Lord and Saviour. 2
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Conversion, then, is a turning from sin unto holiness, from self unto God, from Satan unto Christ. It is the voluntary surrendering of ourselves to the Lord Jesus, not only by consent of dependence upon His merits, but also by a willing readiness to obey Him, giving up the keys of our hearts and laying them at His feet. It is the soul declaring, "O Lord our God, others have ruled us (namely, the world, the flesh, and the Devil); but we worship you alone." (Isaiah 26:13).
Searching indeed are those words in Acts 3:26, "Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away everyone of you from his iniquities." This is Christ's mode of blessing men: converting them. However the Gospel may instruct and enlighten men, so long as they remain the slaves of sin, it has conferred upon them no eternal advantage: "Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Romans 6:16). Let us point out here that there is a very real difference between believing in the Deity of Christ and surrendering to His Lordship. There are many who are firmly persuaded that Jesus is the Son of God. They have not a doubt that He is the Maker of Heaven and earth. But that is no proof of conversion. The demons owned Him as the "Son of God" (Matt. 8:29).
What we are pressing in this article is not the mind's assent to the Godhood of Christ, but the will's yielding to His authority, so that the life is regulated by His commandments. While there must be a believing in Him, there must also be a subjecting of ourselves to Him: the one being useless without the other. As Hebrews 5:9 so plainly tells us, "He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all who obey Him." Yet in the very face of the sunlight-clear teaching of Holy Writ, intimated above, when unsaved people are concerned about (we will not say their dreadful state, but) their future destiny, and inquire, "What must we do to be saved?" the only answer they are now given is, "Accept Christ as your personal Savior," no effort being made to press upon them (as Paul did upon the Philippian jailer) the Lordship of Christ.
John 1:12 is the verse which many a blind leader of the blind glibly quotes: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." Perhaps the reader objects, "But nothing is there said about receiving Christ as Lord." Directly, no; nor is anything there said about receiving Christ "as a personal Savior"! It is a whole Christ which must be received, or none at all. Why seek to halve Him? But if the objector will carefully ponder the context of John 1:12 he will, unless blinded by prejudice, quickly discover that it is as LORD Christ is there presented, and as such must be "received" by us. In the previous verse we are told, "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." In what character does that view Him? Why, clearly, as the Owner and Master of Israel; and it was as such they "received Him not." Consider too what He does for those who do receive Him: "to them gave He power (the right or prerogative) to become the sons of God." Who but the Lord of lords is vested with authority to give unto others the title to be sons of God!
In his unregenerate state, no sinner is subject to Christ as Lord, though he may be fully convinced of and freely acknowledge His Deity, and employ the words "Lord Jesus" when referring to Him. When we say that no unregenerate person, "is subject unto Christ as Lord" we mean the His will is not the rule of life; to please, obey, honor and glorify Christ, is not the dominant aim, disposition, and striving of the heart. No, so far from this being the case, his real sentiment is "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?" (Exo. 5:2). The whole trend of his life in a saying, is, "I will not have this Man to reign over me" (Luke 19:14).
Despite all their religious pretensions, the actual attitude of the unregenerate unto God is, "Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve (be in subjection to) Him?" (Job 21:14, 15). Their conduct intimates "our lips are our own: who is Lord over us!" (Psalm 12:4). Instead of surrendering to God in Christ, every sinner "turns unto his own way" (Isaiah 53:6), living only to please self.
When the Holy Spirit convicts one of sin, He causes that person to see what SIN really is. He makes the convicted one to understand and feel that sin is rebellion against God, that it is a refusal to submit to the Lord. The Spirit causes him to recognize and realize that he has been an insurrectionist against Him who is exalted above all. He is now convicted not only of this or that sin, this or that "idol," but is brought to realize that his whole life has been a fighting against God; that he has knowingly, willfully, and constantly ignored and defiled Him, deliberately preferring and choosing to go his own way. The work of the Spirit in God's elect is not so much to show and convince each of them that they are "lost sinners" (the conscience of the natural man knows that, without any supernatural operation of the Spirit!), as it is to reveal the exceeding "sinfulness of sin" (Romans 7:13); and that, by making us to see and feel the fact that all sin is a species of spiritual anarchy, a defiance of the "Lordship" of God. Hence it is that when a man has really and truly been "convicted" by the supernatural operations of the Holy spirit, the first effect is complete and abject despair in the heart. It now appears to that one that his case is utterly hopeless. He now perceives he has sinned so grievously that it appears impossible for a righteous God to do anything but damn him for all eternity. He now sees what a fool he has been in thus heeding the voice of temptation, fighting against the Most High, and in losing his own soul. He now recalls how often God has spoken to him in the past—as a child, as a youth, as an adult, upon a bed of sickness, in the death of a loved one, in adversities—and how he refused to hearken, deliberately turning a deaf ear, and defiantly going on in his own way. He now feels that he has in truth sinned away his day of grace.
Ah, my reader, the ground must be plowed and harrowed before it is made receptive to the seed. So the heart must be prepared by these harrowing experiences, the stubborn will broken, before it is ready for the balm of the Gospel. But O how very few ever are savingly "convicted" by the Spirit! As the Spirit continues His work in the soul, plowing still deeper, revealing the hideousness and heinousness of SIN, producing a horror of and hatred for it; he next begets the beginning of hope, which issues in an earnest and diligent seeking and inquiry "What must I do to be saved?" Then it is that He who has come to earth to glorify Christ, presses upon that awakened soul the claims of His Lordship—set forth in such passages as Luke 14:26-33—and gives us to realize that Christ demands our hearts, lives, and all. Then it is He grants grace unto the quickened soul to renounce all other "lords," to turn away from all "idols" and to receive Christ as Prophet, Priest and King. And nothing but the sovereign and supernatural work of God the Spirit can bring this to pass. Surely this is self-evident. A preacher may induce a man to believe what Scripture says about his lost and undone condition, persuade him to "bow to" the Divine verdict, and then "accept Christ as his personal Savior." No man wants to go to Hell, and if he is assured that Christ stands ready as a fire escape, on the sole condition that he jump into His arms ("rest on His finished work"), thousands will do so. But a hundred preachers are unable to make an unregenerate person realize the unspeakably dreadful nature of SIN, make him feel that he has been a lifelong rebel against God, so change his heart that he now hates himself, and longs to please God and serve Christ. Only God the Spirit can bring any man to the place where he is willing to forsake every idol, cut off an hindering right hand or pluck out an offending right eye, if so be that Christ will "receive" him! Ah, a miracle of grace has been wrought when we give up ourselves to the Lord (2 Cor. 8:5) to be ruled by Him.
Before closing, let us anticipate and remove an objection. Probably some are disposed to say in reply to what has been written above, "But the exhortations addressed to the saints in the New Testament Epistles show that it is Christians, and not the unsaved, who are required to surrender to God and yield to Christ's Lordship: Romans 12:1, etc. Such a mistake, now alas so commonly made, only serves to demonstrate the gross spiritual darkness which has enveloped even "orthodox" Christendom. The exhortations of the Epistles simply signify that Christians are to continue AS they began: "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him" (Col. 2:6).
All the exhortations of the New Testament may be summed up in two words: "Come to Christ," "Abide in Him," and what is "abiding" but coming to Christ constantly—1 Peter 2:4! The saints who were exhorted as per Romans 12:1 had already been bidden to "yield" themselves "unto God" (Rom 6:13)! While we are left on earth we shall ever need such admonitions. Proof of what we have said is found in Revelation 2: the backslidden church at Ephesus was told to "Repent, and do the first works" (Rev 2:5)!
And now dear reader, a pointed question: Is Christ your Lord? Does He in deed and in truth occupy the throne of your heart? Does He actually rule your life? If not, then most certainly He is NOT your "Savior." Unless your heart has been renewed, unless grace has changed you from a lawless rebel into a loving and loyal subject, then you are yet in your sins, on the broad road that leads to destruction. May it please God, in His sovereign grace, to speak loudly to some precious souls through this article.
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