Millions attend churches all across our country and seem to know little-to-nothing about the Christian faith.  There are many reasons for this but one reason is a misunderstanding of what conversion is.

The word “conversion” means “a change or a transformation.”1  It is to change your thinking and your lifestyle from one thing to another.  In religious terms, conversion refers to when someone becomes a Christian.  It is “The action of a person in turning to Christ.  It includes repentance (renunciation of sin) and faith (acceptance of Christ).”2

There are two basic ways to look at conversion.  There is the Godward side, where God calls us3 and draws us4 and crucifies His Son for us5 and gives us a heart of flesh to believe the Gospel.6  And there is also the manward side, where we repent of our sins7 and believe the Gospel8 all the days of our life.9

But, as a way of putting these two sides together, I thought it would be helpful to look at conversion this way.  Here is What Biblical Conversion Is and What Biblical Conversion Is Not.

I. WHAT BIBLICAL CONVERSION IS

How can believers recognize the change that has occurred in a lost person?  How can we identify those who are truly converted from those who are not?  What is Biblical Conversion?

1. Biblical Conversion is a Work of God

In John 3, Jesus Christ has an in-depth conversation with a man named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  He was a Ruler of the Jews (v.1).  In verse 10, Jesus calls him “the teacher of Israel,” implying that he was very knowledgeable of the Old Testament.  His name, “Nicodemus,” even meant “victor over the people” in Greek.10  So it is safe to say that Nicodemus was a very influential man in First Century Israel.  If there was ever a person who could earn his salvation, it was this one.  If there was ever a child of darkness who could change himself into a child of light, it was Nicodemus.  If anyone ever had the ability to convert himself, Nicodemus was it.

But in verse 3, Jesus gives Nicodemus some shocking news.

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus says, “Nicodemus, if you want to get into Heaven, you must be born again.  You must have a fresh start.”  “The life you have lived is full of sin and, if you want to live a life that honors God, you must be reborn.  You must start all over again.”  In words that we are using in this article, Jesus tells him, “Nicodemus, you must be converted.”

And the question is: How?  How can a man be born again?  How can a man change his nature?  How can a man convert himself?  And here is how Jesus answers that question.

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old?  He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (vv. 4-8).

Jesus says, “Nicodemus, you must have a spiritual rebirth and you cannot do that on your own.”  “You are flesh and a spiritual rebirth is the work of the Holy Spirit.  He must give your soul new life and He will do it when and how He pleases.”  “You cannot tell the wind where to blow.  You cannot birth yourself.  God gives salvation to whomever He chooses to give it to.”

Conversion is the work of God.

While man is responsible for believing the Gospel and turning from his sins,11 God gives the gifts of faith and repentance to whomever He chooses to give it to.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says,

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Second Timothy 2:24-25 says,

The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.

God gives the gift of faith.  God grants repentance.

Conversion is entirely the work of God.  It is not something that man contributes to in any way.  Man does not pull himself up by his own bootstraps and help God fix his life.  Man does not come to his senses one day and believe on his own.  He does not repent along with God’s help.  God does it alone.

God gives man the gift of faith and man believes.  God changes man’s heart and man repents.  God chose those whom He would save before the foundations of the earth.12  He has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy.13  His Spirit blows wherever it wants to.  He gives the new birth to men who are dead.

2. Biblical Conversion is a New Creation 

In the Book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul deals with legalism in the church at Galatia.  Some of the Jewish Christians were trying to force Gentile Christians to follow the Old Testament Law to earn their salvation (3:1-3; 4:21-31).  And the Jewish Christians were going so far as to tell the Gentiles that they could not be Christians if they failed to obey all the laws in the Old Testament.

And Paul responded to their challenge this way:

Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.  For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.  For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation (6:12-15).

The English Standard Version translates verse 15 as, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”

Paul says, “Whether you decide to circumcise yourselves14 or not is a neutral matter, what matters is a new creation.”  “What really matters is whether you have changed.”  “What matters is whether you have been converted.”  As Second Corinthians 5:17 says,

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

If your heart has never been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, it does not matter if you have been circumcised.  Who cares if you keep the Sabbath15 and the Holy Days16 and all the Old Testament Law if Jesus Christ has never changed you?

In today’s terminology, we could say, “Who cares if you come to church if you have not been saved?”  “Who cares if you look like a Christian when you are not one?”  As one Puritan author put it, “What good will it do you in Hell for others to think you have gone to Heaven?”

The old must go and the new must come.  Your old man must die and your new man must live.17  A new creation must occur within your heart.  If it has not occurred, then you are not converted yet.  To say that even more simply, if you are not showing evidences that you have changed, then you have not changed.  Matthew 7:16-18 says,

You will know them by their fruits.  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?  So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.

Bad fruit is the result of a bad tree.  Good fruit is the result of a good tree.  A changed life is the result of a changed heart.  An unchanged life is the result of an unchanged heart.

3. Biblical Conversion is a Life-Long Commitment to Christ 

True, Biblical, God-honoring conversion is not something that only happens once and is never heard from again.  It is something that lasts for a lifetime or it has not happened at all.  You come to Christ today or you did not come to Him yesterday.  You follow Him right now or you did not follow Him in the past.

There are times when Christians struggle with sin and even give into it,18 but there must be a pattern of victory in a Christian’s life.  As a friend of mine put it, you can hold your breath for three minutes and still be alive but if you hold your breath for three hours, you are dead.  In a similar way, you can sin against the Lord for a period of time and still be a Christian, but if you sin against the Lord for a lifetime, then it is safe to say that you are probably not saved.

And the Biblical reason for this is simple: Christians remain in Christ.  They abide with Him.  In John 15:1-8 Jesus says,

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.  You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.  I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.  If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

The word “abide” appears seven times in this passage.  Jesus’ point to His disciples is clear.  If a plant does not bear fruit, it is dead.  If a disciple of Jesus Christ does not bear fruit, he is dead.  A Christian must show his Christianity with his life throughout the duration of his life.  He must remain in Jesus.  If a plant wants to live and bear fruit, it must remain on the vine.  If a disciple wants to live eternally and bear fruit, he must remain in Jesus Christ.

True Biblical Conversion is a life-long commitment to Jesus Christ.  It is an abiding commitment.  It lasts for an eternity.  From the moment this commitment is made, it never ceases.  Eternal life requires an eternal devotion to the Son of God.

II. WHAT BIBLICAL CONVERSION IS NOT

Sometimes the best way to understand something is to understand what it is not.  So let’s look at what Biblical Conversion is not.  What is the opposite of true, Biblical life change?  If that is what being a Christian is all about, what is it not about?

1. Biblical Conversion is not a Work of Man 

Conversion is not something that man can do.  It is not something that we can take credit for.  If you can brag on yourself and say, “Look, how I led myself to the Lord,” it is doubtful that you understand what conversion is all about.

Ephesians 2:1-9 describes conversion this way:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them we too formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul is describing the great salvation that the Lord has achieved in us.  And, as He is doing so, Paul mentions the Godward side of salvation in great detail in chapter 2.  Notice how much God has done for man’s salvation and how little man himself has done.

Verse 1: “you were dead.”  Verse 2: “you . . . formerly walked according to the course of this world . . . according to the prince of the power of the air.”  Verse 3: “we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh.”  Verses 4-5, “But God, being rich in mercy . . . made us alive together with Christ.”

No man births himself.  No man makes himself come alive.  If anyone is converted, it is because God has converted them.  Verse 5 says, “by grace you have been saved.”  If you did anything to save yourself, it would not be grace, it would be works.  God saves men by His sovereign grace alone.  And He raises them up with Christ and He seats them in Heaven with Jesus so that He alone gets the glory (vv. 6-7).

You cannot brag about your salvation because you did not achieve your salvation.  It was given to you as a gift.  Even the ability to believe has been given to you so that you will give all the glory to God (vv.8-9).

If you are a Christian, I assure you, you did not earn your faith.  You were spiritually dead when God saved you.19  You did not become alive and believe on your own.  God made you believe.  God changed your heart.  God changed your will and He brought you to faith in Himself.  In short, God transformed you.  He converted you.

2. Biblical Conversion is not the Same Old Creation 

As we said previously, if nothing every changed in a person’s life, nothing ever happened.  If a man was never transformed, he was never converted.  If he made a “decision for Christ” at a service ten years ago but never decided to do anything for Christ after that, he is not born again.  As Paul writes in Romans 6:1-2,

What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?  May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

He writes again in 12:1-2,

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

The Apostle John writes in First John 3:6,

No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.20

Christians are new creatures.  They are a people who are constantly leaving their life of sin and becoming more like Jesus Christ.  Their minds are constantly renewed as they offer their bodies to God as living sacrifices.

As a word of personal testimony on this, I recently confessed to my wife that I want to grow so much in my relationship with Jesus Christ that every ten years I cannot recognize myself.  I don’t even want to know who I was a decade from now because I want to forsake sin and grow in Christ to the point that I am a new person.

If that is not your desire, you have yet to be converted.  If that is not what you want, whatever else you may be doing, you are not following Jesus Christ.  Christians are not the same old creation.  They do not continue to love and cherish their sin.  They grow and change and repent and believe to the point that their minds are constantly being renewed.

3. Biblical Conversion is not a Momentary, Fleeting Commitment to Christ 

Biblical Conversion is not a snap judgment decision.  In his book, Preaching and Preachers, the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones illustrates this point well.  He says,

In the church where I ministered in South Wales I used to stand at the main door of the church at the close of the service on Sunday night, and shake hands with people as they went out.  The incident to which I am referring concerns a man who used to come to our service every Sunday night.  He was a tradesman but also a heavy drinker.  He got drunk regularly every Saturday night, but he was also regularly seated in the gallery of our church every Sunday night.

On the particular night to which I am referring I happened to notice while preaching that this man was obviously being affected.  I could see that he was weeping copiously, and I was anxious to know what was happening to him.

At the end of the service I went and stood at the door.  After a while I saw this man coming, and immediately I was in a real mental conflict.  Should I, in view of what I had seen, say a word to him and ask him to make his decision that night, or should I not?  Would I be interfering with the work of the Spirit if I did so?  Hurriedly I decided that I would not ask him to stay behind, so I just greeted him as usual and he went out.  His face revealed that he had been crying copiously, and he could scarcely look at me.

The following evening I was walking to the prayer-meeting in the church, and, going over a railway bridge, I saw this same man coming to meet me.  He came across the road to me and said, “You know, doctor, if you had asked me to stay behind last night I would have done so.”  “Well,” I said, “I am asking you now, come with me now.”  “Oh no,” he replied, “but if you had asked me last night I would have done so.”

“My dear friend,” I said, “if what happened to you last night does not last for twenty-four hours, I am not interested in it.  If you are not as ready to come with me now as you were last night you have not got the right, the true thing.  Whatever affected you last night was only temporary and passing, you still do not see your real need of Christ.”21

Jesus Christ would say the same thing.  In Luke 9:23, He said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”  If anyone wants to follow Jesus, the decision is not to be made one day and forgotten the next.  The decision is not to made after some long emotional meeting and then abandoned when the emotions cool off.  If you want to follow Jesus Christ, you must decide to do it every day of your life.  You must deny yourself every day of your life.  You must take up your cross every day of your life.  If you do not want to do that, you cannot be Jesus’ disciple.

In Second Corinthians 7:10, Paul says,

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

The Bible says that there is more than one kind of sorrow.  Some people are sad because they have gotten caught in sin.  Others are sad because their sin is ruining their lives.  Some are sad because they cannot sin as much as they want to.  Money or time or family commitments keep them from indulging the flesh as they please and they are sad because of it.  But Paul says that only one kind of sorrow leads us to Heaven and that is the sorrow that causes us to repent.  It is the sorrow that leads to a lifelong commitment to Jesus Christ and a lifelong break with the way we used to live.  Any other kind of sorrow does not result in Biblical Conversion.

CONCLUSION

The word “conversion” has fallen out of our modern vocabulary but it needs to come back.  Perhaps no other word in the English language better illustrates what happens to a sinner when he comes to Christ in faith and repentance.  If a man believes the Gospel and turns away from his life of sin, he is changed.  He is transformed.  He is converted.  And God gets all the glory. 

1. Webster’s New World Dictionary, ed. by Michael Agnes (New York: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003) 146.  Technically, to convert is “to change; to transform.” [↩]
2. Millard J. Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2001) 41. [↩]
3. Rom 8:30. [↩]
4. Jn 6:44. [↩]
5. Heb 7:26-28; 9:27-27. [↩]
6. Jer 31:33; Ez 36:26. [↩]
7. Lk 9:23; 13:3; 2 Pet 3:9. [↩]
8. Rom 10:9-10. [↩]
9. Lk 9:23; Heb 10:35-39. [↩]
10. William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to John in New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2004 ed.) 130. [↩]
11. Rom 14:12; Heb 9:27. [↩]
12. Eph 1:3-6. [↩]
13. Rom 9:16-18. [↩]
14. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, ed. by Merril C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: The Zondervan Corporation, 1975) 866.  Circumcision refers “to an operation whereby the foreskin, a covering of skin on the head of the penis of the male, is removed by surgery.” [↩]
15. According to the Old Testament Law, the Jews were to reserve one day a week for their day of rest.  It was called the “Sabbath” (Deut 5:12-15). [↩]
16. According to the Old Testament, the Jews were also to observe certain Holy Days throughout the year such as the Day of Atonement (Lev 16). [↩]
17. Eph 4:20-24. [↩]
18. Rom 7:7-25. [↩]
19. Eph 2:1-5. [↩]
20. John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John in The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988) 139.  The idea of verse 6 is not that a believer never sins.  John himself says in First John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth us not in us.”  Rather, the idea is that a Christian cannot indulge in “habitual and persistent sin.  He may sin sometimes, even with the consent of the mind and the will, but he is overwhelmed by grief and repentance afterwards (Ps. 51).” [↩]
21. Preaching & Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971) 275-276. [↩]