And to help you feel some of the weight that this carries, let me venture to say that, in the last 200 years, Christianity in America has been distorted, or to put it more seriously, ravaged, by the dominant teaching that decisions for God are more basic in defining a Christian than delights in God. The upshot of the dominance of this viewpoint is the emergence of thousands and thousands of professing Christians who have made decisions about God and joined churches, but have no new gladness in God — and, therefore, are not Christians.
The effort of this dominant viewpoint in American evangelicalism to define saving faith apart from the spiritual affections is biblically futile. To define saving faith apart from feelings of glad dependence, thankful trust, ferventadmiration, pleased submission, contented resting, thrilled treasuring, eagerreverence, heartfelt adoration is futile. You cannot strip away all those adjectives — glad, thankful, fervent, pleased, contented, thrilled, eager, heartfelt — from faith and have any saving faith left. What you have left is what the devil can do. Or mere oxymorons — like unthankful saving trust. But there is no such thing.
Conversion Is a Miracle
One of the reasons that this viewpoint holds so much sway over the American church is the belief that at the moment of conversion man, not God, must be in decisive, final control of whether saving faith happens. And since the view says we do have control over the decisions of our will, but we don’t have control over the affections of the heart, therefore affections of the heart are not allowed to be basic or essential to what a Christian is. For that would mean that in the moment of conversion a miracle must happen to awaken spiritual affections that don’t exist. And sinful man would lose control. The miracle-working God would have decisive, final control at the moment of conversion.
And we would have to confess the biblical truth that what we most need in the moment of conversion is not sinful, human autonomy, but the miraculous, divine gift of a new nature, with a new gladness, in a new God, through a new gospel. Which, the Bible says over and over, is what actually happens in conversion. A new nature is created with a new thankful trust, and a new fervent admiration, and a new pleased submission, and a new contented resting, and a new thrilled treasuring, and a new eager reverence, and a new heartfelt adoration. A new gladness, in a new God, through a new gospel is created by God.
Finally Alive
Sometimes it’s called a new creation:
We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. (Ephesians 2:10)If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Sometimes it’s called a new birth:
Sometimes the Bible refers to it as a divine calling:
We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23–24)
Sometimes it’s called being chosen out of the world:
You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19).
Sometimes it’s called the death of the old nature and the new life of holiness:
Our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. . . [and] as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:6, 4)
