by Tim | Jul 1, 2010 | God, The Gospel |
I’ve always said yes. Why? Because not everyone can recall a “crisis” moment of salvation where they can point back and say, “That’s when I became born again.” That’s because humans don’t usually make instantaneous decisions–the vast majority of our decisions come about through various lengthy processes. Unfortunately, I realize more fully today that I have often equated conversion as merely “when a person makes their decision to surrender to Christ,” and that is why I’ve considered the conversion of a soul to sometimes transpire as a process. But that’s because I’ve been one of those Arminians Gone Wild who often finds themselves reducing conversion to the un-supernatural realm of persons merely making a decision. And it’s true, many decisions we make in life are indeed not “crisis” decisions–many happen more as a process. So if we focus on conversion simply as a decision humans make to believe in Jesus, it’s obvious that we will conclude that conversion often happens over time as a process, with no definable crisis moment. Yet, today I’m reminded that conversion isn’t defined by a decision we humans make, so I must qualify my answer. According to the Bible, when we are born again, we become inhabited by the Holy Spirit. This is something God miraculously does–He converts us by giving us His Holy Spirit, we don’t slowly convert ourselves as we make this decision over time. There is no other way to understand God’s part in this process, except that it should occur in a precise moment in time–where at some specific moment, the Holy Spirit inhabits us and we become spiritually reborn....
