Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:5–6 NRSV
One day Lucy was leaning against Schroeder’s piano. Suddenly she informed him confidently that she had examined her life and found it to be flawless. Lucy then let him in on her plan. She would hold a ceremony and present herself with a medal. Then she would give a very moving acceptance speech and afterward greet herself in the receiving line. Schroeder remained too caught up in his rendition of Beethoven to pay attention to the girl. Lucy grabbed his attention, however, when she explained smugly, “When you’re perfect, you have to do everything yourself.”
If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit the exact opposite of what Lucy claimed. We are neither without flaw nor so perfect that we have to do everything ourselves. On the contrary, we are so hopelessly impaired that ultimately we can do nothing ourselves.
Yet, at the same time, as Christians we know that we are God’s children. God has reached down to us in our failure and inability. God has brought us into fellowship—community—with himself, doing for us what we are unable to do for ourselves.
Contemplating God’s action on our behalf leads us to extol grace. Rather than joining Lucy in planning our own individual self-congratulation parties, we are drawn instead to sing with John Newton:
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.1
In chapter 7 we spoke of the Holy Spirit as the Completer. He is the Third Person of the Trinity. The central task of the Holy Spirit in the economy of the Triune God is to finish the divine program in the world.
For us, no aspect of the Spirit’s activity is more crucial than that of completing in us the great work of salvation. The Holy Spirit applies Christ’s provision to our personal lives, thereby bringing us to enjoy the community for which we were created. As a consequence of the Spirit’s work, we experience fellowship with God, one another, and all creation.
Yet the Spirit does not complete this work all at once. Instead, the Spirit’s activity in effecting our salvation is a process. And salvation remains incomplete until that process reaches its goal, until that great day when the Spirit has fully transformed us into our ideal and model—the Lord Jesus Christ.
We may therefore offer the following definition:
Salvation is the Spirit at work in bringing us into full conformity with the likeness of Jesus Christ.
In this chapter we explore in greater detail the Spirit’s role in our salvation. Specifically, we view the Spirit’s saving activity as three moments. These are capsulized in the old dictum:
This saying speaks of salvation as encompassing
Although we will look at these one by one, we must devote most of our discussion to conversion, the beginning point in our spiritual journey.
The Spirit at Work in Our Conversion
At the foundation of our Christian experience is a transforming encounter with God. We call this encounter “conversion.” Hence, our experience of salvation begins with conversion.
Consider this terse definition:
Conversion is that life-changing encounter with the Triune God that inaugurates a radical break with our old, fallen existence and a new life in fellowship with God, other believers, and eventually with all creation.
To define conversion seems simple enough. But when we seek to understand the ins and outs of the experience, our questions begin. How does conversion work? What transforming experience actually inaugurates the Christian walk? And what occurs in the wonderful encounter that lies at the basis of our faith?
Christian thinkers have struggled with these questions throughout the centuries. Despite their efforts, conversion ultimately remains a mystery. Exactly how the “great transaction” transpires—how God brings us into community with himself—lies beyond our comprehension. Nevertheless, we can say something about this mystery. To do so, we will look at the single dynamic of conversion from three vantage points:
Conversion Occurs as We Personally Respond to the Gospel
At the heart of Jesus’s message was a call to respond to his proclamation of God’s reign: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:14–15).
“Repent and believe the good news”—this command capsulizes conversion. This grand transformation occurs as we repent of sin and exercise faith in God through Christ. To understand conversion, therefore, we must look more closely at these two ingredients of our personal response to the gospel.
Repentance. Simply stated, “repentance” is a radical turning within the human heart (Luke 1:16–17; 2 Cor. 3:16–17). This turning involves our entire being.2
It involves a change of mind, an altered opinion about ourselves, about how we have been living, and about what we have done. What we once thought was okay, we now see as it really is—failure, sin. Whereas we once thought ourselves to be basically good—oh, perhaps not perfect like Lucy, but decent persons nevertheless—we now know that we are “poor in spirit” (see Matt. 5:3).
When we change our opinion about ourselves—who we have become and what we have done—we come to regret our previous course of action. Whereas formerly we were basically satisfied with our lives, we now sense deep displeasure, even sorrow. Like Paul, we now hate what we find ourselves doing (Rom. 7:15).
A changed opinion and heartfelt, sorrowful regret naturally lead us to desire to alter who we are and what we do. No longer do we want to live as we did in the past. Instead, we resolve to reform our lives. We realize with Paul, “I do not do the good I want to do” (Rom. 7:19; cf. Matt. 5:6).
To get a handle on the radical nature of repentance, think of an area of your life that you once felt quite proud about, but now even the thought of it brings you shame.
Let’s say it was your driving habits. Perhaps when you first learned to drive you consistently drove faster than the posted speed limits, ran yellow lights, and weaved in and out of traffic. All the while you smugly thought that these actions brought you a step ahead of others on the road.
Just today, however, your speeding through a “pink” light nearly resulted in a fatal traffic accident with a car already starting through the intersection. Suddenly you realize how dangerously you have been driving. You are no longer smug about pushing the limits. Instead, you feel sorry about your attitude and actions behind the wheel. You vow to never again exceed the speed limit. You promise to always stop when a traffic light turns yellow. And you commit to being a safe, courteous driver.
That is repentance.
Radical repentance is indispensable for conversion. Unless we recognize our failure and need, we will not cry out to God to save us.
By itself, however, repentance is not sufficient for salvation. We simply cannot make amends for the past. Nor are we able to radically alter the future. Despite our reflection, regret, and resolve, sin continues to hold us fast in its grasp.
Think again of our example. What is the outworking of your change of heart over your driving habits? Try as you will, your ensuing good behavior can never erase the scare you put into the other driver. And had you caused an accident, twenty years of subsequent safe driving could never erase the blemish on your record.
Further, your crisis-produced repentance is rarely the end of the story. How long does your resolve to be a model driver last? Perhaps you toe the mark for a time—a day, a week, even a month. But before you know it, the old habits have once again raised their ugly heads. Once more you find yourself exceeding the speed limit, sneaking through “pink” lights, and dashing around traffic. Your momentary repentance has not freed you from the long tentacles of past driving habits.
To repentance, therefore, must be added faith.
Faith. Faith ranks high among the list of humankind’s most misunderstood concepts. Some see it as tantamount to intellectual suicide: faith is believing what is impossible and nonsensical.
At one point in Lewis Carroll’s story Through the Looking Glass Alice (of Alice in Wonderland fame) discusses these matters with the White Queen. The Queen says,
“Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can’t believe that,” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”
At this point the Queen utters the clincher: “I dare say you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”3
Others see faith as a leap beyond the givenness of reality, a blind dash beyond what is presently real.
One episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Rightful Heir”) illustrates this. Worf’s spiritual quest led to a crisis when the man who claimed to be the long-awaited Klingon messiah turned out to be a fraud. In a discussion with Worf, Data muses about his own experience of crisis that ensued when his creators told him he was just a machine. But, Data reports, he “chose to believe” that he had the potential to be more than “a collection of circuits and subprocesses.” How did he come to this decision? Worf wonders. Data replies, “I made a leap of faith.”
Genuine Christian faith is neither the acceptance of nonsense nor a leap into the impossible. On the contrary, saving faith encompasses three components, which form a natural progression.4
We first learn about God’s promises contained in the gospel, including the historical narrative of Jesus’s death and resurrection for us. Indeed, faith begins with the hearing of the gospel message, as Paul indicated (Rom. 10:12–17).
We acknowledge intellectually the truth of the gospel message. We accept the gospel message as true. Knowing and giving assent are evident in the repeated New Testament use of phrases such as “believe that” or “have faith that.” “Believing that” is an intellectual act. The declaration “I believe that” is always followed by a statement that capsulizes what I hold to be true.
Consider three statements:
“I believe that snow is white.”
“I believe that Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States during the Civil War.”
“I believe that Jesus died for my sins.”
Although these declarations are quite different from each other, each entails a personal acknowledging that certain statements are true representations of specific aspects of reality.
Saving faith involves personal assent to the truth of certain statements that compose the heart of the gospel. These include:
“I believe that Jesus is ‘the Holy One of God’” (John 6:69; 8:24; 20:30–31).
“I believe that Jesus died, was buried, rose again, and appeared to witnesses, all in accordance with the Old Testament” (1 Cor. 15:1–8).
“I believe that ‘Jesus is Lord’ and that ‘God raised him from the dead’” (Rom. 10:8–9).
Faith doesn’t end with knowing and giving assent, however.
Trust means that we personally appropriate the truth of the gospel for ourselves. It involves personal commitment. Faith means committing ourselves through Christ to the God who in Christ has acted on our behalf. We see trust or commitment in the New Testament talk about “believing in” (literally, “believing into”). Repeatedly we are instructed to believe in Jesus (John 3:16). This means “entrust yourself to Christ for salvation.”
Faith is at work each day in both the large and the small aspects of life. For example, after an eventful day, you go to a friend’s house to relax. Your eyes focus on a particularly inviting easy chair in the living room. Suppose you do some preliminary research, inquiring from the manufacturer about the chair’s weight-bearing capabilities. Their report asserts that the chair is capable of carrying seven hundred pounds without collapsing. This information carries the promise that the chair will indeed be a relaxing location in which you can safely recline. You not only hear the report; you also accept it. “I believe that this chair can safely hold my weight,” you conclude silently.
Yet you are still one step away from enjoying what the chair has to offer. Knowledge and assent must lead to commitment. You must commit yourself to the chair; you must entrust your well-being to the chair for good or ill. You must sit in the chair.
This is faith. Saving faith moves beyond hearing and acknowledging the message about the God who has acted in Jesus. It also includes entrusting ourselves to Jesus as Savior and committing our lives to him as Lord.
In 1859, Charles Blondin, a famous tightrope walker sparked a sensation. He set up a high wire across Niagara Falls. A crowd quickly gathered to watch the man risk his life by walking back and forth on the thin wire above the falls. They were awestruck as they saw him push a wheelbarrow across the wire. According to popular legend, the tightrope artist then turned to the crowd. “Do you believe that I could push a person in the wheelbarrow across the high wire over the falls?” he asked. The people cheered enthusiastically. Then he added, “Who will step into the wheelbarrow?”5
Conversion as repentance-faith. In our discussion, we have separated repentance and faith. We have viewed them as two distinct responses to the gospel.
For some believers this is indeed the case. They may have come to Christ through a lengthy process in which repentance preceded faith. But ultimately, the two are inseparable. Together they compose the one personal response that God requires of us. Genuine repentance presupposes and includes faith. And vital faith carries repentance within it.
Viewed from the perspective of the believer, conversion—“coming to Christ”—is marked by repentant faith or faith-filled repentance. But what does it involve for our actual lives? What are its implications for the way we live?
Obviously, genuine conversion entails a great personal turning point. It marks a break with the old way of living and an entrance into an entirely new life. This change leads to a grand reorientation of our entire life.
Above all, conversion consists in a redirection of our lives toward God. Whereas we had previously been turned away from God as we served sin, Satan, and self, we now turn to the one who in Christ has loved us and has made salvation available. And we now want above all to please God in all we do.
This turn toward God leads to a turning toward others (Mark 12:28–34; 1 John 4:20). We leave behind the old self-centered way of living. And we dedicate ourselves to follow the example of Jesus, who was “the man for others.” We forsake the old impulse to treat others as means to our goals. Instead, we begin to see them as persons whom God loves and for whom Christ died. We desire to minister to people in their need, knowing that in so doing we are actually serving Christ (Matt. 25:40).
Implicit in conversion is a turning toward creation as well. We once saw the world as existing primarily for our benefit. But now we desire to imitate God in all areas of life. This includes sharing his concern for creation. We now seek to be the good stewards that God intended (Gen. 2:15). And as we do so, we begin to show forth God’s own character to creation.
Conversion also means a turn toward ourselves. It leads to an understanding of our own true selves as God designed us. Repentant faith is a commitment of ourselves to live out in our lives God’s goal for human existence—that is, his design for our own personal lives. When we find God—or perhaps better stated, when God finds us—we also find our own true self.
Conversion Requires the Spirit’s Gracious Work in Our Lives
Conversion occurs as we respond to the gospel with repentance and faith. But how is this possible? How can we turn away from Satan, self, and sin? How can we turn toward God, others, creation, and our true self?
True conversion involves a turning toward God, others, and creation, and in this manner it is a turning even toward ourselves.
The answer to this question comes as no surprise—through the Holy Spirit. Conversion occurs through the Spirit’s gracious work in our lives. In fact, without the activity of God’s Spirit, conversion cannot occur.
In chapter 4 we saw why this is so. We are totally depraved. This means that sin has spread to every aspect of our existence, leaving no nook or cranny of our being untouched and no innate capability unaffected. We are devoid of the spiritual power necessary to effect our salvation. Depravity means that all our attempts to earn salvation are ultimately fruitless (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16, 21). If we are to be saved, the initiative must come from God.
The good news is: God has indeed acted on our behalf. As we explored in chapter 6, Christ has made provision for our salvation. Since Christ’s ascension, the Holy Spirit has been active in the world completing God’s saving work. The Spirit takes Christ’s provision and makes it real in our lives. In so doing, God’s Spirit authors new, spiritual life in us (John 3:5–8).
The Spirit’s role in conversion. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is God at work in the conversion of sinful human beings. The Bible suggests four specific roles that the Spirit fulfills in the conversion process.
We cannot accept God’s gracious forgiveness unless we realize that we need to be forgiven. We cannot be converted unless we realize that the direction of our lives is wrong. We cannot turn from sin to God unless we are aware that we are at enmity with him. We cannot sense regret and sorrow for our failures and acts of unrighteousness unless we are conscious that they are displeasing to God. We cannot cast ourselves on the merciful God revealed in Christ unless we sense that we need divine mercy. In short, we cannot be saved unless we realize we are sinners.
How does the realization of sin arise? Ultimately, the answer is: through the work of the Holy Spirit.
There may be many factors that lead us to an awareness of sin. For some, the consciousness of sin may be sparked when they begin to reap what they have sown, when wayward living results in some awful tragedy. This may come in the form of a financial collapse following shady business practices, rebellious children produced through years of parental neglect, a deadly illness sparked by unhealthy habits or licentious living, or a legal trial triggered by the transgression of some civil statute.
Others gain an awareness of sin simply when seemingly minor offenses against their upbringing lead to a guilty conscience.
Many Christians testify that they were awakened to personal sinfulness through Sunday schools that taught the biblical truth about our lost existence.
Regardless of the circumstances, however, conviction of sin is always the Spirit’s work. Regardless of how we come to acknowledge our sin, the Spirit is the one who brings us to see its awful reality.
Our Lord himself assigned this task to the Holy Spirit: “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). When the Spirit is at work, we become conscious of our own sinful status in the light of God’s standard of righteousness. And we become aware of a coming day of judgment.
We must add one footnote to this great theological truth. Knowing that conviction is the Spirit’s task takes an enormous load off our shoulders as we proclaim the gospel. We do not need to prove to others that they are sinners. We do not need to focus our attention on how bad they are. The Spirit will do that without our help. We need to love others, unconditionally in Christ. Our role is to announce the good news that God has acted in Christ to save sinful human beings. As we elevate the beauty of Christ in this manner, the Spirit will engage in his work of convincing the hearers of their need. Indeed, it is the Spirit’s activity within us and through us that transforms the world around us.6
Awareness of sin can be a dangerous thing. Deep sorrow may drag us down. We may fall into despondency, hopelessness, and despair. Sorrow may even evoke in us thoughts of suicide, just as Judas’s remorse led him to take his life.
The Spirit’s intent in conviction, however, is not to cause our death but to foster eternal life. He desires that we not only see our sin but also turn to God for forgiveness and healing. Therefore, in addition to convicting us of sin, the Spirit issues a call to sinners to respond positively to God’s gracious offer of salvation. He calls us to repent and have faith in the God who through Christ can save us.
The Spirit summons us to share in the salvation God offers. But how does he call us to repentance and faith? Jesus suggested an answer in the parable of the wedding banquet (Matt. 22:1–14). In the story, the king’s servants announce his invitation throughout the land. Through the words of his servants, the king himself calls the guests to the banquet. So also in the spiritual realm. As human messengers announce the good news, the Spirit calls the hearers to respond.
This means that the Spirit chooses to energize human words. Indeed, this is exactly what the Bible asserts. Through Isaiah, for example, God compared the potency of his word with the life-giving force of water: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10–11).
That is why the Bible extols gospel messengers: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news” (Isa. 52:7; Rom. 10:15). The voice of the messenger is the voice of God. As Paul said concerning himself and his associates: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).
Through the proclamation of the gospel, the Holy Spirit issues God’s gracious call. He summons the hearers to share in God’s salvation. As we answer this summons, we discover that we are the uniquely called of God. We are those whom God “called . . . out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Pet. 2:9; see Rom. 9:24; 2 Tim. 1:9).
But how can we respond to the gospel when we cannot understand it? How can we accept the message when it seems so inconceivable? Or to echo Paul’s words, how can we entrust ourselves to Christ when the god of this age has blinded our minds so that we cannot see “the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4)?
These questions remind us that sin poses an intellectual barrier to conversion. Our fallen human minds, coming under the spell of Satan as they do, may simply dismiss the gospel as so much gibberish. We may reject the good news as pure nonsense. How, then, can we believe the gospel if our minds tell us it is simply not true? How can we come to Christ if we are incapable of seeing the truth of the message about his work on our behalf?
Again the Bible offers a straightforward answer to this problem—the Holy Spirit. The Spirit opens our minds so that we can perceive the truth of the gospel (1 Cor. 2:10). When we hear the gospel, something happens. Either we walk away shaking our heads in disbelief, or our curiosity is sparked so that we want to learn more.
If we do not immediately dismiss the message but rather are attracted to it, the Spirit is at work. If we come to see its sublime intellectual beauty, and if its truth begins to claim our lives, then the Spirit has been enlightening us. You see, the Spirit’s role is to shed light in our minds so that we can understand and accept the divine truth proclaimed in the gospel. Only when he is at work in us do we come to be so grasped by the truth of the good news that we respond to the proclaimed message with repentance and faith.
No wonder Paul exclaims, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
Our difficulty is not merely intellectual, however. Not only are our minds blinded to its truth, our wills cannot turn toward God. As we noted in chapter 4, depravity means that our individual wills are in bondage. We lack the power necessary to overcome sin’s control and freely respond to the Spirit’s call. To embrace the salvation our loving Father offers, we must be enabled by a power greater than the debilitating hold sin has over us.
What possible power could achieve this? The biblical answer is clear: the Holy Spirit, who is the Power of God completing God’s purposes in the world. The Spirit enables us to respond to the gospel. He provides the spiritual power that makes repentance and faith possible.
Paul spoke of this dynamic. In his first epistle to the Corinthian believers he reminded them about the manner in which he had proclaimed the gospel in their city: “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words” (1 Cor. 2:3–4). And why this approach? So that his announcing the gospel might not be a grand demonstration of human ability but “a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” As a consequence, the faith of these believers did not rest on human wisdom but on divine power (vv. 4–5).
As we proclaim the gospel, we trust the Spirit to engage in his work.
Whereas illumination overcomes the blindness of our fallen mind, the Spirit directs his enabling power toward our misdirected will. The Spirit woos the will, in order that we both desire and are made able to respond to the good news with repentance and faith. He gives us the fortitude to say “No” to sin and “Yes” to the gospel summons.
As with other aspects of his role, the focal point of the Spirit’s enabling action is the announcement of the good news (Rom. 10:17). As human messengers proclaim the gospel, the Spirit is at work strengthening the hearer to respond. Because the Spirit chooses to act through human proclamation, the good news is God’s powerful Word. Energized by the Spirit, the gospel indeed becomes “the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16).
The results of the Spirit’s work in conversion. The Spirit is at work in the proclamation of the gospel—convicting, calling, illumining, and enabling. The goal of his activity is our repentance and faith.
But this does not exhaust the Spirit’s work in conversion. As the divine Completer, the Holy Spirit applies to our lives—makes real in us—Christ’s provision for human sin. In so doing, the Spirit becomes God’s solution to our human predicament. He completes God’s work in rescuing us from sin, so that we may participate in the eternal fellowship for which we were created. At conversion, he “takes up residence” in our lives. He makes our lives his home. The Spirit’s presence within us overcomes sin and places us in fellowship with God, others, and all creation.
We may capsulize the implications of his work with four grand theological terms: “regeneration,” “justification,” “liberation,” and “empowerment.”
As we noted in chapter 4, because of sin we are alienated from God our Father. Designed to be his friends, we have made ourselves enemies of the Creator. And as a result, we are alienated from each other, from creation, and from ourselves. In chapter 6 we spoke of how Jesus Christ entered this situation to provide reconciliation. In him, God opened the way to bring our hostility to an end.
At conversion, the Spirit applies this provision to our lives. He regenerates us (Titus 3:5) or causes us to become born anew or “born again” (John 3:1–16). That is, the Spirit authors new, spiritual life in us through his presence within us.
Just as physical birth endows us with a special relationship to our physical parents, so also our spiritual birth means that we have a special relationship with God. We are sons or daughters of God (John 1:12–13). Through the Spirit we become God’s spiritual offspring. And this means that we enjoy fellowship—community—with God.
The Spirit’s role in effecting this fellowship is the outworking of his identity within the eternal Trinity. As we noted in chapter 7, he is the Spirit of the relationship between the Father and the Son. Consequently, when the Spirit indwells us, the very community of the Triune God is present within us. In regenerating us, the Spirit brings us to participate in the eternal relationship the Son enjoys with the Father, for this relationship is who the Spirit, in fact, is.
We do not enjoy this new relationship with God in isolation, however. Rather, the Spirit causes us to be born into a new family. We are therefore participants in a new people, a reconciled people, a people among whom the old hostilities have been erased (Eph. 2:14–18).
Our sin carries a second awful result. We stand condemned before the holy God. In love, however, God sent Christ as the provision for our sin. Through his death, Jesus covered our sin so that God’s just sentence of condemnation need not fall on us.7
At conversion, the Holy Spirit applies Christ’s provision to our lives. His presence in us effects a new standing before God. We are justified—declared righteous—in God’s sight.8
Our unrighteousness formerly barred the way to community with God. The Spirit, however, strips off our “filthy rags” of sin and replaces them with the “coat” of Christ’s righteousness.9 Clothed in the righteousness of the eternal Son, we now enjoy fellowship—community—with the Father.
Community with God naturally leads to community with others. Knowing that we are justified in God’s presence, we now seek to act righteously toward each other and toward all creation, just as Jesus taught (Matt. 18:21–35). Because we know we are all sinners saved by God’s amazing grace, we give careful attention to the special bond of unity and peace that the Spirit produces among us (Eph. 4:3).
Sin overwhelms us as an alien power. Enslaved to sin, we lack the freedom to live as we ought. Rather than obeying God, we willingly and necessarily find ourselves ruled by an evil taskmaster—sin (John 8:34). Our bondage to sin places us under the grip of death (Rom. 6:23). We are spiritually dead now. One day we will die physically. And in all eternity we will be separated from fellowship with God.
Through the Spirit we participate in the glorious relationship of love the Son enjoys with the Father.
Into this situation God sent Christ. Jesus won the victory over the forces of evil. By conquering sin, death, and Satan, he provided redemption for us; he effected the release of those who were in bondage.
At conversion, the Spirit applies Christ’s redeeming work to our lives. His presence, as the presence of Christ within us, liberates us. He replaces our former bondage with a new freedom (John 8:36; 2 Cor. 3:17). One day the Spirit will cause us to experience full liberation from the power of sin and death (Rom. 8:11). Even now, however, through his indwelling presence we can be victorious over the control of sin (Rom. 6:14). The Spirit gives us the ability to reject sin and choose God’s will.
We must be careful not to confuse this freedom with the everyday experience of acting as disinterested decision-makers. Standing before our closet in the morning trying to decide which color shirt or dress to wear, we view ourselves as choosing among the options unencumbered by any overpowering inclination to decide in one direction or the other. In the face of moral decisions, however, we are never neutral. Instead, we face these choices already predisposed. And unfortunately we are predisposed toward evil.
The Spirit’s presence liberates us. He overcomes our predisposition toward evil, so that we can choose the good. Therefore, the freedom he offers us is the ability to live in accordance with our destiny. Thereby, he liberates us for community, for participation in the freedom the Son enjoys with the Father.
Living in freedom, however, does not mean living without restraint. On the contrary, the Spirit liberates us for discipleship (John 8:31–32). We are liberated from bondage to sin in order to be “slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:18) or “slaves of God” (v. 22). And discipleship links us with all Christ’s disciples. We are liberated for life in community. Our freedom, therefore, includes the freedom to “be for others” (see Gal. 5:13), even to renounce our own freedom for the sake of others (1 Cor. 9:19; 10:23–24).
Human sin is radical. It touches every dimension of life, leaving us depraved. Because of sin, we are powerless to serve God and others in the way he intends. Into this hopeless situation Jesus came as our substitute. He accomplished for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
At conversion, the Holy Spirit applies Christ’s provision to our lives, endowing us with divine power—his own empowering presence. The Spirit within us is the power we need for a lifetime of service to God (Acts 1:8).
As the Spirit of the Triune God, he gives us the power to live according to the pattern that characterizes the Son’s response to the Father. This pattern includes serving one another and together showing forth to all creation God’s own character as we live as the image of the Triune God. Indeed, only as we demonstrate through our actions that the Spirit of love is among us can we truly show to the world that we are a people in fellowship with God.10
Let’s now draw this grand sweep of the Spirit’s work into the chart we started in chapter 4 and augmented in chapter 6:
| Human Condition | Christ’s Provision | Spirit’s Application |
| Alienation | Reconciliation | Regeneration |
| Condemnation | Expiation | Justification |
| Enslavement | Redemption | Liberation |
| Depravity | Substitution | Empowerment |
Conversion Involves Our Incorporation into the Faith Community
There remains yet one more perspective from which we must view the dynamic of conversion. Conversion is no mere transaction between God and a single individual. Nor are we converted in isolation. We do not experience a saving encounter with God totally on our own. Rather, conversion always involves the faith community, the church of Jesus Christ. Christ’s community plays a significant role in the process of coming to faith. And our life-changing encounter with God involves our incorporation into the community of Christ.
We must look more closely at this aspect of the conversion dynamic, focusing on a question. What role does the community play? What is the connection between the Spirit-empowered personal response to the gospel and the community of believers?
The community is the agent of gospel proclamation. Faith requires hearing the gospel message. Hearing the message requires a proclaimer. But a proclaimer requires a sending body (Rom. 10:14–15). This is precisely the role of the church. Ultimately, Christ’s community is the agent of the gospel proclamation.
We can readily understand this relationship between the believing community and personal conversion when we think of the announcement of the gospel to unbelievers. Whether the context be foreign or home missions, a church commissions certain persons to preach. And through their efforts others come to faith.
The role of the community in our conversion is not limited to this obvious aspect, however. When we respond to God’s saving action in Christ, we do so not only because a member of a church told us the good news. Viewing the process from a wider perspective, we are confronted with the gospel because the community of Christ’s faithful disciples has remembered, preserved, and guarded the story of God’s activity. And through its representative this believing community that spans the ages has now announced that story to us. Even if we come to faith simply by reading the Bible, the community is still at work, for the Scriptures contain the one church of Christ announcing the gospel.
Nor is the actual verbal announcement the only manner in which the church proclaims the gospel to us. On the contrary, the good news forms the heart of Christian worship, as the community recounts in word, symbol, and practice the story of Jesus and its significance for us.
The good news finds expression in the nurturing life of the community as well. Indeed, the church offers a powerful articulation of the message of Christ by being a genuine fellowship of love and care (John 13:35). Through the life of the community, those who have not yet come to faith repeatedly encounter the gospel message in spoken, enacted, and lived proclamation.
The community incorporates us into its life. Conversion does not occur in isolation, because we can come to God only as we are the recipients of the church’s proclamation of the gospel. There is another sense in which conversion does not occur in isolation: repentant faith marks not only our turning from sin to God; we also turn toward a new community in which we participate.
But in what sense are we now part of a new community? Our initial answer might be to think merely of formal membership in a local congregation. Or we might speak about our belonging to some nebulous “invisible church” of all believers of all time. While each of these ideas has its place, we have a deeper sense in mind when we speak of incorporation into the church.
To see this we must speak about the role in our lives of the social groups in which we participate.
In the previous chapter we introduced the contemporary idea of an “interpretive framework.” Contemporary thinkers have shown how we draw from our social groups the foundational categories—the framework—through which we view, experience, and speak about ourselves and the world.11
Conversion involves our acceptance of the interpretive framework of the Christian community, which views the world through God’s action in Jesus Christ. In conversion, we look to the categories of the gospel story. And through these categories, we reorient our understanding of ourselves and the world.
Perhaps we can see this connection more clearly by reflecting again on the role of an interpretive framework in the process of identity formation. As we noted in chapter 7, our sense of personal identity is dependent on our ability to find a set of categories that brings the diverse aspects of our lives into a meaningful unity. This set of categories leads us to “tell our story,” to draw together the crucial events of our lives into a single autobiography or “narrative.”12
But our personal stories are never isolated units. They are touched by the stories of other persons and ultimately the story of a larger people of which we are a part.13 In fact, it is from this larger story that we draw our ideas of value and ultimate meaning.
In conversion, we reinterpret our personal story in the light of the story of the Christian community and the categories it exemplifies. Following the biblical narrative, we speak of “old” and “new,” “being lost” but “having been found,” “sin” and “grace.”14 Reinterpreting our story in this manner entails accepting the story of the Christian community as our own. We now are part of this people; we are incorporated into this community.
Conversion entails our incorporation into the community of Christ in another way as well. We gain from this people a new set of values.
The gospel story not only embraces a framework for viewing the world, it also embodies a way of living in the world. The believing community seeks to live in accordance with the values of the gospel narrative. In conversion we accept the ideals of the gospel. We claim its values as our own, and we commit ourselves to embodying in our beliefs, attitudes, and actions the meanings and values that characterized Jesus’s own life. In short, we desire to connect Christian beliefs with life.
This commitment marks us as Christ’s disciples. That is, it entails incorporation into the community of discipleship. And as we participate in the life of the fellowship of disciples, its values increasingly give shape to our own life.
Conversion means that we have become participants in a community that spans the ages and traverses the globe.
This leads us to another way in which conversion and incorporation are connected. Repentant faith marks a grand change of loyalty. We lay aside all the old allegiances and pledge our fidelity to the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Allegiances, however, are never purely individual. We never believe anything all alone. Instead, personal loyalties always link us with those other persons who share them with us and by extension with communities that have preserved and propagated them.
As we renounce the former loyalties through conversion, we also renounce the former community of allegiance. And as we pledge allegiance to Christ, we are incorporated into a new community—into the fellowship of those who have pledged their loyalty to their common Lord. With all of his disciples we confess faith in Jesus. Through conversion, we become one in confession and loyalty with a new community, the followers of Christ.
In one sense, incorporation into the community of Christ seems to occur automatically. It is an unavoidable aspect of conversion. We simply are members of each other, participants in the one fellowship of disciples. Yet Christ has left us with certain specific acts by means of which his community formalizes or makes public the incorporation of a new believer. In chapter 10, we will look more closely at this aspect of our more formal incorporation. Here we need only mention baptism, which serves as the sign of the new identity in Christ that is ours in conversion.
Like conversion itself, baptism never occurs in total isolation. Indeed, we do not baptize ourselves. Rather than merely an act of the individual, baptism is an ordinance, or sacrament, of the church. By means of this act (which may be coupled with formal local church membership), the church—through its representatives—symbolically incorporates us into its life. And through baptism, we in turn declare that we belong to a new community, that we are a part of the people who name Jesus as Lord.
The Spirit at Work in Our Sanctification
Just as physical birth is not the goal but only the beginning of physical life, so also the new birth—conversion—is only the beginning of our spiritual journey.
This means, by the way, that our outreach efforts are not merely directed toward “winning” the lost. Our responsibility has not ceased when they are baptized and join the church. Rather, our goal is disciple-making (Matt. 28:19–20).
This means, as well, that we ought not to view personal salvation merely as conversion. Instead, salvation is an all-encompassing process. Viewed from this perspective, this process begins with conversion, continues throughout life, and comes to completion only at our Lord’s return.
We now turn our attention to the “throughout life” aspect of salvation, which we call “sanctification.”
Sanctification is an important concept in the Bible. Although it is broad in scope, its meaning is always closely related to holiness. To be sanctified means to be set apart or separated. And the act of sanctification marks an object or a person with a new status before God (2 Thess. 2:13).15
Important to our discussion, however, is a narrower meaning of the word. Sanctification is connected to the quest for holiness. Sanctification is the ongoing process whereby the Holy Spirit makes us holy by setting us apart, transforming us into the likeness of Christ and leading us into service to God.
To explore sanctification, we raise four questions about this quest.
Why Be Holy?
We may ask, “Why be holy? Why should we worry about holiness? After all, we are saved. In the end we’ll make it to heaven. So why concern ourselves with the matter?”
The Bible offers a straightforward, terse answer to this question: be holy because God is holy (1 Pet. 1:15). And the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives seeking to do just that—to make us holy after the pattern of God.
The Scriptures place this summary response in the context of God’s program for creation. God is calling out a people to be his own. That is, God wants to establish a people who will reflect the divine character—love—for all creation to see. That is why God chose Israel in the Old Testament. And that is why the Holy Spirit is now calling out a worldwide fellowship in the present age.
This means that holiness begins with our frame of mind. In view of God’s glorious purpose, we are to see ourselves as God’s own possession. We belong to the God who has chosen us. And we exist in order to honor God and to serve God’s own purposes (Eph. 1:11–12).
What Does It Mean to Be Holy?
When we read the New Testament, we quickly come across an apparent contradiction. We are already declared to be holy—“a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9). At the same time, we are told that we are not yet holy. We are admonished to become holy or to be holy in all we do (1 Pet. 1:15). Which is it?
We can find our way through this apparent contradiction by realizing that sanctification has two dimensions. We may call these “positional sanctification” and “conditional sanctification.”
Because of Christ’s work on our behalf, God has pronounced us “holy” or “set apart” as his own possession. We belong to God. Positional sanctification, therefore, is an unalterable reality. Solely because of the grace the Father extended to us in Christ, which the Holy Spirit applies to our lives, we stand before God as holy people. This status is not affected by the day-to-day gyrations of our personal feelings, attitudes, or conduct.
Our fixed status before God is crucial. Because it sets our relationship with God on solid footing, it is the fountainhead out of which our life as Christians emerges.
Conditional sanctification refers to the process in which the Holy Spirit seeks to transform our life or the way we are actually living. It speaks about the Spirit’s attempt to bring our character and conduct into conformity with our position in Christ.
Rather than fixed and unalterable, therefore, the condition of our sanctification is subjective, experiential, and consequently variable, transient, and changing. But if our lives are on track, we should note genuine, observable progress. We should be discovering that we are moving beyond our previous immaturity. We should discover that we are becoming mature, growing into increasing conformity with God’s standard, which is Christ (Eph. 4:15).
What Is Our Role in Becoming Holy?
Positional sanctification—our holy status before God—is ours solely because of God’s gracious fiat. When we view it from this perspective, we can do nothing to become holy. We can only receive the gift of holiness by faith.
What about conditional sanctification? Here too we must acknowledge that holiness is God’s work. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives (Gal. 5:22–23). We gain the victory only because the Spirit provides the necessary power for living godly lives (1 Cor. 10:13; Rom. 8:12–14). We grow only because the Spirit is changing us to become more like Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).
Our resources for holiness include Bible study, prayer, other believers’ support, and the Holy Spirit.
Yet the Bible clearly points out that we have a role in the process. While the Spirit is the agent of our sanctification, he works through our cooperation. We must diligently apply ourselves to the task of being brought into conformity with Jesus Christ (Heb. 12:14; 2 Pet. 1:5–11). Even as exemplary a Christian as Paul testified to the necessity of diligence: “Not that I have already attained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Phil. 3:12–14; see 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:14).
Of course, diligence includes making use of God’s provision in order to combat sin, Satan, and self (Eph. 6:10–18; 2 Pet. 1:3). But to diligence in overcoming sin (which we may call “negative holiness”), we must add another dimension. We must set ourselves to grow in Christlikeness (“positive holiness”). In this process our resources are many. They include Bible study, prayer, the support of other Christians, and the strengthening the Holy Spirit offers us.
Will We Ever Become Holy?
The goal of the Holy Spirit is to make us like Christ in character and conduct. He desires that we attain “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).
When we look at our own lives—at the short distance we have traversed compared to how far we have yet to go—we wonder, “Will this ever happen? Will we someday attain the goal of our efforts?”
One text of Scripture seems to hold out hope that we might indeed become perfect—like Lucy—in this life:16 “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. . . . No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God” (1 John 3:6, 9; see also Luke 1:69–75; Titus 2:11–14; 1 John 4:17).
On closer inspection, however, we discover that these verses may not provide the strong assurance that they at first appear to offer. Earlier in the same epistle, John asserts the exact opposite point. Sin, he declares, is continuously with us: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Although the apostle desires that we live perfect lives, he anticipates that we will in fact continue to fall: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1).
It seems, then, that John did not teach that Christians can attain perfection in this lifetime. Rather, our goal will be realized only when Christ returns (1 John 3:2).
How, then, are we to understand John’s declaration that the believer does not sin (1 John 3:6, 9)? To find an answer, we must look at the Greek language in which John wrote. In Greek, present tense verbs (those that in English talk about action in the present) regularly designate continuous action. The apostle’s point is that believers do not continuously or habitually sin. We will continue to commit specific acts that displease God, but we seek to keep such sinning from becoming habitual. We work diligently, so that no sin will ever gain mastery over us—so that no sin will gain the force of habit in our lives.
So long as we live on this earth we never move beyond the need to exercise diligence in cooperating with the Holy Spirit. We never outgrow the need for further growth in holiness. We never leave the process of sanctification behind. So long as we live on this earth, we long for the goal of our salvation, which the Bible calls our final “glorification.”
The Spirit at Work in Our Glorification
“I have been saved”—conversion. “I am being saved”—sanctification. There remains yet a third verb tense: “I will be saved.” Indeed, at each moment in life our salvation remains incomplete. We await the goal of the Spirit’s work in our conversion and sanctification. We call this goal “glorification.” Glorification is the work of the Spirit in bringing our salvation to its final completion—perfect conformity to Christ.
We unpack this hope by responding to two questions.
What Does Glorification Involve?
In speaking about our future glorification, John declared, “But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). What does this entail?
Simply stated, glorification—perfect conformity to Christ—encompasses our entire existence. We will be like Christ in every way, short of becoming divine ourselves.
We will be like Christ, for we will come to mirror perfectly the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23), which Jesus himself exemplified. When this happens, both positional and conditional sanctification will merge. No longer will we be holy solely by God’s gracious declaration. Now we will also be righteous in our character and conduct.
For this to happen, of course, the Spirit must root out our fallen sinful nature. Because we will no longer be susceptible to temptation and sin, we will be totally free to obey God perfectly.
Through the resurrection, the Spirit will transform our bodies so that they will be like the glorious body of our risen Lord (Rom. 8:11). No longer will our bodies be subject to decay, sickness, disease, or death (Rev. 21:4). They will be made perfect, in accordance with the pattern of the glorified body of Christ (1 Cor. 15:20, 23).
We have spoken of glorification as the culmination of our personal salvation. But as we will see in chapter 12, it is actually an experience that we will share together. The doorway to glorification is the resurrection of all believers at the end of the age. We will share in this event only insofar as we are united with Christ, only as we are participants in the one body of Christ. Indeed, all who are united with him will share together in the resurrection. And all who are his will be conformed together to his likeness. Likewise, the resurrection does not usher us into a life of isolation. Instead, it brings us to enjoy an eternal fellowship with God, the people of God, and the new creation.
In short, conformity to Christ means sharing with him in the fellowship he enjoys, that perfect eternal community for which we were created and toward which even now God is directing his saving activity. What a glorious thought! How we long for that day! How we cry out with the church in the book of Revelation, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
How Can We Be Certain That We Will Be Glorified?
The New Testament writers had no doubts about our future glorification. So certain was Paul, for example, that he spoke of it as if it were a past event: “those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29–30).
The Bible gives us two irrefutable reasons why we can share Paul’s certainty.
We know that we will be glorified because God is keeping our inheritance—full salvation—for us until that great day (1 Pet. 1:3–5). And where is this great treasure? In heaven with God, which is the only location where it is completely secure. As Jesus said, in heaven our treasure is secure both from corruption and from robbers (Matt. 6:19–21).
But how do we know this? How do we know there is a treasure—salvation—awaiting us in heaven? To answer the question, we need look no further than the Holy Spirit. God has given us the Holy Spirit. And this Spirit is God’s pledge guaranteeing our final salvation (2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:13; 4:30). The Spirit who is now present within us will accomplish the final transformation of God’s people at Jesus’s return (Rom. 8:11, 13–17).
We know that we will be glorified because God is keeping us unto that great day. But how do we know this? Here again, we do well to look to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is God at work facilitating the divine project every step of the way. And we can trust God’s Spirit to complete his work. As Paul confidently declared, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).
This divine project includes God’s defense of his own. Like an army sent to defend an envoy traversing hostile territory, God has garrisoned divine power—the Holy Spirit—around our lives. The Spirit’s presence guarantees that though we will travel through a hostile world, we will arrive safely in our eternal home. Therefore, Peter speaks of us as those “who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).
Knowing this, we are indeed led to sing with John Newton: “Amazing grace!”
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.17
Mastering the Material
Having Read This Chapter, You Should Know:
For Connection and Application