Say, we're glad to have you with us today for Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way. We're in a series of studies this month about the Holy Spirit. Today we'll be seeking an answer to the question, “What is the role of the Holy Spirit in conversion?”
Thank you, thank you, my friend, for inviting us into your home for Bible study IN SEARCH OF THE LORD'S WAY to become a Christian and to be one. Our program is presented by Churches of Christ all across America. We're seen and heard on this station by churches in the broadcast area of this station. Worship with us this week, will you? We'd love to have you.
This month we're studying some things about the Holy Spirit. At the end of the month they'll all be published in this little book and made available to you, free of course. If you think you'd like to have one, maybe you'd like to request it, and please do it today. That'll give us a better idea of how many thousands of them we have to have printed. So, if we can hear from you this week, we'll be glad. Our address is IN SEARCH OF THE LORD'S WAY, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. By e-mail it's SEARCHTV@AOL.COM. Our free telephone number for your use is 1-800-321-8633. Ken Helterbrand's our song leader. In case you didn't know it, he teaches music schools among churches of Christ everywhere. Since 1989 he's taught 35 such schools in 28 states. He's still at it. He'll lead us now, as we sing, then I'll be back.
There is no passage that describes the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion better than the one which we are using for our text today. It is a part of Jesus’ last conversation, or last recorded conversation I should say, with His Apostles before his departure before his crucifixion. And we will begin reading in verse 7 of the 16th chapter of the book of John. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is for your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will show you or tell you things to come.” Reading through verse 13. Now let us go to God in prayer. All mighty and all wise God, we are so thankful to you that you have revealed through the Holy Spirit you have revealed your will and your word to us, in the Bible. And that we have access to it in our own language a translation and that we can have and speak it in the English language and study it in the English language. We pray your blessings upon our study today. In the lovely name of Jesus we pray you, Amen.
You know, you have probably experienced it, every discipline has its own vocabulary. When we begin the study of a new specialty, we find ourselves running to the dictionary quite often. And the more proficient we become in that study, we can with greater ease read or hear lectures about it. Studies in religious matters are no different than that. There are certain words, which may not be in themselves religious words, but we've reserved them almost exclusively for religious use. The word "gospel" for example, literally means "good news, glad tidings, good message." It could apply to the announcement of a wedding or the birth of a baby, a report on the national economy, or the news of having made the Dean's honor roll. But to most people it's a religious word describing a certain kind of music or meeting or literature or even a religious broadcast such as this one.
"Conversion" is another such word. A good dictionary defines it as "the act of converting or being converted in any sense." "Convert" is a verb meaning "to change into another state, form or substance; to transform." We change or convert cotton that we see growing in the rows on the farms of the south into a shirt or other wearing apparel. We convert or change the raw wheat we see blowing in the wind into cereal such as you might have had for breakfast this morning. There's really no mystery about that, is there? When it's applied to man, conversion is a major change also. The big difference is that since man was created with a free will, he isn't passive, as the wheat or the cotton in the field. He possesses the power to choose about his conversion.
Well, just as there are several minor changes in the process of converting cotton into a shirt or a dress, like the ginning, the milling, the cutting and the sewing, so there are several minor changes in the conversion of man. Christ seeks to control the person from the inside outwardly, therefore, the beginning place at any real change in his life is in the heart. We must experience a change of heart in order to be truly converted to God, and that's experienced by believing in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ. However, the conversion process does not end there, any more than the cotton becomes a shirt when it passes the milling process. There must also be a change of behavior or lifestyle in a person's conversion. That's accomplished in what the Bible calls repentance. There must also be a change in a person's relationship with God, which is brought about at the point of baptism when he moves from being without Christ or outside of Christ to within Christ. It's then and there that he's reconciled to God as in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 11.
No person is completely or wholly converted until he's undergone or experienced all of those changes. You see, it's possible for a person to believe in Jesus, but never change his lifestyle. He might continue to live a life of sin and believe in Jesus. And it's possible for a person to repent, but never come by baptism into the cross of Jesus for forgiveness of sins. Many people have stopped the practice of some evil in their lives simply because it was the expedient thing to do, health reasons or economic reasons, not because God said to do it, but for these other reasons, maybe even some social reasons.
Well, the question before us today is, what is the role of the Holy Spirit in all this? There's never been any controversy over the fact that the Holy Spirit is a real and active and powerful influence in bringing about all these changes. There has never been a true conversion to Christ since the events of the Day of Pentecost ushered in the Christian era in which the Holy Spirit was not active. But, how He accomplishes those changes in a person's life haven't always been clear with lots of people. Let's see what we can learn from the scriptures about that. Ok?
No single passage so nearly perfectly defines this ministry of the Holy Spirit as John chapter 16 verses 7-14, which we read awhile ago. Here the Savior was preparing His apostles for His departure from among them. And He promised not to leave them without a Helper. He would send the Holy Spirit to be a helper. There are four things the Holy Spirit would do to help them: number one, He would abide with and comfort the disciples; He would reveal all truth to them; number 3, He would glorify the Son, number 4, He would convict the world, them converted. This is our particular interest today. The Holy Spirit is going to reprove or convict the world, the unconverted person of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.
First: Jesus said, "He will "convict the world of sin... because they believe not on Me." Lost man is convicted as a sinner because of his rejection of Christ. Christ is holy and just and pure and to reject him is to oppose righteousness. Furthermore, every institution, civil, religious or other, is founded upon some fundamental fact held as truth. Christianity, the church, is founded upon the truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Matthew 16:18 When Jesus asked the apostles who they perceived Him to be, Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus pronounced a blessing on him, then promised, ". . .upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of HADES shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).
Centuries before, Isaiah had prophesied, "Thus says the Lord God, Behold I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation. A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: whoever believes will not act hastily" (Isaiah 28:16). Both Paul in Romans chapter 9 verse 33 and Peter in I Peter chapter 2 verses 5-8 reach back over the centuries, as it were, lift this passage from Isaiah s prophecy and apply it to Christ Jesus. He is the "tried stone”, He is the “sure foundation." He was tried in His death and resurrection. Had He died and revived not, "the gates of Hades" would have prevailed and Jesus would have been tried and found wanting. But now He is "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" That’s Romans chapter 1 verse 4. As Isaiah's foundation stone, He stood the test. But the world has rejected Him. And, in rejecting Him, it has rejected God. In the process of conversion, the Spirit operates on the heart of the sinner convicting him of sin in the rejection of the Savior.
He will "convict the world . . .of righteousness," said Jesus, "because I go to the Father." As the Son of God, Jesus Christ existed in the beginning with God John chapter 1 verse 1. While our Lord did not consider equality with God a prize to be grasped (Philippians 2:5-10), He repeatedly affirmed His Deity. And because of those claims the Jewish leaders demanded His crucifixion. But upon His ascension to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, His claims were vindicated. His righteousness was established forever and He reigns as King of Kings, because He was received of the Father. His throne is for ever and ever: His scepter is a scepter of righteousness (Hebrews 1:8). In the process of conversion the Holy Spirit works on the heart of the person convicting him of the righteousness of Christ because He sits at the Father's own right hand.
Jesus also promised, "He [the Holy Spirit] will convict the world of judgment because the prince of this world has been judged." After a life of "doing good", Acts chapter 10 verse 38, Jesus was betrayed into the hands of sinful men, condemned and crucified. His friends removed His body from the cross and tenderly placed it in the tomb hewn out of a rock in a nearby garden. Disappointment and sorrow filled their hearts as they wearily turned and walked away that day. Their fondest hopes had faded amid tears and gloom when the Savior dropped His head and said, "It is finished." The world had rejected its Savior.
Wicked men, believing that the "gates of Hades" had prevailed on that occasion. Satan had had his field day. But early in the morning upon the first day of the week, an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the stone from before the door of the sepulcher. The earth trembled. The soldiers became as dead men. And death yielded up her prey. The "gates of Hades" were overcome. And Satan was vanquished! Conquered! Overcome! Defeated! At the cross he'd marshaled all his forces. In the resurrection of Jesus he (the devil) suffered his eternal defeat. In conversion the Holy Spirit yields influence upon the heart of man to convict him of judgment because the prince of the world has been judged.
Thus the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion is defined: "He. . .will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment." The question now is, how does he do it? It isn't a question of power but of fact. It isn't what the Holy Spirit can do, but what the Holy Spirit does do in the conversion of a person. Confusion always enters in when we try to define the power of deity. Just so, there's no good purpose to be served by limiting the power of the Holy Spirit, by which He influences people in conversion, nor in ascribing to Him operations upon the heart of man which He plainly does not exercise.
I've studies about that for years. So far as I am able to determine there are only two possible avenues through which He may operate upon man in order to convict him of sin, righteousness and judgment. First, He might employ argumentation and persuasion. I mean, He may convict the world by presentation of evidence --by preaching. In this case He would employ the word of truth to convict the sinner. Or, He might employ physical force, physical power or force him to do so. In this case He would employ miracles, separate and apart from the word of truth. But miracles don't convert. They can only obtain a favorable hearing of the word. They were used for this purpose in the New Testament, and to confirm the preached word. In Acts chapter 8 verses 5 and 6 the Bible says, "Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did."
The miraculous appearance of our Lord to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road didn't save him. It only prepared him for a hearing the things that Ananias would tell him he must do. He was commanded to "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do"(Acts 9:6). The appearance of the angel to Cornelius didn't convert him, but it prepared him for a receptive hearing of the gospel and he was told to send to Joppa and get Peter who would tell him and his household how he was to be saved (Acts chapter 10 verses 5; and chapter 11 verse 14). And the miracle of the earthquake in Philippi set the stage for a receptive heart in the jailor, so that he heard the word of God as spoken by Paul and Silas (Acts chapter 16 verses 16-40).
Well, the idea of a direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the heart of the sinner to convert him cannot be sustained by Scriptures, friend. We must remember that Jesus had earlier in the same passasge that we are studying today in John 16, told the apostles that the world (the unconverted world) cannot receive the Holy Spirit, because they do not see him and they do not know Him (John 14:17). Therefore, according to Jesus' own words, the Holy Spirit does not come upon the sinner and by force convert him or change him. It's significant that of all the conversions recorded for us in the word of God, none of them was achieved without the preaching or the teaching of the word of God. No one since that time has ever been known to be genuinely converted to Christ without hearing and learning of Christ. God says in His word, Romans 1:16, the gospel is God’s power to save. Now let us pray. Holy Father we are thankful for the expression of your love and the revelation of your love and your message in your word. And we pray that it will have the power to convert souls today and we believe that it will, when it is really preached in sincerity and in love. Bless this study today. We pray you, in the name of Christ, Amen.
We've seen what the work of the Holy Spirit is in changing the lives of the unconverted and bringing them to salvation. According to Jesus' statement to the apostles, it is a work of convicting them of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. And, since Jesus said the world (the unconverted) cannot receive the Holy Spirit, He performs his convicting ministry by teaching and persuading. The conversion of the three thousand on the Day of Pentecost is an excellent example. Peter preached to those Jewish people the death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ. He said, "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart (they were convicted, friend. The Holy Spirit did that through the preached word.) And [they] said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, “men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit....Then those who gladly received his word were baptized." That’s Acts chapter 2 verses 36-38 and 41. Please notice, they did not receive the Holy Spirit. They received the preached word!
The idea of a miraculous, mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit in conversion, apart from the gospel, is a dangerous one, my friend. It declares the word of God as a dead letter. It makes God a respecter of persons by giving such power to some and withholding it from others. It places the responsibility for the lost on the Holy Spirit, by so doing. And it deprives man of the free exercise of his will in his salvation. And it encourages people to wait for, pray for, and anticipate a power to their salvation which God has not promised. And in their delusion and disappointment, they may forever be turned from God in disgust. Some of them I’ve known even in anger. The Holy Spirit is active, very active, in changing the lives and bringing them to Christ in this twentieth century just as He was in the first century. I hope you will yield to his powerful message and become a child of God today.
This is the second in our series of four programs on the subject of THE HOLY SPIRIT. They're printed in this little book and they're free to you. Simply write us IN SEARCH OF THE LORD'S WAY, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. By e-mail, it's SEARCHTV@AOL.COM. If you prefer, you may use our toll free telephone number and call in your request. That number is 1-800-321-8633. We're not going to send you a bill. Don’t be afraid to give us your name and address. We are not going to send anyone by your house, unless you would like for us to do so. And if you would like someone to come and study with you, like Peter did the house of Cornelius, we would be happy to send somebody by. Thanks for being with us today. God bless you. We love you. |