Where Life Begins

Where Life Begins

Oswald Chamber’s daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, is my favorite.  In today’s Oswald notes, “We trample the blood of the Son of God under foot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins… Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The Atonement is a propitiation whereby God – through the death of Jesus – makes an unholy man holy.”

What Oswald is saying is that confrontation precedes conviction; and conviction always precedes conversion. None of them ever come “because we are sorry for our sins.”  God can do nothing with unregenerate people who merely experience fleeting feelings of sorrow – no matter how intense or seemingly authentic.

God understands the eternal void between fleeting human feelings of sorrow and authentic repentance. We are LITERALLY dead in our trespass/sin against God. We may be sorry that we were ‘caught,’ maybe sorry that sin ‘caught up to us,’ or maybe sorry that we have to deal with the consequences – but apart from divine intervention we are incapable of being convicted and true repentance.

In our culture today we often think of the term ‘convicted’ as an outward thing.  We’ll hear something like, “That person was convicted of a crime by a jury of their peers and sentenced to _____ years in prison.”

That notion of external synthetic conviction is very different from the biblical concept, i.e. the reality of true conviction. A judge and/or jury may determine someone’s guilt, but authentic conviction must come from God – and within.  Judges, juries, and prison do nothing to change the wayward course of humanity’s internal systemic corruption.

Prison may serve as a deterrent for some, but it simultaneously serves as motivation for craftiness, invention, ingenuity, opportunity, and fortune for others.  The idea that ‘time served,’ while saturated in an environment rank with hatred and violence – as a means of correction or rehabilitation – is comedic and futile.

Prior to becoming the great missionary who brought the gospel (Greek - εὐαγγέλιον), or Good News, to virtually the entire ‘known world’ – the Apostle Paul was a murderous zealot for Judaism known as Saul.  In Acts chapter 9 we read that Saul went to the High Priest. Saul wanted permission to go to Damascus, “so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” On his way to persecute, murder, and imprison followers of Jesus - Saul encountered the resurrected Christ who said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 

In churchy-culture we often say “Saul was converted on the road to Damascus,” but that’s not what the Bible teaches.  Saul was confronted on the road to Damascus, but he wasn’t convicted or converted until Ananias came and laid his hands on Saul, who was then “filled with the Holy Spirit.”

The resurrected Christ confronts us with our disobedience and sin, but conviction and conversion happen through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  “Ananias said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you might receive sight (CONVICTION) and be filled with the Holy Spirit (CONVERSION).’ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes (CONVICTION), and he could see too. And rising up he was baptized (CONVERSION).”

If Saul had been convicted and converted on the road to Damascus, then the Holy Spirit would have come right then and there – and he would have been baptized right then.  Saul wasn’t CONVICTED until “something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes.” That’s what CONVICTION is like – it hits you like a tidal wave of guilt and humility – and the truth of who God is radically alters the way you see EVERYTHING… it’s like scales falling from your eyes.  Conviction is the gracious and merciful work of the Holy Spirit, which unveils, discloses, exposes, and reveals.

We are not forgiven on the basis of our feelings of sorrow and remorse. We are forgiven based on the Cross of Christ and that ALONE.  People are confronted with the reality of the Cross of Christ every day – yet well intending Christians frequently convince them “as long as you’re sorry God loves and forgives you,” and in doing so we interfere in a divine relationship.

If you want to help people to be reconciled with God – then do not steer them to feelings of sorrow or personal piety, but to the Cross and the Good News.  That’s why Paul said, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).

Christ confronts through the Cross.

The Holy Spirit convicts and converts.

Have you ever experienced the falling of scales from your eyes and been radically overwhelmed by how you could have been so “blind,” lost, and deceived?  If not, dwell upon the Cross of Christ and ask Jesus to confront you with your sin in light of what He has done for you.

Mere feelings of sorrow accomplish no eternal dividends.

Unless you are confronted first, there can be no conviction or conversion, thus no treasure in heaven, no reconciliation, and no life with God.

Ask Jesus to confront you with your sin in light of the Cross and who Jesus is.

That, my brothers and sisters, is where life begins.

Blessings,

-Kevin