God Loves… Himself

In the last article we took a rather broad look at the work of the Holy Spirit by looking at the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. We traced the work of the Holy Spirit by looking at how the Spirit applied redemption to souls by producing faith and uniting sinners to Christ in the effective call. This effective call is the Spirit’s work of persuading and making sinners able to receive Christ by convincing them of sin, enlightening their minds, and then renewing their wills. This call is effective because the Spirit makes it effective in the soul to bring the sinner to Christ. We will begin to focus on some of the individual works of the Holy Spirit in converting souls. At this point, however, I would like to remind us of some questions that I raised back in Conversion 26:

“One, who is it that applies redemption? Two, if the soul has to be converted by the Spirit, then what does that mean? Three, could it be that our day has confused what the Bible means by faith and believing with nothing more than an intellectual act that an unregenerate person can do? Four, does believing the Gospel only mean believing the facts of the Gospel or does it mean that the soul has been changed by the Spirit and so one from a spiritual nature believes what has truly happened to the soul? Five, what is the distinction between believing that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is true versus actually being justified by grace alone through faith alone? Six, is there an activity of the Spirit in conversion to tear those souls from their own sin and self-righteousness?”

It is utterly vital to come to grips with who applies the redemption purchased by Christ. There are perhaps three major options that are taught today. One, the sinner applies redemption to himself when he believes. Two, redemption is applied when a minister applies the sacraments. Three, the Holy Spirit alone applies redemption to the sinner. The position of this series of articles is that it is the Holy Spirit that applies redemption. This leads us to question six (above) which asks about the activity of the Spirit in conversion in tearing souls from their own sin and self-righteousness. What does the Holy Spirit have to do to rescue sinners from their love of sin and self-righteousness in pride and self-love? Can a soul simply trust in Christ alone when the soul is full of pride and self? Can a soul that loves itself simply turn to love Christ with all of the heart? Can a soul that is full of trust in self-sufficiency simply make a choice to lean on the self-sufficiency of God? Can a proud soul that believes in self just choose to humbly lean on Christ? Can a soul that is spiritually dead in sins and trespasses make a spiritual choice to make itself alive in Christ? Surely we must give a resounding no to all of those questions and look at what the Holy Spirit must do to take sinners from their pride, self-sufficiency, and self-love that they may rest in Christ alone. The soul believes and trusts what it trusts in according to what it is. The soul that is dead in sin is alive to self and that trust in self must be torn from the firm grasp of the sinner so that it may look to Christ alone.

The Spirit must work conviction in the sinner of sin in a way that correlates with the Gospel of grace and the self-sufficiency of God. In other words, the sinner must not just come to a conscious awareness that s/he has sinned, but the awareness must be at the deepest levels of the soul. In Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 we see something of this deep conviction. In verse 36 we see Peter’s preaching going to the heart: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ– this Jesus whom you crucified.” It is like he pointed his finger and told them in the same manner Nathan did to David, “You are the man.” His words penetrated to the depths of their souls and they cried out, “Brethren, what shall we do?” In verse 37 of the text we are told why this cry came from their lips. When they heard the words of Peter “they were pierced to the heart.” This piercing is a deep conviction of sin and the anguish of soul that the Spirit has worked that in.

The word choice of this passage is quite interesting. The text (Acts 2:37) tells us that “they were pierced to the heart.” The Greek transliteration of the word for “pierce” is katanusso. This is a word that is made up of the preposition kata and the word nusso. In John 19:34, while Jesus was on the cross, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” The Greek word used in John 19:34 is nusso. Some of the meaning seems to be immediately clear, but to expand on it some it has the idea of to pierce with compunction [sorrow] and pain of heart. It is a feeling of sharp pain connected with anxiety and remorse and it is to be deeply moved. This is something of what David mean when he said that he knew his sin (Psa 51:3-4). This is the anguish of soul felt by Job (42:1-6) and Isaiah (6:1-6). It seems to be parallel to what Isaiah felt in his soul when he saw God and the weight of his sin became unbearable.

Jesus taught us in John 16:8 that that very work of the Holy Spirit would be to “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” The word for convict has the idea of exposing and convicting. The biblical idea of conviction is not just a cool and calculated agreement that the person has broken a law of God, but the idea of a piercing conviction of sin where the person’s sin becomes exposed to his own eyes and he now sees himself as a vile lawbreaker in the presence of a perfectly holy and just God. To be awakened to see sin as it is to any real degree means that the person now sees that all of his sin is against God (Psa 51:4). As David cried out in his confession of sin regarding Bathsheba and Uriah her husband, “Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.”

The Father is spirit and in His Divine nature the Son is spirit as well. Both the Father and the Son are also perfectly holy. But the third Person of the Trinity is called the Holy Spirit. It is part of His very name by which He is called repeatedly. When the Holy Spirit works on unholy sinners and begins to open their eyes to their sin, it is that of the Holy One who is doing the work. The Holy Spirit works holiness in the hearts of His people, but before they become His people in salvation He is doing the holy work of showing them their unholiness. So many just want to be saved from hell today, but once the Holy Spirit works in the heart and shows a person the nature of the sin of his or her heart that person wants to be saved from sin as well. There would be no hell apart from sin and the degree of hell is in exact proportion to the proportion of sin. The Spirit who is holy will work holiness in a heart and before that He will be working to show a person the degree and nature of sin in that heart.

What we are doing at this point is tracing the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart as He works to convert a soul. God will not dwell in a filthy temple and the soul must be brought to see its filth in order that it may be cleansed. This is not a system of works of the human being that guarantees salvation, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the soul of sin. We have examples of this in the Old Testament and we have examples of this in the New Testament. But what we must see is how the Holy Spirit applies redemption in the soul of sinners. This is, after all, what the older Confessions teach. One of the problems people have with this position is that they think it is a work. But this is the work of the Holy Spirit. No human being can produce a conviction in his own soul like we see in Scripture. Another reason this seems like a work is because sin is seen as an external problem, and so as long as a person stops the external acts a person is said to have repented. But sin is of the heart and all sin flows from the heart. Matthew 12:34 puts it this way: “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” Matthew 15 states it graphically: “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 “These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”

Conviction of sin must reach the depths of the heart or it is not true conviction. We can preach against external sin and even teach people to turn from that sin, but if we do not preach to the heart they may be doing nothing but hardening people in the pride of their hearts. A self-centered and proud heart can turn from external sin in its own power and that leads to nothing but more pride. A true conviction of sin can only be worked in the heart by the Holy Spirit and when He does these things, the heart is convicted of its pride and its self-reliance. The heart that is truly convicted from its depths is a heart that is sick of self and sick of its own pride. It is like David in Psalm 51:4 and realizes that God is just regardless of what He does to him. It is like the tax-collector in Luke 18:13 who was so convicted of his sin that he beat on his breast because there was pain there. The conviction of sin was so great that he could do nothing but cry for mercy: “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

According to the Confessions, the teaching and the examples of Scripture the Holy Spirit applies redemption to sinners and not themselves or anything else. His first step in this is to bring them to a deep conviction of their sin and even more of their hearts. A true conviction must happen or there will never be a true repentance and a true faith in Christ alone. This conviction is not just something that may happen or is good to happen, it is utterly necessary in how the Spirit applies redemption to souls. Until the sinner is acutely aware of his sin he will not see how utterly unable he is to save himself. Until the sinner sees his own inability, he will not look to Christ and His grace alone for salvation. “So long as the creature is puffed up with a sense of his own ability to respond to God’s requirements, he will never become a suppliant at the footstool of divine mercy” (A.W. Pink).

In the last newsletter article we looked at the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Baptist Catechism. The interest was in the older understanding of the Gospel. The Gospel of grace includes the application of Christ and His work to and in the soul. When we speak of Christ, even highly of Him, we are not teaching the whole Gospel of Christ unless we speak of how the Gospel is applied by grace. The Scriptures speak to this issue though it is largely forgotten today. The Gospel, regardless of words, is about the triune God and must not be limited to one or two of the Persons. Many dwell on election, but that is to be unbalanced if the work of Christ and of the Spirit are not brought in. Many dwell much upon the work of Christ, but even that can be quite unbalanced if the electing work of the Father and the Spirit’s work are not taught. Others focus on the Spirit without dealing with election and the true work of Christ. All are needed for the Gospel to be presented as from and about the triune God.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism in Modern English:

Q 30. How does the Holy Spirit apply to us the redemption Christ bought? A. The Spirit applies to us the redemption Christ bought by producing faith in us and so uniting us to Christ in our effective calling.

Q 31. What is effective calling? A. Effective calling is the work of God’s Spirit, Who convinces us that we are sinful and miserable, Who enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and Who renews our wills. This is how He persuades and makes us able to receive Jesus Christ, Who is freely offered to us in the gospel.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism is being used because it is in modern English. Within the realm of orthodoxy most all say that the Holy Spirit must apply redemption to the sinner. But that is nothing more than words if we do not get to how this is done. When was the last time that you heard or preached a sermon, or perhaps taught a class on how the Holy Spirit applies redemption? What we hear (at most) is that the Spirit must apply it and perhaps that faith is from the Spirit, but we don’t hear how that is done. We prefer to say those are mysterious and assume that the Spirit has worked that in a person if he claims to believe. This is confusing and brings many unconverted people into the local assemblies. There is a huge difference between the faith that a natural man has and the faith worked in the soul by the Holy Spirit. Only converted souls will have the kind of faith worked in it by the Spirit.

According to the Catechism, when the Holy Spirit produces faith in the soul that person is also united to Christ in effective calling. This is something to work with. The faith of a converted soul can be seen because it is united to Christ and now the life of Christ comes through that person. A natural man claims to have faith but is not united to Christ by that faith. The truly converted soul has true faith and is united to Christ. Faith cannot be seen, but the life of Christ will be seen in the soul by His Spirit. This should teach us how to speak to sinners about conversion and the evidences of conversion. Paul told the people in II Corinthians 13:5, in regards to salvation, that they were to examine themselves to see if they had Christ in them rather than to see if they had prayed a prayer.

In our modern day we look at faith as if it could be seen rather than looking at faith as the work of the Spirit who unites sinners to Christ. The difference is massive. James 2:18 says this: “But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” Faith is seen by something else than words or a claim. The faith that the Holy Spirit produces is a faith that works by love since that is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:6, 22). A true faith has true love and will have works. Christ’s life in the soul always manifests itself in true love because God is love and will work love in His people by the Spirit who sheds love in the hearts He is in (Rom 5:5-8). A converted soul no longer lives in malice and envy, hateful and hating (Titus 3:3), but now it loves with a true love. The truly converted soul is known by what its faith is united to and what it receives from Christ by the Spirit. A soul with faith is a soul that if full of Christ Himself. Only a truly converted soul has a faith that is worked in it by the Spirit and so that soul has Christ Himself.

The Catechisms and the Scriptures are quite clear that converted souls are souls that have faith and are united to Christ in effectual calling. Just these things alone should be enough to show us that the modern methodologies are leading souls astray as to what faith really is. It is also true that we can say that we believe in effectual calling according to our creeds and then go on with our evangelism as if that made no difference at all. Let me be clear, if we simply tell people to pray a prayer after they admit that they are sinners we are denying the truth of effectual calling and the truth of how faith and Christ are worked in the soul by the Holy Spirit.

What is effective calling? It is the work of God’s Spirit. We must get clear on this. Effective calling is not in the hands of men, but in the hands of the Holy Spirit. When we urge people to pray certain prayers for salvation as if that applies salvation, we act as if effective calling is in our hands or those being evangelized. According to what the historical confessions and catechisms teach about the Bible, this is not how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit converts people and brings life into their souls. Preaching and evangelizing are not made effective by human zeal and activities, but by the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. It is important in preaching and evangelizing to show the work of the Holy Spirit and how He does this rather than lead people in ways different than that.

In the times of the Reformation and then for a few hundred years evangelism was practiced a lot differently. Today many look at the older evangelists and think of them as “Preparationists.” There were some that thought that souls could be prepared for salvation by taking steps, but that is not the true older way. It was built on Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling. It is the work of the Spirit to prepare the soul to be the temple of God. While this is far different than today, it was the way that the Gospel was preached and taught by Reformed people until Finney and his Pelagian methodology. It seems that today many say that they adhere to Reformed theology and yet practice evangelism more like Finney who was a Pelagian. The Gospel of Christ is that of Christ carrying out His offices “in subduing us to himself, in ruling, and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies” (Baptist Catechism). It is Christ who subdues the sinful hearts by the effectual call which is the work of the Holy Spirit in conviction, enlightening, and renewing souls in a real and actual conversion.

Justification by faith alone can be a far different doctrine depending on the view of the work of the Holy Spirit in the effectual call. The view that the will is free enough to have an act of faith by itself or with some assistance of grace is far different than the view where faith is worked in the soul by the Holy Spirit. The faith that the Holy Spirit works in a soul is preceded by His work in conviction of sin which is far more than just agreeing that one is a sinner. The faith that the Holy Spirit works in a soul is preceded by an enlightening of the mind to sin, the character of God, and of the work of Christ in His offices. The faith that the Holy Spirit works in a soul flows from a new heart and unity with Christ. A soul that has been effectually called knows his or her sin as David did (Psalm 51:1-4). This soul now sees the true glory of God in Christ and the glory of grace. This is a person that has been persuaded and enabled to receive Christ and whose faith has been worked in him or her by the persuasion and enabling of the Holy Spirit in His work of applying the redemption of Christ. The words “by faith” in justification have a totally different meaning to those who believe in the teachings of the Confessions and Catechisms on the effectual call than those who do not believe it whether they profess to be Reformed or not.

What we must see is that conversion by the Holy Spirit is vital to understanding salvation in accordance with the work of Christ in His offices and of the Holy Spirit in applying the redeeming work of Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed to all people, but we must make them aware of the true work of the Spirit in bringing redemption to them. Apart from Christ working this in His offices by the Spirit applying redemption we have a Gospel of grace that is not received and applied by grace. When we proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is by grace alone the application of it must be by grace alone as well. The doctrine of conversion teaches us that the soul must be truly converted and truly transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the beloved Son (Col 1:13). This is something that only Jesus can do in His offices as a whole and in His office as King in particular. Salvation does not hinge on a decision of man, it hinges on the work of Christ in all of its parts.

The following is a quote from a man about lifting weights and illustrates to the professing Church the importance of truth in evangelism and church growth. When the professing Church is more concerned with numbers than truth (whether in membership or money), the truth of the Gospel slides away. We must listen to the earlier Confessions on conversion as they teach us from Scripture. If not, we will end up with snake oil salesmen as preachers rather than those who truly preach the Word of God. If not, we will end up with those who are more concerned with appearance in themselves and in the church rather than true substance. We are already there. We must repent.

When commercial interests and business gain the upper hand, truth is usually the first casualty. I guess it’s human nature after all – to believe the snake oil salesmen, to believe in miracle solutions that work without time and effort, and probably the worst of them all – to give all the importance to appearance, and almost none to substance. (From the website of Brooks Kubik)

In one sense conversion is the beautiful work of God in taking a soul marred in all of its parts with sin and making it a new creation. It is God taking a soul that has the darkness of the devil going forth from it in its selfishness and pride and making it into a soul that has the light of the glory of God shining forth from it. In this work the might and power of God is seen in taking the soul from the dominion of darkness and translating it into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col 1:13). In Colossians 2:15 the cross and salvation are seen as an act of God triumphing over rulers and authorities through Christ. Psalm 110:1 tells us that “The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” This is Yahweh speaking to Adonai and Christ is Adonai. What we have set before us, then, is the work of a King. The true King is King Jesus who is the King of Kings.

We have to work our minds and hearts to fight the modern idea of a weak and almost helpless Jesus in His mildness. No, it is in the great power of a mighty King that He went to the cross and became the Redeemer of souls. But the biblical idea of a Redeemer is one that the King carries out. We looked at some of the Baptist Catechism a few articles ago, but now we want to look at it in a different context. What has to happen to the soul in salvation and what does Christ by His Spirit do to actually accomplish this?

Q 26. What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer? A. Christ as our Redeemer executeth the offices of a prophet, or a priest, and of king, both in his estate of humiliation and of exaltation.

Q 29. How does Christ execute the office of king? A. Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling, and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.

Q 32. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.

Q 33. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ, in our effectual calling.

Q 34. What is effectual calling? A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel.

Q 36. What is justification? A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

The progression of the work of salvation is seen in these questions and answers. What we see is that while justification is received by faith alone, yet that is but a small part of the story. The reason behind the great doctrines of justification is that Jesus Christ is acting as King in order to redeem souls. When a soul is truly saved, that is the work of King Jesus in saving that soul. Justification by faith alone is not the work of a human soul in coming up with faith, but instead it is the work of King Jesus in executing His office of King. The soul partakes of the redemption that Christ purchased when Christ applies it to us effectually by His Holy Spirit. The Spirit applies the redemption that was purchased by Christ by working faith in the soul in effectual calling. Notice again that all of this starts with the work of Christ the Redeemer doing this as King.

So far we can easily see that the Baptist Catechism (copy of the 1695 edition) thinks of faith as being the work of the Spirit in applying the salvation purchased by Christ and as the work of His office as King. It then goes on to speak specifically and directly of effectual calling. This effectual calling is what the Holy Spirit does, though indeed this is also the work of Christ the King. The Catechism gives us the steps that King Jesus takes in this work of effectual calling which is carried out by the Holy Spirit. These are steps by which the Spirit persuades and enables the soul to embrace Jesus Christ. First, the Holy Spirit convinces the sinner of sin and misery. Second, He enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ. Third, He renews our wills. It is in these three things that the soul is persuaded and enabled to embrace Christ. These are the things that happen in the soul so that it will receive Christ and believe on Him in justification. When we say that a soul is justified by faith alone, we are looking at the end product of the work of King Jesus by His Spirit Who alone enables souls to embrace Christ.

The problem with the theology and practice of seemingly the vast majority of Americans is that they want the sinner to believe from his own strength and power without speaking of the work of Christ as Redeemer and King. We seem so ready to talk the sinner into believing and acting without giving any real thought to the work of King Jesus in applying His salvation that He has purchased by the Holy Spirit. When we evangelize as if all depended on man rather than the work of the Redeemer, we are not talking about the same salvation or the same Gospel as the one that depends completely on Christ as Redeemer and King. The faith that can be worked up by the power of the human soul is not the same faith that is worked in the soul and applied by the Holy Spirit in applying the redemption of King Jesus. Yes, sinners are justified by faith alone. But that can mean so many different things depending on how it is taken. Our Baptist fathers were very clear as they agreed with the Westminster Divines.

The Baptist Catechism is built on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Here is a modern wording of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Q 30. How does the Holy Spirit apply to us the redemption Christ bought? A. The Spirit applies to us the redemption Christ bought by producing faith in us and so uniting us to Christ in our effective calling.

Q 31. What is effective calling? A. Effective calling is the work of God’s Spirit, Who convinces us that we are sinful and miserable, Who enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and Who renews our wills. This is how He persuades and makes us able to receive Jesus Christ, Who is freely offered to us in the gospel.

The updated translation, while the older one is clear, makes things even more clear. The Redemption that Christ accomplished is applied to the sinner by the Holy Spirit in producing faith in us. The production of faith is part of the effectual call. The effectual call, in very clear language in the modern wording, shows us that this is the very way the Spirit persuades and enables people to receive Christ. I am taking pains to point this out (even repetitive?) because this is how the older works on conversion proceed. They labor at getting souls convicted of sin. They labor at getting souls to understand the Gospel and what are the signs of regeneration. These men were not teaching a works of salvation at all, but instead they were teaching the true Gospel of grace. They were not teaching the steps of men to salvation, but instead they were teaching the steps of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men.

We can now see (as previously mentioned) why Asahel Nettleton was so distraught at the methods of Charles Finney and his followers. It was because Finney and his followers preached of a salvation that Christ had accomplished but did not speak of it as one that He had to apply by His Holy Spirit. Instead, he thought he could convince men by his reasoning and powerful persuasion. We can also see why the evangelism and preaching in our day are so weak. Men preach as if all depended on men though indeed some might give lip service to the Spirit. But it is a very different thing just to speak of salvation as being applied by the Spirit than it is to actually deal with sinners as if the Holy Spirit has to apply salvation to them so that they will not look to themselves but to God who must effectually do these things. If we think of salvation as having to be effectually applied by the Spirit, then if man tries to apply it that will be the ineffectual application of it. If the Spirit has to work with power beyond measure in order to work faith in human souls, then the works of man to come up with his own faith will be weak beyond measure. Romans 1:16 speaks of the Gospel as being the power of God for salvation, but now we teach as if man has power unto his own salvation. The power of the Gospel includes the application of it by the Spirit.

The conversion of souls is by the renewing work and power of God from its accomplishment in the earthly life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the actual application of it to the soul by the work of the Spirit in producing faith in the soul. The soul that is “excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them” (Eph 4:18) cannot give itself spiritual understanding and life from its own spiritually dead self. But instead the steps of the Spirit must take place in that soul. It is not by the works of man, but it is by the works of the living God by the Spirit. The soul must have a true conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit. The soul must have its mind enlightened to the truths of the Gospel by the Spirit. The soul must have faith worked in it by the Holy Spirit. There is no other way and this alone is the application of the Gospel of grace alone. In coming weeks we will be looking at how the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to the soul. In this we will see the Gospel of the power of God in converting souls and bringing His life to them. A converted soul is different than just a soul that believes something in its own power, but a converted soul has had the work of God on and in it so that it is now a temple of the living God with the life of God in its soul. It has, therefore, eternal life because it has the life of God in the soul. It is truly saved.

The past two newsletter articles have been an effort to show that the Holy Spirit is really at work today and His work is utterly necessary to Christianity and to conversion. Christianity is not simply a system of rational doctrines and morality, but it is the life of God in the souls of human beings. Col 1:27 sets this out with great clarity: “to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The great mystery that was hidden from the ages was that even the Gentiles would have Christ in them. The dwelling place of God would be the soul of both Jew and Gentile. I Peter 2:5 puts it this way: “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” God does not just provide sinners with a sacrifice and then wait upon them to apply it to themselves. After salvation He does not just set on His throne waiting for them to decide to do what is right. The souls of believers are the dwelling place of the living God. He is alive and He works to change souls in conversion and then He lives in them. Conversion, then, is when the Spirit takes souls who are full of self, the things of the world, and the devil and then makes them dwelling places of God.

The confidence that a soul is converted is not according to whether a person has said a prayer or made a commitment at some point, but whether the soul has Christ living in that soul by the Spirit. This is what Paul stressed: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you– unless indeed you fail the test?” (II Cor 13:5). There is the absolute necessity of a great change in the soul. The soul must be raised from spiritual death and become the possessor of spiritual life. It is Jesus Christ who is life Himself and only the Spirit can bring life to a dead soul. The soul must be taken from darkness to light. Christ Himself is the Light and only the Spirit can bring that light into the soul. These are not things that come to the soul by believing some facts, but these are things that must happen to the soul. These are the acts of God upon and in the soul. But can human beings see these works of God in the soul in converting souls? Are there evidences of what the Spirit does?

Understanding the facts of the Gospel is a very different issue than having the soul actually conformed by the Spirit and actually performing the promises of the Gospel in the soul. It is quite a different thing to hear that Christ is the propitiation for sinners than it is to have Christ actually remove the wrath of the Father from the soul. John 3:36 should be read as the present activity of God rather than just a verse that describes things. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” This wonderful text of Scripture is not just focused on human beings, but instead it is focused on the actions of the living God. The one that truly believes in Christ even now has eternal life in him or her. 1 John 1:1-2 gives a picture of what this is: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life– 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.”

When we take John 3:36 and I John 1:1-2 together, we see something far more than simple doctrinal statements that we must intellectually believe. What we see is that eternal life is something that is in the soul. Eternal life is to share in the life of God and that when the body dies the soul with eternal life will share in that life of God for eternity. We see in I John 1:1-2 that eternal life is Christ Himself. To have eternal life is to have the life of God which is Christ Himself in the soul. I John 5:20 also points this out: “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” It is Christ who is the true God and eternal life. It is Christ who is the Word of life and it is Christ as the Word of life that was manifested and proclaimed as the eternal life that was with the Father and then manifested. To have eternal life is to have the life of God in the soul. Salvation and eternal life is not just to believe certain facts and then not go to hell, but it is to have fellowship with the living God through Christ because He is in fellowship with the Father and to be in fellowship with God is eternal life. After all, John 17:3 sets out for us very clearly that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ.

In the modern day we no longer have the idea that redemption has been accomplished and needs to be applied by the Spirit, but instead redemption is thought of as accomplished by Christ and all that a sinner needs to do is to have an intellectual agreement with it. The soul must not only believe that justification is by grace alone through faith alone, but the soul must be brought off of all trust in itself in order to receive the indwelling Christ who will only be received as grace alone. The soul must not only be delivered from all of its own works, but also its own merits and righteousness in order to truly receive and trust in Christ alone. The soul must actually be delivered from the power of sin by the work of the Spirit in conviction and then applying Christ rather than just to believe an objective proposition. The soul must actually be saved rather than just an intellectual belief that it has been or will be saved. The soul must have Christ living in the soul rather than just believe that He does that to people. These things cannot just be intellectually believed as true, but they must truly happen to the soul and change the soul. It is the Holy Spirit who must actually carry these things out in the soul.

Below are some verses which show that God must actually work in the soul in conversion for a person to actually have Christ dwelling in him or her and be the possessor of eternal life. All of these things listed in the verses below are far beyond the work and power of human beings in their own souls and in the souls of others. As you read these verses simply ask yourself as to who can do the necessary work that is needed to do the work in the human soul in order that it would be converted. We must face up to the reality of things. If these things need to be done, then either the human soul has the power and ability to do it and it is left up to the human to do them or the Holy Spirit must work these things in the soul of human beings. If it is the latter, then perhaps our views of salvation and of evangelism need to be examined. In the 1800’s a radical change took place in the mindset of how people were and are converted to and by God. Asahal Nettleton wept when he saw the changes that Charles Finney brought in with his new measures. He thought that it would virtually overthrow the Gospel in our land. Perhaps we have been so influenced by those new measures that we no longer even see the way the Gospel was preached during the times of great revival. Perhaps those new measures did virtually overthrow the true Gospel in our land and what we think of as the Gospel has been greatly diluted.

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Romans 8:7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Colossians 1:21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds,

Ephesians 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;

Ephesians 4:23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

In coming weeks we will look at the work of the Spirit in converting the soul. The history of the Church is rich in the writings of godly men who traced the work of the Spirit in the souls of human beings. But even more importantly, the Scriptures are rich with the Spirit’s testimony to His own work in sections of Scripture which describe that but also in giving us records of those who were converted. There are driving questions that we must keep before us and then dwell on their meaning and application. One, who is it that applies redemption? Two, if the soul has to be converted by the Spirit, then what does that mean? Three, could it be that our day has confused what the Bible means by faith and believing with nothing more than an intellectual act that an unregenerate person can do? Four, does believing the Gospel only mean believing the facts of the Gospel or does it mean that the soul has been changed by the Spirit and so one from a spiritual nature believes what has truly happened to the soul? Five, what is the distinction between believing that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is true versus actually being justified by grace alone through faith alone? Six, is there an activity of the Spirit in conversion to tear those souls from their own sin and self-righteousness? The answers to these questions and others like them will hopefully be provided from Scripture in coming weeks. The Gospel needs to be recovered in our day and that includes among conservatives and the Reformed. The Gospel of the glory of God is not the predominant gospel preached in our land, but it is the only Gospel that the Bible teaches.

In the last newsletter we started to look at the idea of what practical Deism is. This is basically the same thing as what A.W. Tozer calls “evangelical rationalists.” One way of thinking of this very serious problem is to say that it is when Christianity is conceived of in terms of what is rational or moral. It is when we think that if we know the letters of the words on the page of the Bible and live moral lives then those things are enough. It is to think about the Bible as if it influences the mind and then make moral choices based on the information that is given in Scripture. The Pharisees could be described as practical Deists and evangelical rationalists. Their systems did not allow for the supernatural to be expressed in their day. It seems as if this is repeating itself.

The modern version of practical Deism or evangelical rationalism is heard or seen in much of the preaching that goes on in our day. It is addressed to the intellect or to the moral choices of the human being, but it leaves out the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in the human soul. A text is used or even preached in a way that a person can understand all the words in their context. The text may be exegeted in such a way that the words are understood. It may be pointed out that Christ is the focus of the text. But there is little to no mention that whatever truth there is must be taught by the Spirit and the focus of Scripture is on the indwelling life of Christ. A true believer is the temple of the living God in reality and not just in doctrine. God lives in the soul of the believer and He will not be ignored, yet in our preaching the focus is all on the human soul and what it must do rather than on the life and work of the Spirit in applying the life and work of Christ in the soul.

In evangelism the same thing is going on. We go out and tell people some intellectual truths and then tell them that they must make a choice. We tell them that they are sinners and that they need to recognize that and make a choice. But we are not telling these people that the Spirit must convict them of sin in truth and reality if they are going to be truly convicted of sin. After all, that is what the Spirit was sent to do (John 16:8). We teach the Gospel as if it is nothing more than some facts that a person has to be intellectually convinced of. We teach faith as if it is nothing more than an intellectual decision or an act of the will to choose what is best for self. But what we have to see is that when we evangelize like that we are doing nothing more and expecting from others nothing more than what fallen human beings can do. Instead of that, we are to be messengers of the living God with a message of what the living God will do in the souls of human beings. If we approach dead sinners with a dead message then we should not be surprised to see deadness remain dead. Instead we are to approach dead sinners with a live message about the living God who actually works in sinners to convert them.

In the New Testament we do not see the apostles going around like practical Deists. What we see is men who had the resurrected Savior living in their hearts and they went out and preached a resurrected and living Savior who truly converted souls. In Acts the resurrection of Jesus Christ is mentioned at least 23 times in various ways. These men did not just preach a crucified Savior, they also preached a resurrected Lord. We don’t just have a Savior who died for sinners, but also a Savior who was resurrected from the dead to be the life of sinners. He is now the enthroned Lord Jesus Christ who sent His Spirit to convert souls and live in His people. “Beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us– one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection” (Acts 1:22). “Being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (4:2). “And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all” (4:33). “And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”– because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection” (17:18).

When the resurrection of Christ and the work of the Spirit are either ignored or denigrated, of necessity we have just been given over to a form of humanism and have practiced practical Deism. Christianity is not just a logical system of facts that we have to learn and then dispense; it is about the resurrected Lord Jesus who is now and forevermore the Sovereign of the universe. We do not just have a few verses to memorize and tell others in a way to convince them to make a choice; we have a real Lord on the throne who they must submit to and love without reserve from their hearts. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and of God is not one that is simply filled with information; it is about the God who is sovereign over all human affairs and the salvation of human souls. This God is the One who alone can grant new hearts and truly convert the souls of human beings. This is a salvation that is not just up to a person to choose, but instead it is in the hand of God to do as He pleases by grace alone. The apostles went around with the life of Christ in their souls preaching with great power. Until we begin to preach with a living Christ in our souls who converts souls by His Spirit we will not preach with spiritual power at all.

Our churches are filled with people who are smart and have plenty of information. Our seminaries have people who have a lot more information. But all of the information in the world could be stuffed into one human brain and that would have no power to convert one soul. The only thing that can save souls is the work of the Spirit in applying the work of Christ. The Holy Spirit converts souls from dead sinners to living saints. The Holy Spirit converts sinners from those that hate God to those that love Him. The Holy Spirit converts sinners from lovers of self to deniers of self. The Holy Spirit converts those who are filled with unclean thoughts and lusts to those with pure hearts. The Holy Spirit takes souls that have the wrath of God abiding on them and makes them into souls where the love of God dwells in them. Salvation is not just a simple thing, but a truly saved soul is converted soul that is now a new creature in Christ Jesus. That new creature has a new mind, new affections, and a new life.

In Acts 8:35 we see an important point: “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.” Philip did not just preach the true doctrines about Jesus, He preached Jesus Himself. Jesus was the life of his soul and He preached Christ Himself and not just dead doctrine. We must hasten to add that doctrine is important and even vital, but we must preach Christ Himself as the content and object of our doctrine.

Acts 16:14 sets out another important truth: “A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” It was the Lord who opened her heart, but He did not just open her heart and leave it in its own power. He opened it with a purpose. He opened it to respond to the things spoken by Paul. This is how the Gospel is to be preached today. We must have the living Christ in our souls and we must look to Him to open the hearts of sinners to respond to the truth preached. If we water the Gospel down then there are not words of truth for sinners to respond to. We must preach in a way that looks to God to open hearts rather than water things down in order to get sinners to respond in their own power. We must look to God to open souls rather than sinners themselves.

We see the same thought in II Corinthians 4: “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (vv. 5-6). The Gospel is not just a written message; it is about Christ Jesus as Lord now. The God who created light out of darkness must shine Himself into the hearts of sinners in order to give the “Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” The Gospel is supernatural and it is in the hands of God to do with it as He pleases. The Gospel can only be preached when we tell people that they are in the hands of the living God and He alone can shine Himself in their hearts. They must be confronted with the truth of the living God if they are going to be converted by God. We cannot just live as if God existed at some point in the past, but we must believe in this God now and we must speak of Him as the living God who acts in the souls of human beings now.

The teaching of Scripture on conversion is seen in Paul’s preaching which was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (I Cor 2:4). Paul had met Christ and knew that His Savior lived. Paul was not satisfied to preach some things about Jesus, but instead He preached Jesus Himself because Christ had been resurrected from the dead and was on the throne now and forever. He preached in the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” because He preached a living Gospel that had the Holy Spirit working these things in the hearts of sinners. We must begin to see that until we have the life of Christ in our souls and we are preaching a living Christ and demonstrating the Spirit in our preaching, we may have nothing to say but dead words that consist of dead letters as we speak to dead sinners. There is no good news in that and there is nothing that will make sinners alive. The good news is that God can change sinners rather than that they must change themselves. The good news is that God can change their hearts and make them alive rather than they have to work things up themselves. The good news is that God will make them new creations in conversion rather than this being the work of the sinner. Until we repent of our practical Deism we will not preach the enthroned Christ Himself and the Gospel. We may preach with dead letters and dead words, but it will not be with the life of Christ. To preach Christ is to preach with the living Christ in our souls by His Spirit and of the work of the Spirit in the souls of dead sinners to convert them and make them alive. There is hope in a living Savior who really converts sinners. There is no hope in dead sinners themselves.

The professing Church must begin to think of salvation in terms of conversion and not just salvation from hell as the Bible does. Hell is a fearful truth, but it is not conversion. Sinners are saved from hell, but also converted for the glory of God now. The professing Church must repent of practical deism and live before the living God. Deists think that God created the world, wound it up like a clock with natural laws, stood back, and then disinterestedly watched. God did not, they said, take part in daily affairs. That is what the professing Church has done spiritually. Practical deists have taken the Bible as His Word and yet think that God is standing back and watching what human beings will do with it. They think that all that is needed is to teach people for the purpose of intellectual belief. Their theology may say differently, but practically speaking they deny that God is active in conversion.

Practical deists evangelize by quoting Scripture and telling men that they need to make a decision and pray. It is to tell them that the Bible gives the facts and we must make an act of the will to believe them to be saved from hell. This idea has permeated churches and seminaries. We believe that if we can simply get the information to those listening that we have done our duty. A.W. Tozer called this idea “evangelical rationalism.” He noted that people thought that if they learned the text then they thought they had the truth. This “practical deism” has inundated the evangelical realm. We think that if a professor tells us what academia says about the Bible then we know the truth. Many say that the crying need of the Church is expositional preaching. That may be true in one sense, but if the sermon only teaches people words of the Bible by a lexicon and some history, that preacher is nothing more than what an unbeliever can do without the Spirit of God. We must have the living God moving in our souls.

The Holy Spirit alone can give understanding in the depths of the soul. All the expositional preaching and all the academics in the world cannot give spiritual understanding. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder if people are not truly converted if they don’t understand that they have to be born of the Spirit and that spiritual understanding has to come from His enlightening work. Practical deism or evangelical rationalism has become what people think is orthodoxy in the conservative churches in our day and has brought a malaise on the one hand and hyper-activity on the other. Evangelism in talked about and practiced after that idea. But evangelism apart from the Holy Spirit is nothing more than a mixture of evangelical rationalism and humanism. That is practical deism which is to say that God has told us what to do and so we go out to talk people into believing.

Thomas Goodwin wrote over 500 pages on the The Work of the Holy Spirit in Our Salvation. James Buchanan, who wrote the classic work on justification, also wrote The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit and spent over 200 pages on “The Spirit’s Work in the Conversion of Sinners.” The Holy Spirit is not just an objective power, but He is fully God and apart from His converting work salvation is impossible. For some reason this is absent in a lot of preaching and evangelizing in America. A Chinese Christian returned from America, and when asked what was most amazing, he replied that it was how much the American Church got done without God. It is possible to evangelize in a way and have people “saved” by a practical deism rather than truly converted by the Holy Spirit. We must know that a person can say “yes” to our bible verses and arguments and yet not be converted by the Spirit of the living God. They are simply hardened to the truth of God by a humanistic angle on the biblical teaching.

Evangelical rationalism is not just for the very rational, but it is a practice of “Christianity” with words without power. It is using the Word of God to reach the rational or volitional man. It is to approach man as if he needs nothing but intellectual truths from the Word of God to make a choice rather than be converted by the Spirit. It can be as orthodox as orthodoxy can be, but without the Spirit of the living God it is also as dead as dead can be. This is not charismatic teaching at all, but is a declaration that the good news of Jesus Christ demands us to tell of the work of the Spirit. Tozer said “that evangelical rationalism will kill the truth just as quickly as liberalism will.” Liberals deny the truth of God while evangelical rationalism kills the life of the truth by leaving out the Spirit.

The Pharisees thought of Jesus as unschooled while leaders looked upon the apostles as ignorant. What they did not realize was that despite their great learning they had no real understanding of the Bible. The understanding of Scripture is spiritual and only spiritual men can understand the Spirit of the living God. Jesus spoke in parables and few understood Him. Matthew 13:13-16 give us the words of Jesus in this matter:

“Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; 15 FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’ 16 “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.”

Jesus not only spoke in parables to make people understand, but also to blind and bring judgment. But some saw and some heard. What made the difference? The practical deist will say that some just committed themselves and others didn’t. Perhaps those who are Calvinists will say that God enlightened some but not others. But we must understand that it is the specific work of the Spirit to illuminate minds so that people can see. Without Him people will not understand and be judged. Whether we are preaching in an expositional manner or not, what is needed is for the Holy Spirit to give understanding. Well, someone might say, we must give them the truth and the Spirit will do as He will. That is true in one sense, but misses it in another. If sinners are not told that they are utterly dependant on the Spirit to understand Scripture, they will look to themselves and their own power for understanding. People must learn to look to the Spirit for illumination rather than just assume He is working.

Last week we looked at I Corinthians 2:4-5. That told us that Paul preached so that it would not be his wisdom that men rested in, but his preaching demonstrated the Spirit and power so that their faith would be in the power of God. We cannot preach the Word of God and a biblical view of conversion apart from preaching the Spirit. We cannot preach in power apart from preaching God working through the Spirit. It is not enough to tell people about truths, but we must demonstrate how Holy Spirit does these things. Below is more of I Corinthians 2.

“But just as it is written, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM. 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

As we can see from the text, God must reveal the truth. He reveals these things by the Holy Spirit, and we might add that the Holy Spirit breathed forth the words of Scripture (II Tim 3:16). No one can really understand the thoughts and things of God apart from the Spirit of God. The Lord teaches His people things that do not come from human wisdom. Simply put, as verse 14 says, the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. It does not matter if the person is a seminary professor or pastor, if that person is unconverted that person does not understand the things of the Spirit of God. A pastor cannot be cool enough and our music cannot be professional or lively enough to teach what the Spirit alone can teach. We cannot be smart enough to teach what the Spirit alone can teach. In other words, we are developing personalities and methodologies in order to get people to say prayers because the Spirit is being withdrawn in our day. If we cannot even understand things apart from the Spirit, then surely we must know that the Spirit of God alone can truly convert people and bring spiritual life to their souls.

When a famine hit Israel, only God could help. America also has no help in its spiritual famine but the Holy Spirit. Some might say that this is not Christ-centered, but apart from the Spirit we don’t understand the true Christ. To preach Christ truly we must speak of the Spirit who alone can give true understanding and apply Christ to our souls. The Gospel is of the triune God and to speak of the Spirit’s work is to speak of what Christ accomplished. Jesus died that we might have the Spirit (Gal 3:13-14) and when He was resurrected He sent the Spirit by whom alone we can speak of Christ with power (Acts 2:33; 1:8). True Christianity is about Christ, but that includes what He does by the Spirit. It is impossible to preach Christ apart from preaching the glory of God through Christ, but it is equally impossible to preach the glory of God in Christ apart from preaching what the Holy Spirit does and how He does it. To truly preach the Gospel of Christ, then, is to preach the glory of God as He works in the souls of sinners by the Holy Spirit. Practical deists, then, do not truly preach Christ or the glory of God.

In the last newsletter we looked at a few confessions and catechisms regarding conversion. It is possible to believe that sinners need “saved” and yet not know that the Bible speaks of the need to be converted. The soul needs to be delivered from hell, true, but it also needs to be prepared for heaven. If salvation is thought of as being only a deliverance from hell, then much of conversion is missed. A soul is saved when it is delivered from the power of sin and death and transferred into the kingdom of the Son (Col 1:13). At the fall the soul was fit for nothing but sin and hell. As the heart is hardened by sin, it became more and more fitted for sin and hell. A soul not delivered from sin has not been delivered from sin, hell, and has not been fitted for heaven. The converted soul is the temple of the living God both now and for eternity, but until conversion the soul is not a fit temple for God on earth or heaven.

A person may know a lot of information about conversion and still miss some vitally important points. In His good providence the Lord has provided for His people some great instruction in the confessions and catechisms of the past. These old documents are the result of many men coming together to wrestle with the Scriptures in order to find out the mind of God. The teachings in these old documents are not the product of human reason alone, but are from men who set out from Scripture what they believed that the Scriptures taught. In the last newsletter I quoted some parts of the Shorter Catechism (revised for Baptists). I will give those quotes again. Below that I will give a quote from the 1823 Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales. We will then only have room to look at one text of Scripture to see if what these men wrote aligns with at least one passage of Scripture.

30. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? [A] We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit.

31. How does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? [A] The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

32. What is effectual calling? [A] “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.”

The 1823 Confession of Faith (Calvinistic Methodists of Wales) says this: “to make them willing in the day of his power, and guide them into all truth.” The Holy Spirit must “convince them of sin, show them their state of misery, reveal Christ to them, draw them to him, and create them in him; then will they be members of his mystical body.” One driving question we have to deal with is if these things are biblical or not. If they are, we need to seek to put them into practice. Much of what is set forth as the Gospel today focuses on aspects of the work of Christ. But we forget that the Gospel declares the glory of the triune God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ should be seen in terms of the Trinity. What the Father planned the Son carried out. What the Son carried out the Spirit must apply.

We must be direct and blunt. It matters little whether one is Arminian or Reformed if they deny the work of the Spirit in the application of redemption. The Arminian has replaced the work of the Spirit by looking to the will of man to choose Christ. In our day the Reformed have done largely the same thing. If people are only told they must believe certain truths about Christ then both Arminians and Reformed are telling people the same thing. The Reformed say that they know that God brings people to faith, which is true. However, if both have the same message and both only tell a person says to pray or make a commitment, then there is no real difference. We must ask ourselves why the older ways were used during times of revival and modern ways during a time of darkness.

In the Shorter Catechism and in the 1823 Confession the emphasis is on the work of the Spirit as opposed to the will of man. The older writers saw Scripture teaching that the application of redemption must be the work and power of the Holy Spirit rather than the dead will of men. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? Does the will of man work it or is it the power of God through the Holy Spirit? How does the Holy Spirit apply redemption purchased by Christ? What Christ divinely purchased must be divinely applied. It is the Holy Spirit who works faith in the soul and unites the soul to Christ. Can the soul do a divine work like that? We are either in our own hands and wills or we are in the hands of the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirit effect this? It is a Divine work that includes the Spirit convincing sinners of their sin and misery, enlightening minds to the knowledge of Christ, and persuading and enabling sinners to embrace Christ Himself. It is not just that a person must believe that certain propositions are true, but the person must embrace Christ Himself.

“And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” (1 Co 2:1-5)

A lot is said about Christ in our day, though the biblical preaching of Christ is rare. Even those that declare Christ in doctrine are missing something. Today’s preaching is powerless, so there are conferences that teaches preaching doctrine, expositionally, with more passion, and with more concern. But our text tells us how to preach Christ with power. It is not one, however, that fits easily with the modern evangelism regardless of Arminian or Reformed theology. Paul did not try to use great learning to convince people (v. 1), but instead proclaimed the testimony of God. This testimony of God is about God in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul did more than just preach about the cross itself, but his preaching was the demonstration of the Spirit and of power (v. 4). The reason for verses 1-4 is found in v. 5. Paul wanted the faith of his hearers to rest on the power of God. Do not be deceived, it is possible to be Arminian or Reformed and lead people to a faith that rests on the wisdom of man. One can preach the cross of Christ and still preach in a way that faith will rest on the wisdom of man.

Our text gives important clues as to Paul’s meaning which gives us one reason why the writers of our confessions accented the work of the Holy Spirit in redemption. This teaches us to beware of adhering to doctrine and to our confessions with a faith that rests on the wisdom of men as well. We can get people to intellectually agree to the words of our confessions while they rest on the wisdom of men. We can love our confessions while resting on the wisdom of men. The text tells us that to truly preach Christ is to do it in “demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” To truly preach Christ, then, is not just to preach facts about Christ, but preach the work of the Spirit purchased by Christ who also applies Christ to sinners. The way Paul preached Christ crucified was to demonstrate how the Holy Spirit applied the work of Christ. This is how Paul pointed to the power of God.

So why is our preaching so weak today? Maybe it is not because we don’t speak of the cross of Christ, but because we are not preaching what Christ has purchased. If we are not preaching and teaching about the fact that Christ purchased the Spirit who applies what Christ purchased, then we are preaching with weakness in our own wisdom. If we are not showing in our preaching how the Spirit applies the work of Christ rather than the will of man himself, then we are appealing to the wisdom and power of man. We will only be faithful to God in the preaching of Christ and Him crucified if we preach the power of God in salvation which is the work of the Holy Spirit on and in sinners who is able “to make them willing in the day of his power.” The text that we have used (I Cor 2:1-5) shows us why the writers of our confessions and catechisms focused so much on the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion. It is because they preached Christ and Him crucified in the testimony and power of God. We are weak because we don’t preach Christ fully by demonstrating the Spirit in the power of God.

If the writers of our confessions and catechisms were and are correct, then our day falls far short of preaching Christ crucified because we are not preaching the power of the Spirit in applying the redemption of Christ. One can preach about the Holy Spirit as a genie who works to heal and give people the material things they want. That is not preaching Christ crucified and the power of God in how the Holy Spirit applies redemption. We live in a day where Christianity appears to have been swallowed up by the world. We hear the name of Christ in many places and in many ways and we hear of the Holy Spirit in many ways. But what we don’t hear about is the glorious preaching of Christ crucified in the fullness of its meaning and the power of God. We don’t hear how “the Holy Spirit draws sinners to Himself convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ.” The Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16), it is not the will of man to salvation. The Gospel is the power of God to take sinners from the clutches of the devil, but it is not just an act of the will but the Spirit working through the words to transform and convert souls. When the Spirit works through the words to convert sinners, it is because the divine power of God in Christ has purchased it. It is also the divine power of God in the Spirit that applies it. Sinners are really converted from being the children of the devil to be the children and temple of the living God by the work of the triune God. Only Christ could purchase and only the Spirit could apply such a glorious conversion. It is nothing short of a different Gospel to preach a gospel that can be applied by the will of man as he pleases.

The teaching of Scripture on conversion is spread through the whole Bible rather than all the truth located in one or two verses. The whole Bible must be looked at and the truths it teaches about conversion must be gathered and examined from the whole rather than just taking a verse and building the whole truth about it from that. In the last three weeks the emphasis has been on the biblical teaching that the mind must be enlightened, the affections changed, and the will ordered to be like Christ. In other words, human beings come into this world depraved in all aspects of the soul. For a soul to be truly converted, then, each aspect of the soul must be converted. Only God the Creator can convert the soul in aspect or all aspects. Therefore, it is very clear who must do the work. The converted soul is the work of a craftsman (Eph 2:10) and, as II Corinthians 5:17 teaches us, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Whatever our view of salvation is, it must take into account that it is God that does the work and therefore old things are done and new things have come. This week we will look at what believers in the past have gleaned from the whole of Scripture.

In the Shorter Catechism, which has been revised for Baptists, there is a lot of powerful and helpful instruction for us today. Three of the questions (30-32) and the answers will be given below.

30. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? [A] We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit.

31. How does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? [A] The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

32. What is effectual calling? [A] “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.”

These questions and answers as found in the catechism teach a lot of the biblical view of conversion. We need to study them. The old view had a great influence on the modern view as well. In the Baptist Faith & Message we can see much of the same teaching. While there have been wording changes and even structural changes through the years, at least a lot of the same teaching is found. The following is from the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.

II. C. God the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration He baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ.

IV. Salvation

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Divines, being the basis for much of the Baptist Shorter Catechism, speaks strongly of effectual calling or, as the modern version terms it, “effective calling.” It says that effective calling is the work of the Spirit. It then speaks of enlightening the mind and renewing the will. It then says this: “This is how He persuades and makes us able to receive Jesus Christ.” This is powerful language and should teach us that the salvation of sinners is far more than what the sinner is able to do in his or her own power. Salvation is the work of the Spirit who makes sinners able to receive Christ. The work that the Holy Spirit does in making people able to come to Christ is His work in enlightening the mind and renewing the will. It is His work in convicting people of sin and of righteousness. The Gospel is all about the glory of God and not just what man needs to be saved. The Gospel is the good news of what God does to save sinners rather than what they can do for themselves. The Gospel is not just good news about what God has made available for sinners and is now contingent upon their prayer or choice, but it is about what God does in working faith and Christ in them.

The 1689 London Baptist Confession is very explicit about the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing sinners to Christ. In chapter 14 (on Saving Faith) it tells us where faith comes from: “The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word.” In chapter 9 (of Free Will) it shows in clear language the work of God in the soul: “When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.”

The 1689 Confession also speaks strongly as to the work of God in chapter 10 on Effectual Calling.

“Those whom God hath predestinated unto life, he is pleased in his appointed, and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.”

In the old Confession of Faith (1823) of the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales, we also see some of the glorious work of the Spirit in bringing sinners to Christ. It speaks of the work of the Spirit like this: “To save sinners, it is as necessary to apply as it was to provide the plan of salvation.” This points to a great failure in our day to teach the application of redemption. Instead we point to Christ in some way and tell sinners to believe. But we don’t tell them of the necessary work of the Holy Spirit who must work in them the very ability to believe. The Welsh Confession also says this: “to make them willing in the day of his power, and guide them into all truth.” It is the work of the Holy Spirit “to convince them of sin, show them their state of misery, reveal Christ to them, draw them to him, and create them in him; then will they be members of his mystical body.”

In modern evangelistic methods, whether by Arminians or Calvinists, the work of the Holy Spirit is at best mentioned. In most conservative churches a person must at least confess a belief in the Trinity, but in evangelism we don’t act as if there really is a triune God. In modern day evangelism Jesus is the only member of the Trinity mentioned, but it is His human nature that is focused on. This happens because it is thought that all that is needed is a prayer or an act of the will. The biblical teaching on conversion as a whole is either not known or set aside. Sinners must be converted by the work of the Holy Spirit in applying the work of Christ to the soul which includes conviction of sin by and teaching of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Sinners must be made alive by the Spirit because they really and truly are dead in sins and trespasses. It is the Holy Spirit who must teach sinners about Christ, enable them to come to Christ, and then join them to Christ. The Gospel is not that sinners must come up with a belief in their own power, but that the Holy Spirit will transform sinners so that they have a faith from the depths of their changed souls that are united to Christ. Apart from Christ and His work in us we can do nothing spiritual.

We have looked at what men throughout history have said about conversion in the language of effectual calling. We must know that the majority of what is going on today does not fit with the great Confessions of the past. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same Gospel as the Gospel of God. The Gospel of God has been planned by the Father, purchased by the Son, and then applied by the Spirit. It is only when the Gospel is applied by the Holy Spirit is it truly a Gospel of grace alone. That is something that the men who spent years writing these Confessions knew and thought was important to include. They also gave copious amounts of Scripture to show where they found these teachings. The Confessions of history teach us what many godly men believed and spent years in meetings to agree on. Are all of these men and all of those Confessions wrong? To change an old saying around a little, “They who refuse to learn the truth from godly men in history are doomed to repeat the heresies of history.”

Conversion is the glorious act of God taking a soul and transforming it from the state of depravity and deadness in sins and trespasses and remaking it in His own image. The soul that has the renewed image of God is now God’s dwelling place. The dwelling place of God is not just a place that God goes on vacation, but it is the place where He manifests Himself. The regenerated human soul was created to be a dwelling place of God through which He would display Himself. The mind (soul’s capacity to understand) has been renewed so the soul may have the mind of Christ. The affections (soul’s capacity to have joy in God) have been renewed to have the affections of Christ. The will (soul’s capacity for choice) now chooses according to the understanding of Christ and what it loves the most. The whole soul is transformed in conversion and now its capacity for choice (the will) is changed.

Before conversion the soul (by the capacity of choice) chooses sin and only sin. The soul that is spiritually dead and by nature a child of wrath (Eph 2:1-3) always chooses according to its spiritually dead nature which loves self and sin. The soul that is dead in sin and by nature a child of wrath will always choose what its darkened mind sees as good and what the affections (governed by darkness) incline it toward. For a soul to be converted so that it will choose according to Christ it must have the mind and affections of Christ. The choices or will of a human being will always follow the last dictate of the understanding and of the affections. The converted soul is now the dwelling place of God and it will choose differently than another person that is not the dwelling place of God.

It is evident that a saved person is not just one that has prayed a prayer and has made a commitment to attend church and be moral. A converted person has been changed from one that lived by the lusts of the heart and mind to one that lives by the mind and affections of Christ. The moral action is not just a choice that someone makes but is a choice that comes from a humble heart (emptied of self) and comes from the life of Christ in the soul. The converted soul does not live by the life of self but by the life of Christ. What comes from the converted soul (ideally all cases, but we still have remaining sin) is what originated in heaven from the Father, comes into the soul through Christ, and is then worked into the human soul so that it is sharing in the life of God. Of course believers are not perfect, but they do have the life of Christ in them that is moving them on into spiritual growth.

Romans 8:6-8 tells us the reality of the unconverted soul: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The unconverted person is one that is ruled by the flesh which is hostility toward God, but the converted person is one that is ruled by the life of Christ which is love toward God. The unconverted soul lives in fear of the will of God and hates it when it is seen, but the converted soul prays for God’s “will to be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mat 6:10). The unconverted soul has no ability of the will to subject itself to the law of God, but the believer is in the New Covenant where God works His law in the minds and hearts of those He dwells in. Now the believer haves the ability (the life of Christ) to follow the holy law of God.

It must be stressed again and again that the converted person is not just stronger and makes better moral choices, but the converted person has the life of Christ in the soul now rather than the life of the flesh and of self that the unconverted person is enslaved to. The unconverted hates God and His law, yet the converted person has Christ in the soul who when on earth said this: “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). The Savior that said that when facing the cross on earth will indeed be working in His people to submit to the Lord’s will. But it is not some forced obedience to the law, but rather it is this: “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psa 119:97). In this we see how Christ in the soul by working out His love for the Father. Jesus fulfilled the whole Law, and since love is the fulfillment of the Law Jesus loved the Father and the Law perfectly at all times and in all ways. The converted person loves the Law and the glory of the Father shining through the Law because Christ the perfect Lawgiver and Law keeper is the life of that person’s soul.

While Jesus was on earth, He gave several sayings which shows how He works in the believer. The intent of giving these verses (given below) in the context of conversion is to point at what Christ does in the soul. He is at work in the soul working to conform it to Himself and the will of the Father.

John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.

John 5:30 “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

Hebrews 10:7 “THEN I SAID, ‘BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'” 8 After saying above, “SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them” (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

When the verses (given above) are examined, we see why the will must be converted in salvation. Jesus Christ came to accomplish the work of the Father. It is Father’s will that His people be holy. He is working the will of the Father in His people and they are conformed to His image. The food which strengthened Jesus was to do the will of the Father. He did not just want to know the Father, but He wanted to do His will in all things. In fact, as John 5:30 informs us, Jesus did not do anything from His own initiative. His judgment was just because He did not seek His own will but the will of the Father. This is an amazing text which far-reaching ramifications. If we apply this passage to the life of Christ in the soul now, then we can see that it is sin to seek our own wills. But we can also see that holiness is in denying our wills and seeking the will of the Father. The whole soul must be converted in order for Christ to dwell in the soul and work the will of the Father in it. After all, Jesus did not come from Heaven to do His own will but the will of the Father. He also does not come and live in the souls of believers to do anything but work the will of the Father in them as well. Only the will of the Father is holy and should be done.

The believer wills and works for the good pleasure of God, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). It is the Father who works through Christ to work His will in believers. The prayer of the writer of Hebrews is for the Father to “equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever” (Hebrews 13:21). The believer is equipped to do the will of the Father. The unconverted soul is not equipped to do anything according to the revealed will of the Father. That takes a changed soul and that takes the life of Christ in that cleansed and changed soul.

Unconverted people do not like to hear of the sovereignty of God and thinks things are up to their wills. This is not the truth about God. “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1). Even the unbeliever’s heart is in the hands of the LORD and He turns it as He pleases. The unbeliever is not being forced to do what s/he does not want to do, but in carrying out the desires of his or her heart that unbeliever is being turned as the LORD pleases. The converted soul knows that (to some degree) and prays as Solomon did: “that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers” (1 Kings 8:58).

The New Covenant points toward all of this: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). The soul must be converted as a whole so that the will would desire to love God and keep His Law. The converted soul has the Law on its heart. The converted soul is directed by the understanding which can now receive light. The converted soul has affections of joy and delight in the Lord and in His Law. It is now wonder that the converted soul that sees the glory of God and has affections of joy in Him will choose according to the will of the Father. The converted soul now has sight to see, delight in, and then choose. The whole soul is converted and is now the dwelling place of God. The whole soul by virtue of the life of Christ in it is restrained from sin that before it could not see. The whole soul now loves God because it is now delivered from the bondage of sin and is given the love of God. Conversion is the glorious work of God by which His people become willing in the day of His power (Psa 110:3).

In the last newsletter the focus was on the conversion of the eye of the soul which is the understanding. The eye is the lamp of the body and if the eye is bad, the body is full of darkness. In conversion the eye is converted and is now light. The body, therefore, is full of light. For those accustomed to people just praying a prayer, this sounds very radical. But Jesus taught us this: “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 “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. 18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits” (Mat 7:15-20). The context of this passage is about salvation, how hard it is to be saved, and then how to distinguish false prophets from the bad.

Using the analogy that Scripture uses, what must happen for a bad tree to become a good tree? There must be a radical change. It is not a change in the power of humans but is something only God can do. True salvation is a true conversion by the Creator of all things. It is the Creator alone who can take a sinner and make him a new creation in Christ Jesus. Part of the work of God in making a new creation is to give and equip this new creature with new affections. A new creature must have new affections. By this it is meant that the new creature will have affections for different things than it previously did. Now the new creature loves spiritual things which it once hated. While love is not limited to the affections only, yet it certainly has affections. The creature that once hated God now loves God. The creature that once hated the lordship of Christ now loves Christ and His rule over it.

Jonathan Edwards wrote the classic work on the affections (Religious Affections). In that work he distinguished between affections and passions. This is very important since modern people refer to all feelings as “emotions.” The soul has many feelings, yet in our day we note that we have feelings and go on. If we hear a sermon and have good feelings, then we assume that our feelings are a good sign. But Edwards did not think so. The feelings of the soul can be divided into at least two parts. The passions of the soul are those feelings that drive the human soul. A person that has a passion is one that has a high degree of feeling and those control the person rather than truth or reason. A person in a fit of anger is being driven by the passion that is involved in the anger rather than being controlled by truth or reason. A person can hear a sermon and be driven by feelings rather than the truth of the Word of God. That is not a positive thing though it can appear to be so from the outside.

The affections are those feelings of the soul that arise and follow the truth. In one sense the unbeliever has affections when the feelings follow the mind or reason. It is here that the distinction is seen. The passions (root word passive) are those feelings that overcome the mind and the soul is driven along and controlled by the feelings. The affections are those feelings that rise toward truth and follow after the reasoning part of the soul. In terms of Christianity, a true affection is a feeling of the soul that rises because of the truth of God and then follows the truth as it follows the mind that is enlightened with the truth. The mind and understanding that has been changed to see the truth will also have affections that love the truth and desire it. One problem, however, is that an unbelieving mind can love to study the Bible and religious things for selfish reasons. True and spiritual affections, however, rise because of spiritual things and love spiritual things because they shine forth the glory of God.

Jonathan Edwards spoke a lot about the importance of true affections. He points out how the Bible treats the affections a vital for true religion. He used the text of I Peter 1:8 to illustrate this point: “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” In this text we see a mark of true faith. True faith spiritually beholds Christ and in beholding the glory of God that shines in Christ it loves Him. When one believes and loves Christ, that person can rejoice with joy that is so deep that it is inexpressible. It is a joy that is full of the glory of God as well. But note the pattern of true and spiritual affections in this text. The understanding of the soul first beholds Christ. We know that the glory of God shines in Christ so the soul is really beholding the glory of God in Christ as in the Gospel (II Cor 4:6). The soul that beholds the glory of God in Christ now has the affections of love and joy rising toward the object of the sight of the believing soul. The soul is now filled with a joy that is so great it cannot describe what is going on within it. It is a soul that is filled with a sight and the joy of the glory of God.

The unconverted soul, however, is one that is filled with hatred for the glory of God if there is no self-centered or selfish benefit to it. The unconverted soul has no sight that allows the light of the glory of God in and there are no affections of love and desire for that glory. It is a soul that is totally depraved and is dead in its sins and trespasses. By “totally depraved” it is meant that the soul is depraved in all (total) of its parts. The mind is depraved, the affections are depraved, and the choices are depraved. If a person truly believes in total depravity, then it must be driven to the conclusion that all the parts or aspects of the soul must be converted or changed. Last time we looked at how the eye of the soul or the understanding must be converted. Now we are looking at how the affections or feelings of the soul must be converted. If the affections are not converted, then the understanding that is converted would allow light in that would fill the soul with hatred for God. But the converted soul loves God and so the affections and desires are changed in order that the soul could have the love and joy of God in it.

In past newsletters on conversion (two and three weeks ago) the assertion was made that God must convert the soul so that it would be able to be filled with His glory in order to manifest His glory. The topic of the affections has not departed from that at all. When we see I Peter 1:8 as given above, we can see that the believing soul is filled with a joy that is inexpressible. But not only that, and perhaps because of that, the believing soul is filled with a joy that is full of glory. The unbelieving or unconverted soul is not full of the glory and joy of God like this. It is the converted and believing soul that is full of the glory of God because the believing soul is full of God Himself. It is not just any joy that the believer has, but it is the very joy of Christ Himself. The affections must be converted in order that the very joy of God would reside in and be expressed in the soul. This is seen in John 15:11 quite clearly: “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” It is not that Christ speaks these things so that the people would have joy or even what He had joy in, but so that His joy would be in them. When His joy is in them, then and only then will their joy is made full.

We can also see that verse 13 of John 17 teaches the same thing: “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” It is the very joy of Christ Himself that is in those He prays for that makes their joy full. It is His joy that is made full in people that gives people true spiritual joy. We must remember that joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit that accompanies love (Galatians 5:22-24). We can also see the same teaching in John 17:25-26: “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; 26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” The Son makes the name of the Father known so that the love with which the Father loved the Son would be in believers and Christ Himself would be in believers. The affections must be converted in order that they would be able to manifest the affections of Christ. The desires must be turned from loving the things of the world to loving the things of God because the life of Christ in His people will love the things of God and not the things of the world.

1 Corinthians 2:16 says that believers have the mind of Christ: “For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.” Philippians 1:8 teaches that we are to have the affection of Christ as well: “For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.” Surely Christ-likeness is more than just behaving in certain ways. To be like Christ we are to be like Him in our joy, zeal, hate, love, desires, sorrows, and other affections. He whose zeal consumed Him for the house of God would work a zeal for His glory and honor in our hearts as well. The Scriptures are full of the affections of Christ as we see His biography in the Gospels. The Scriptures are also full of the affections of the apostles as well as their teaching on the affections. In the words of Jonathan Edwards, true religion consists much in the affections. I might add that false religion and the ways of the world also consists much in the affections as well. Those with affections for the world will not be satisfied with a faith that has no affections at all. If the professing Church wants to preach a true Gospel, then it must teach doctrine that has true affections or it will not go far in being like Christ. If the professing Church wants to preach a true Gospel and a true Christ, then it must preach truth with affection or it will also not go far in being like Christ. The eternal God who lives in perfect and infinite love and joy within the Trinity shares His joy in Himself with His people through Christ and by the Spirit. True conversion reaches the depths of the affections and those affections are transformed to be like Christ because they are from the life of Christ in the soul. A sinner that has worldly affections for sin in and sinful things cannot be said to be a new creature and have the life of Christ in the soul. A believer is one that has been truly converted and his or her affections have been converted to have the affections of Christ. With anything less the totally depraved soul has not been converted.