Conversion (Christianity)

“ If truly converted men, true saints of Christ, could be guilty of sins such as were not named amongst the heathen, or could be drunk at the Lord's Table, or could cherish all that long and dreary catalogue of spiritual crimes enumerated in the Corinthian Epistles, then indeed the words true conversion have completely changed their meaning, and Christianity, instead of being the principle and fountain of a regenerate life, becomes a cloak under which all kinds of maliciousness and evil-doing may have free course and be glorified. ”

“ If Christianity grows at all, it must grow in such direction. If it do not, it will not be Christianity that grows, but something else that shall have assumed its name and usurped its place. The extension of Christianity is the extension and multiplication as it were of that which constituted Christ himself—it is the conversion of men into his image—or else it is nothing. ”

“ Such lives in the churches of mission lands are the weightiest arguments for Christianity. But conversion to Christ goes, in its influence, farther than the individual. It has a far-reaching social influence. ”

“ For that, the Holy Spirit must be invoked in order that he may develop the interior life of the church, and that this development may be rendered visible to the persecutors themselves, who hitherto see nothing in her but what is terrestrial and human. Already a certain ideal conception of Christianity exists amongst non-Catholics of England and of the United States, and puts them in the way of a more complete conversion. ”

“ Conversion to Christianity which is effected by such means produces no change in the human heart. The man remains the same, though his professed belief may vary. The circulation of the Scriptures, the distribution of religious treatises, and the preaching of the gospel, are the only means which we employ to accomplish this great design. ”

“ Conversion is to turn from the love and practice of sin, and through faith in the Son of God to the love and practice of holiness. When a man has conviction of sin, believes in, and depends on, Jesus as His Savior, he is converted, and it matters not how, when, or where. ”

“ Considerable difference of opinion has always existed, and still exists, within the Christian Church as to the true nature and the causes of conversion, especially in the sense last described. Some have held that man is merely the passive recipient of the Divine Grace, a view based largely on the rendering of the Authorized Version of Isaiah vi. ”

“ Let, then, the reformed examine strictly into their lives, as to whether they exhibit decisive proofs of a genuine conversion; of conversion, not used in its limited sense, as implying a sudden or even violent change, but in the more extended sense, of a recovery from sin, and of a full development of the Christian character:—a conversion which, in its completion, is equivalent to the renewal of the soul in righteousness; the progress of which may be, in some, so gradual, as almost to be imperceptible, but must be, in all, so certain, as to be unquestionable. ”

“ With every truly converted soul the relation to God and to eternal things will be the great topic of life. But where, in the popular churches of to-day, is the spirit of consecration to God? The converts do not renounce their pride and love of the world. They are no more willing to deny self, to take up the cross, and follow the meek and lowly Jesus, than before their conversion. Religion has become the sport of infidels and skeptics because so many who bear its name are ignorant of its principles. The power of godliness has well-nigh departed from many of the churches. ”

“ Who alone performs conversion in us? The Holy Ghost brings us to Christ, or converts us, only through the Gospel. When can the Holy Ghost not perform this work in us? What should we therefore diligently do? ”

“ Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out: all who have heretofore drawn your motives and rules of actions from the world, and not from the Book of Life—and as you value your immortal souls, consider no proofs of conversion to be depended upon, except faith in the Saviour, and reliance on His merits alone for salvation; love of God as a reconciled father in Christ Jesus our Lord, shed abroad in the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost ”

“ Upon the whole, how should we lay out ourselves with all possible concern for the conversion of sinners! It will be for the happiness and salvation of the converted; it will prevent much mischief, and the spreading and multiplying of sin in the world; it will be for the glory and honour of God; and it will mightily redound to our comfort and renown in the great day. Those that turn many to righteousness, and those who help to do so, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. ”

“ And to-night we want to get some hint of how to have this infilling, which shall also be an anointing of power and a seal of ownership and an earnest of greater things at Jesus' return.
Broken Couplings.
But perhaps some one is saying, "Have not we all received the Holy Spirit if we are christians?" Yes, that is quite true. It is the Holy Spirit's presence in us that makes us christians. His work begins at conversion. Conversion and regeneration are the two sides of the same transaction. Conversion, the human side: regeneration, the divine side. ”

“ On the other hand, all who really hate sin, mourn over it, strive against it, trust in and cling to Christ as their personal Redeemer, need no conversion. No matter whether they can tell where and when and how they were converted or not. All who know by blessed experience that they now have in their hearts the elements of penitence and faith, are in a state of conversion, and if they earnestly ask God, may have the assurance that their sins are forgiven and they are accepted in the Beloved. ”

“ I have examined, as you requested, the book entitled ‘The Higher Christian Life,’ with a view of gaining the author's definition of ‘conversion,’ or ‘regeneration,’ and his directions for securing it, and also his idea of what the ‘second conversion’consists in. His view of the first conversion, or regeneration, is the generally entertained one, i.e., it is the pardon of our sins. This pardon is instantaneous and entire. The moment a soul believes in Christ, and accepts his atonement, that moment it experiences a complete sense of pardoned sin. ”

“ We know nothing of the objective act on God's part by which he reconciled the world to himself, the very description of it being a figure of speech. Conversion is not in accordance with the claims of orthodoxy, for while there were conversions in the early Church, there is no possibility of establishing a harmony between them and those which are now said to occur. ”

“ If the Lord brings about the salvation of some, through a mighty outpouring of his Spirit, then we shall never comprehend his ways. Why is it that he does not give us one general outpouring, one grand revival all over our country, and bring about the long prayed for millennial day? Answer.—Conversion is a commandment of God. It must be obeyed or the country lie, in direct opposition to the will of God, in sin. ”

“ The first thing that the Holy Spirit has to do for every soul is to—convert—it.
He began this work at once when he came. He set the apostles to preaching Jesus Christ, and the result of the first day’s preaching was—that three thousand souls were converted.
The conversion of the soul refers to the great change which takes place when a person becomes a Christian. The word conversion is only one of several words applied to this subject in the Scriptures. Sometimes it is called being quickened, or made alive; and at other [226] times it is called being “born again.” ”

“ And this must really have always been the answer which it concerned every Christian to be able to make; although it has been in various instances, and by very opposite parties, tried to be evaded. It is evaded alike by those who set too highly the grace given in baptism, and by those who, setting this too low, direct our attention to another point in a man's life, which they call his justification or conversion. ”

“ The change we call "conversion" thus residing neither in the transfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth of ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption of Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere of action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet explored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls of men. ”

“ Third: we may see the influence of humanism upon our preaching in the relinquishment of the goal of conversion. We are preaching to educate, not to save; to instruct, not to transform. Conversion may be gradual and half-unconscious, a long and normal process under favorable inheritance and with the culture of a Christian environment. ”

“ From the fact that Jesus complains of a people that will not be converted, lest he might heal them, we would conclude from that, that conversion was a condition of the healing power. Why, says he, "They will not turn from their sins and be converted, that I may heal them." But when they are converted and grown up into one, the day of his power comes, and then says he, "They are converted, and I will heal them." ”

“ Is it not a matter of every-day experience that some long ignored principle may suddenly come, like a meteor into the atmosphere, into a man’s mind and will, may catch fire as it travels, and may explode and blow to pieces the solid habits of a lifetime? And why should not the truth concerning God’s great love in Christ, which in too sad certainty is ignored by many, flame in upon blind eyes, and change the look of everything? The New Testament doctrine of conversion asserts that it may and does. It does not insist that [294] everybody must become a Christian in the same fashion. ”

“ Of the various corollaries which might be drawn from this demonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which time and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole question between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not primarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated and proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith and morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no source of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture, interpreted and judged by reason. ”

“ The fact is, the conversion of a heathen is always a matter of wonder, if not of curiosity, to the Christian public; and it was just natural that I too was asked to tell them some vivid accounts of how "I threw my idols into the fire, and clung unto the Gospel." But mine was a more obdurate case than those of many other converts. ”

“ He shows them how sad their case was, who were not let into the meaning of the doctrine of Christ; To you it is given, but not to them. Note, It will help us to put a value upon the privileges we enjoy as disciples of Christ, to consider the deplorable state of those who want such privileges, especially that they are out of the ordinary way of conversion; lest they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. v. 12. Those only who are converted, have their sins forgiven them: and it is the misery of unconverted souls, that they lie under unpardoned guilt. ”

“ All good Christians make the will of God, not their own lusts or desires, the rule of their lives and actions. 3. True conversion makes a marvellous change in the heart and life of every one who partakes of it. It brings a man off from all his old, fashionable, and delightful lusts, and from the common ways and vices of the world, to the will of God. It alters the mind, judgment, affections, way, and conversation of every one who has experienced it. ”

“ Is an instantaneous conversion a miracle in which God is present as he is present in no change of heart less strikingly abrupt? Are there two classes of human beings, even among the apparently regenerate, of which the one class really partakes of Christ's nature while the other merely seems to do so? ”

“ I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect, the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the teachings of the Gospel of Christ. ”

“ It is the regeneration which comes about through union with Christ which constitutes the primary and most essential element in ecclesiology. “We do not stand, first of all, for restricted communion, nor for immersion as the only valid form of baptism, nor for any particular theory of Scripture, but rather for a regenerate church membership. The essence of the gospel is a new life in Christ, of which Christian experience is the outworking and Christian consciousness is the witness. Christian life is as important as conversion. Faith must show itself by works. ”

“ Nowadays, we speak of conversion with pity and amusement, but it is the greatest word the Christian Church can boast, and the Scripture miracles were long ago entombed had they not lived again in their legitimate descendants. ”

“ There is the hindrance of an abuse of the evangelical doctrine of conversion, and the idea that springs up in many hearts that if once a man has 'passed [Pg 241] from death unto life,' and has managed to get inside the door of the banqueting-hall, that is enough. And there are numbers of people in our Nonconformist communities especially, where that doctrine of conversion is most distinctly preached, whose growth is stopped by the abuse that they make of it in fancying if they have once exercised faith in Jesus Christ they may safely and sinlessly stand still. ”