One thing that can help us understand conversion is to look at its purpose. If a person is building a house, it has a different purpose than if one is building a warehouse or a public playground. The purpose for a structure determines the nature of the structure. It is also true in automobiles. If a company wants to build a vehicle to haul heavy objects and pull trailers, they will not build a small vehicle with no room in the back. It is also true that if they want to build a vehicle that gets great gas mileage, the end result will not be a large truck with a large motor. So in looking at the purpose God had in creation and then in conversion will help us to see His purpose and the nature of true conversion. We must also fight to keep ourselves thinking in a God-centered way. The purposes of conversion must be God-centered rather than man-centered. If we think that the main purpose God has is to rescue sinners from hell, then we are thinking in terms of man’s need rather than the purposes of God.
Ephesians 3 gives a piece of the puzzle: “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” Paul saw his position and privilege as a preacher was not just to tell people things to make them comfortable, but it was to declare the eternal purposes of God hidden for ages. This eternal plan of God was from the eternal wisdom of God who created all things. Colossians 1:16 tells us that the Savior who saves sinners is also the One that all things were created through and for: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Whatever there is in all creation it was created through and by Christ. God’s eternal purpose begins to shine as we see that from eternity all things were created through and by Christ. Salvation should be seen as having eternal purposes from within the Godhead as well.
Revelation 4:11 tells us that God created all things for His own glory and pleasure: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (KJV). This should not surprise us at all. Before there was a beginning of creation for eternity past God existed in eternal pleasure and joy within the Trinity. He could have no other purpose for creation that would be fitting other than His own glory and pleasure. He could have no greater or higher purpose than Himself in creation and so it would be against His holiness and justice if He had another reason to have created. He also could not have any higher reason to save sinners who are His creation than to save them for the purposes of His glory. There is no higher purpose than the glory of God and so the purpose of converting sinners must be the glory of His name.
As we look at what human beings are commanded to do, we are commanded to love God with all of our being. That is simply to be like God who is perfect and infinite love within the Trinity. He perfectly loves Himself as triune. We are also commanded to do what love would demand from us: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Ephesians 1:6 tells us the purpose of salvation when it says that we are saved “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” Ephesians 2:5-7 shows this with even more clarity: “even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” It is simply impossible to escape the conclusion that sinners are saved by and for the purposes of God to manifest His glory. We must see this from a God-centered viewpoint or we will miss the reasons and purposes for conversion and therefore the nature of true conversion.
Let us look at two more verses of Scripture that teach this. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4). “Also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph 1:11). God has purposes for human beings in saving them. He has had purposes from eternity for them and those purposes are for His glory. In order to convert a soul to fit it as an instrument for His purposes that soul must be made fit to be an instrument though which His glory would shine through. A soul is not just saved from hell, but it is saved to be an instrument through which the glory of God would shine through. It must be converted to do that.
Romans 3:23 gives us a definition of sin: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 1:21 also sets out this same truth: “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” The word translated as “honor” is the same root word we translate as “glory” Romans 3:23 and other places. Another definition for sin is given in I John: “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness” (3:4). God exalts the Law, but man violates the Law. Jesus came to fulfill the Law out of love for the Father, but man breaks the Law out of enmity toward the Father. Sinners are full of pride and self-centeredness as they live for their own honor making their own laws. Despite the religiosity of the Pharisees, that describes them exactly. For a person to be turned from seeking his or her own honor and violating the Law of God out of enmity toward Him, that person must be converted to one that lives for the glory of God and loves Him and His Law. That requires a total change of the inner person.
The unconverted mind is in darkness and must be converted to receive the light of the glory of God shining out in Christ and the Gospel. The affections of the unconverted go after the things of the world and of the flesh and must be converted to love spiritual things and the glory of God. The unconverted will always chooses the things of the flesh and must be converted in order to pursue God and the things of God in the pursuit of His glory as the chief love. True conversion will not be understood until we understand these things to some degree. Jesus Christ Himself is the very temple of the glory of God (John 1:14) and is the outshining of the glory of God (Heb 1:3). The sinner must be converted so the life of Christ is his or her life. The life of Christ is the shining forth of the glory of God and when Christ lives in a soul that soul will live to the glory of God. The Gospel consists of what Christ has done so that God would shine in hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:6). The souls of sinners must be converted in order to see and love this glory and then be instruments by which the glory of God that shines in Christ would now shine in and through sinners so His glory would be manifested.
We must not imagine that human beings can glorify God by their own strength and wisdom. We think that we can do things to glorify Him, but we can’t. We may think we glorify God if we are moral and do religious things, but that is the creed of the Pharisees. We must begin to understand that God’s glory belongs to God alone. In the past the glory of God was spoken of as ad intra and then ad extra. Those are ways of speaking of the glory of God as being within Himself and then the glory shining out of Him. We must understand that apart from Jesus Christ (the outshining of the glory of God) we cannot glorify God. We must understand that we can do nothing spiritual apart from the Holy Spirit. A sinner has no power within himself to reach out and take glory from the inner character of God and then shine it for others to see. What must happen is that the sinner must be humbled and empty so that God will manifest His glory through the sinner. It is God alone who can take His inner glory and manifest it. It is God alone who can take a fallen sinner and make a new creature out of that sinner who will then live to the manifestation of the glory of His name. It is God alone who can manifest His glory through a human being.
Conversion can only be seen in light of God’s purpose(s). The one purpose of God is expressed to us as purposes. Humans were created (all creation) to be instruments of His glory, but man fell into sin and is now opposed to the glory of God in all parts. This is total depravity. There is nothing in man that is not opposed to God’s glory. Man is now dead in sin which is to be spiritually dead. That is when the Spirit is not working spiritual things in man. To save sinners, grant them His presence, and to make them instruments of His glory God has to convert them from what they were to instruments that can receive and love His glory. If a human being cannot love His glory, then that human being will never see or live for His glory. The New Covenant teaches that God lives in sinners: “I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE” (Heb 8:10). The Law can only be kept out of love for God and His glory from the heart. That only happens when God is dwelling there and manifesting His glory in and through the sinner. “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love.” In this we see that the work of the Holy Spirit in the inner man is necessary so that Christ would dwell in a heart by faith so that a person is grounded in love. Conversion is when sinners are changed by the Spirit and made into dwelling places of the living God. Conversion is the Spirit applying what Christ purchased so that Christ would dwell in and manifest or shine the Father’s glory through them. Conversion is God changing sinners by the work of Christ through the Spirit to be instruments of His glory.
God Loves... Himself 
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