I used to know a guy who had an amazing testimony of how God saved him. Everywhere he went he looked for opportunities to start conversations so he could share his testimony. That was great! The problem was that when he met fellow believers he would always ask them to share their testimony, and if (like me) they didn't have a spectacular conversion experience, or perhaps didn't remember exactly when it happened, this fellow would sometimes wonder aloud if they were really saved. Salvation happens in many ways and there are many ways to describe it. But no matter the circumstances or timing, salvation is always due to a supernatural act of God: nothing less than passing from death to life. The theological words for it are justification and regeneration. Jesus called it being born again.
At the beginning of every Christian life there stands, not a process, but a definite act of God.
That doesn not mean that every Christian can tell exactly at what moment he was justified and born again. Some Christians, indeed, are really able to give day and hour of their conversion. It is a grievous sin to ridicule the experience of such men. Sometimes, indeed, they are inclined to ignore the steps in the providence of God which prepared for the great change. But they are right on the main point. They know that when on such and such a day they kneeled in prayer they were still in their sins, and when they rose from their knees they were children of God never to be separated from Him. Such experience is a very holy thing. But on the other hand it is a mistake to demand that it should be universal. There are Christians who can give day and hour of their conversion, but the great majority do not know exactly at what moment they were saved. The effects of the act are plain, but the act itself was done in the quietness of God. Such, very often, is the experience of children brought up by Christian parents. It is not necessary that all should pass through agonies of soul before being saved; there are those to whom faith comes peacefully and easily through the nurture of Christian homes.
But however it be manifested, the beginning of the Christian life is an act of God. It is an act of God and not an act of man.
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 140-141
May your heart overflow with thanksgiving on this Lord's Day!
1 comment:
The salvation experience, and how it was supposed to manifest itself, was always discussed through my teen years and into adulthood while I attended a Baptist church. I had a very emotional, powerful conversion at the age of 17 while at summer camp, but many of my peers had quieter, even subdued experiences.
Our youth leaders advised us, rightly (imo), that the moment of transformation need not be an epic crying jag. For some, particularly those who had endured years of hopelessness and despair, such an experience was quite the dramatic scene. I look more to the eventual fruits than the spectacle versus reticence debate-faith without works is dead.
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