The Nature of True Conversion

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. MATTHEW 7:21

Having spent a book calling people to turn, Baxter spent another explaining what turning actually is — because he was convinced that a large proportion of the people in English parish churches believed themselves Christians on grounds that would not bear examination.

What conversion is not

He began by clearing away the false marks, and the list is uncomfortably current. It is not being born into a Christian family, baptised, and taught the catechism. It is not moral respectability, which many unconverted people possess in greater measure than many converted ones. It is not orthodoxy of opinion — a man may hold every article correctly and be unchanged. It is not religious feeling, however strong; Baxter had watched people weep under preaching and return to their old lives within the week. And it is not the performance of religious duty, which can be maintained for a lifetime out of habit, fear or social necessity.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? …And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. MATTHEW 7:22–23

Baxter regarded that passage as the most sobering in the Bible for religious people, on the grounds that the persons addressed are not sceptics or scandalous sinners but active and apparently successful workers.

Three things that change

His positive account is unusually clear, and it is worth learning because it gives a believer something to examine himself by that is not a feeling. Conversion, in Baxter’s analysis, is a change in three related things. A change of ultimate end. Every person is living for something — an aim which organises the rest. For the unconverted man, whatever his religion, that aim is finally himself: his comfort, his standing, his security, his pleasure. In conversion the end changes, and God takes the place the self occupied.

A change of chief good. Related but distinct. Every person has something he treats as his real happiness — the thing whose loss would ruin him. Baxter’s test was to ask what a man would be unable to live without. Conversion is the transfer of that place to God.

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. PSALM 73:25

A change of governing master. The convert has changed sides. He is no longer his own, and the will of Christ has become the authority to which disputes are referred.

To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. ACTS 26:18

God’s work and ours

Baxter held both sides firmly, and he was attacked from both directions for it. Conversion is God’s work. Nobody turns himself; the change described above is not within the reach of a will that is itself part of the problem.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. EZEKIEL 36:26

And conversion is genuinely the sinner’s act. He turns; he repents; he believes. These are not things done to a passive object, and Scripture commands them of everyone who hears. Baxter refused to resolve the tension by dropping either half, and he was impatient with those who did. To the man who said he could not turn, Baxter answered that nothing was preventing him but his own unwillingness. To the man who thought he could manage it whenever convenient, Baxter answered that he had never yet managed the smallest part of it and had better cry to God for help.

Gradual and definite

One further point, and it saves a good deal of unnecessary distress. Baxter did not require that a believer be able to name the date of his conversion. He knew that many are brought up in godly homes and cannot identify a moment, and that the work is often gradual and only recognisable afterwards. What he insisted on is that the change itself must be real and present, whatever its history. The question is not when did it happen? but has it happened? — and that question is answered by examining what a person now lives for, treats as his happiness, and obeys.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

A caution before the applications, because this chapter can wound the wrong people. Searching self-examination is medicine for the confident and poison for the fearful. Believers of tender conscience frequently fail every test they apply to themselves and conclude they are lost, while the genuinely unconverted sail through unbothered. If you are the sort of person who is already anxious about this, take the chapter gently, and read chapter fifteen before you go further.

The soil without depth

Baxter drew heavily on the parable of the sower, and particularly on the second soil, because it describes a person who looks converted and is not.

But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. MATTHEW 13:20–21

Every detail matters. The response is immediate. It is joyful — more visibly enthusiastic, often, than that of the good soil. It is genuine as far as it goes; the man is not pretending. And it does not last. The diagnosis is given in four words: no root in himself. Something happened at the surface which never reached the depth, and the plant was living on borrowed moisture. Baxter’s practical application was to warn against judging by early enthusiasm, either in others or in oneself. The most reliable evidence is time, and time cannot be hurried. He also identified what typically exposes the difference: tribulation or persecution. Trouble is the test, because a religion adopted for what it supplies — comfort, belonging, a better life — has no reason to persist once it begins to cost. The pastoral counsel that follows is patience. New believers should be received warmly and watched quietly, not promoted quickly. And a person who has fallen away is not to be written off; the parable describes what happened, not what must always happen. Roots can still go down.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask what you are actually living for — not what you would say, but what your decisions reveal. 2. Identify what you could not live without. That is your chief good, whatever your theology says. 3. Notice where you refer disputes. When your will and Christ’s conflict, which one wins in practice? 4. Do not fret over the date. Ask whether the change is present, not when it began. 5. If this examination is crushing rather than clarifying, stop, and take it to a wise believer rather than continuing alone.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have called myself a Christian on grounds I have never examined, and I would rather know the truth now than discover it too late.

Show me what I am living for. Show me what I treat as my real happiness. Show me who wins when Your will and mine collide.

If I have never truly turned, turn me. I cannot do it, and I will not pretend I can; but I am asking, which is the one thing I can do.

And if I am Yours, quiet the fear that keeps accusing me, and let me rest in what You have done. Amen.