This is a lightly edited transcript of what I actually said when I delivered this message at Spring Creek Bible Church on October 14, 2012, as part of the Ordo Salutis series. It differs from what I planned to say; for the prepared text, see the manuscript.
I’m grateful for the chance to speak to you tonight on the doctrine of conversion. Conversion comes fourth in the ordo salutis, the order of salvation. So far in this series we’ve heard about election (God’s choice in eternity past to save us), calling (God’s summons in time to faith), and regeneration (God awakening us and granting us the ability to repent and believe). Now we come to conversion—our response in time to God’s work within us—followed later by justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification. Notice that conversion is the first item in the list where God is no longer the subject. Up to now it’s all been God acting—God elects, calls, regenerates—but here, though God is behind it all, we become active: it is we who repent and believe. God doesn’t repent or believe on our behalf.
Conversion can be defined as the first spiritually conscious act of the sinner—the first fruit and sign of regeneration. It’s the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” You can’t answer that with “be regenerated” or “be elected” or “be called”—those are God’s acts; conversion is our response. And conversion has two components: repentance and faith. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 85) asks what God requires of us that we may escape his wrath, and answers: “faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means.” Five New Testament passages tie faith and repentance together: “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15); John’s baptism of repentance, “telling the people to believe” in Jesus (Acts 19:4); Jesus sending Paul to turn people “from darkness to light…that they may receive forgiveness…by faith” (Acts 26:18); “repentance toward God and…faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21); and “repentance from dead works and…faith toward God” (Hebrews 6:1). (For deeper study, I’d recommend John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied and Michael Barrett’s Complete in Him, and—read with discernment—the essay collection Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation.)
Defining Our Terms
These terms aren’t defined identically by everyone. The most common approach—and the best—treats conversion as the umbrella term, under which stand repentance and faith, often described as two sides of the same coin: wherever you have one, you necessarily have the other. Conversion is a theological term much like “Trinity”—you won’t find the word much in the Bible (only Acts 15:3, “the conversion of the Gentiles”), yet the concept is everywhere. People sometimes use it broadly for all of salvation, or even for the ongoing transformation up to glorification, but I’ll use it mainly for the point-in-time event in which we are turned from sin and put our faith in the Savior—“the act of turning from sin and self toward God through Jesus Christ.”
Repentance is often thought of as merely negative—a turning away—but it’s both negative and positive: a turning from and a turning unto. We turn “from these vain things to a living God” (Acts 14:15), “from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18), “to God from idols” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 87) calls it “a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin…doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of…new obedience.” Three New Testament words carry the concept, each with its own emphasis: metanoia, a change of mind (“I used to think this way, now I think that way”); metamelomai, a change of affections (regret, sorrow—how you feel about your sin); and epistrephō, a change of the will (to turn, turn around). So repentance is a change of the whole inner person—mind, affections, and will—as John Murray says, “a change of mind respecting God…ourselves…sin…and…righteousness.” One key distinction: repentance is an internal change that results in a changed life, but we mustn’t equate it with obedience itself—we’re not told “obey that you may be saved,” but “repent and believe.” As Michael Horton notes, Scripture calls the change in behavior the “fruit in keeping with repentance,” not repentance itself.
Faith is primarily positive, though it includes ceasing to trust what we’ve been trusting—chiefly ourselves—and placing our trust in Christ. John Murray defines it as “receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation.” Theologians describe three components: knowledge, assent (agreement, conviction), and trust. It’s not enough to understand the gospel, or even to agree it’s true; you must go on to trust the Christ offered in it—so all three must be present. Like repentance, faith involves the whole person—mind, affections, and will. The Heidelberg Catechism calls it “a certain knowledge” of all God has revealed, joined with “an assured confidence” the Spirit works in the heart; the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon [Christ] alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.” Faith, then, is a passive receiving of what the gospel offers—not a work, but reaching out with open hands to receive the gift of Christ. As Horton says, faith is “extrospective”—the opposite of introspective; it looks outside itself to Christ. Or Murray: “the special character of faith is that it looks away from itself and finds its whole interest and object in Christ.” We can grow so introspective—examining our own hearts, which is right to do—that we forget what faith is meant to look at. Faith looks away to Christ and is preoccupied with him.
The Biblical Data
Though the word “conversion” is rare, the concept fills the New Testament, and several clear examples come to mind. Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 is the most famous—an instantaneous, dramatic change as Christ confronts him. The Ethiopian eunuch believed and was baptized (Acts 8); Cornelius, already devout but never having heard the gospel, believed when it came to him (Acts 10); of Lydia it says “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention” (Acts 16)—regeneration issuing in repentance and faith; and the Philippian jailer, on the verge of suicide, was converted with his household (Acts 16). One thing to note: Scripture often shows conversion as a crisis, a drastic change in a short time—but that’s not always how God works. Not everyone has a Paul-like experience; for some, especially those who grew up hearing the gospel, it’s a slow, gradual transition. There’s still a point at which God regenerates the heart and turns artificial faith into real faith, but it may not be obvious from the outside—so be careful not to judge your own salvation by someone else’s.
On repentance, three propositions. First, it’s a universal obligation: “repentance…should be proclaimed…to all nations” (Luke 24:47), and God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30)—you can’t preach the gospel without preaching repentance. Second, it’s a gracious gift of God: since we’re dead in sin and can’t bring ourselves to God, he grants it—God exalted Christ “to give repentance to Israel” (Acts 5:31), “granted repentance that leads to life” to the Gentiles (Acts 11:18), and “may perhaps grant them repentance” (2 Timothy 2:25); I believe he gives it through regeneration. Third, it results in salvation—“repent…that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19), repentance tied to forgiveness and to life (Acts 5:31; 11:18). On faith, two of the same points. It’s a gracious gift: “the Lord opened her heart” (Acts 16:14); some “believed through grace” (Acts 18:27); we’re saved “by grace…through faith, and this not your own doing” (Ephesians 2:8–9); and “it has been granted to you…to believe” (Philippians 1:29). And it’s necessary and unto salvation: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31); the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16; cf. 10:9–10).
Two clarifications about faith. Murray rightly stresses that saving faith is not the belief that we have been saved, but trust in Christ in order that we might be saved: “the faith of which we are now speaking is not the belief that we have been saved, but trust in Christ in order that we may be saved.” The gospel offer isn’t restricted to those already sure of their election; we come as lost sinners. This matters, because when we start dwelling on election and definite atonement, we can wonder, “May I really invite sinners to believe?” Yes—because faith isn’t a conviction that I’m already elect or already saved; that assurance comes after we repent and believe. Second, there’s a faith that does not save. In John 8, Jesus speaks to Jews who “believed in him” (v. 31), and a few verses later tells the same group, “You are of your father the devil” (v. 44)—a vivid illustration that one can have a kind of faith in Jesus that falls short of saving faith. And, as with repentance, faith must be distinguished from its fruits: James says faith without works is dead, and a living faith is active in obedience—but obedience, though inseparable from faith, is not the same as faith. We must guard sola fide, faith alone, from letting works creep in as a condition of salvation.
Two Questions
First, which comes first—repentance or faith? I led with repentance because that’s the order Scripture usually gives (“repent and believe the gospel”). Reformed writers often emphasize faith first to guard salvation from works, since repentance can seem work-like. But John Murray gets it right: “It is an unnecessary question, and the insistence that one is prior to the other is futile. There is no priority. The faith that is unto salvation is a penitent faith, and the repentance that is unto life is a believing repentance.” If repentance and faith are two sides of one coin and I toss you the coin, which side did I give you first? You caught the whole thing. Second, is repentance for Christians, or only for becoming one? Some read Hebrews 6:1—“leave…the foundation of repentance…and faith”—to mean we move beyond them; but that’s not the point. Repentance is often in the present tense, marking it as ongoing; and the strongest evidence is the risen Christ’s repeated command to the churches in Revelation 2–3: “Repent, repent, repent”—spoken to congregations that surely included regenerate believers. Repentance is a lifelong grace.
Application
First, not all conversions are alike. As Morton Smith notes, a conversion “may be marked by a sharp crisis,” as with Paul, or it “may be a gradual matter,” as with John the Baptist, under the Spirit’s influence from the womb. I’ve sat under preaching that almost makes you doubt your salvation if you haven’t had a dramatic, Paul-like experience—don’t fall into that trap. For assurance, Scripture doesn’t instruct you to look back and evaluate your conversion experience; it points you to your life today: Is there genuine faith in Christ now? Are you daily turning from sin to the Savior? Are there works of obedience and fruit? Honestly, I don’t even know precisely when I was converted—I professed faith young, but it wasn’t until my high school years that I really came alive to God’s Word—and I can’t neatly parse when God did which work. What I know is that his Spirit is within me producing repentance, faith, love, and obedience, and those assure my heart. If you have a “Christian birthday” written in your Bible, wonderful—but be careful of over-relying on it. To know whether you’re alive, you don’t dig up your birth certificate; you check for signs of life.
On repentance: it’s more than a change of mind—it engages the affections and the will. Are you feeling genuine grief over your sin? Do you hate what it does to God and his glory? If we’re honest, we don’t feel badly enough about our sin. So pray that God would grant you deeper contrition; bathe yourself in his Word, where his holiness and your sinfulness confront you; and keep short accounts with God, as the Puritans urged—unconfessed sin hardens the heart (Hebrews 3), and the longer we wait, the duller our hearts grow, so repent daily. And don’t presume upon God’s gracious gift of repentance—it’s a gift not only at conversion but all through life, and there comes a point for some where “it is impossible…to restore them again to repentance” (Hebrews 6:4–6), for those grown so hard that they’ve utterly rejected Christ. If you feel any desire to repent, repent—and thank God that you can.
Finally, on faith: it’s just as necessary after initial salvation as before—faith must continue all through the Christian life. And most important: it is not faith that saves, but Christ who saves through faith. As my former professor put it, “the object of faith determines the value of faith”—saving faith saves not because we believe but because of whom we believe; all the merit is in Christ, so even weak, imperfect faith (and ours always will be) receives a full and complete salvation, because Christ is strong and perfect. He illustrated it with a straw: the straw doesn’t give you the nourishing drink—the beverage does; the straw is only the instrument that receives it. Faith is the instrument that lays hold of Christ; in itself it has no merit. As B. B. Warfield wrote, “It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ….It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively…in the object of faith.” So we must look at Christ far more than at our own faith. We do examine ourselves to see whether we’re in the faith—but, as Robert Murray M’Cheyne loved to say, “for every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.” Look to Christ; lay hold of him. That is the very act of faith.
Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your work in our lives—for bringing us from our sinfulness, our self-trust, our dead works, unto yourself and your Son, our Savior. Thank you for granting us repentance and faith, that we might believe in him, trust him, and lay hold of all he has done. Help us to live daily in repentance and faith—turning from our sin as often as we commit it, laying hold of the Savior who died for us, and putting all our trust in him and his work, relying not one bit on our own repentance or faith as meriting anything with you. Keep us from hardening our hearts and growing dull. Continue this work in those of us who know you; and if anyone here does not yet know you—who has not truly turned from sin and placed all reliance on Jesus Christ—by your calling and regenerating work, bring about that change of heart. In Jesus’ name, amen.