STUDY II. WHAT REALLY HAPPENS WHEN A MAN BECOMES A CHRISTIAN. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John iii. 6.) "For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace: But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Rom. viii. 6, 11.) PART 1. CONVERSION. SOME time or other a man wakes up to the fact that he is wrong, that he has lived without reference to the will of his Father, God; he deliberately makes up his mind that he will come to God and ask forgiveness; he deliberately gives himself over to a friendly attitude toward that Fatherly person; by his life and expressions he declares that he is trying to live on friendly terms with God; by the service of his life he begins to lead others into this friendly relationship—and we say he is converted. Perhaps this change in his life has been a sudden break; perhaps his former life has been openly rebellious. Then we say he has had a marvelous change. Or perhaps this change has been gradual; perhaps it has not been the changing of his direction of life, but simply his awakening, when he deliberately faces the facts, to the consciousness of a deeper meaning in the things he has been doing. Perhaps it is just a conscious and deliberate acceptance as his own of the fellowship of Christ which has always been the atmosphere of his being. In any case, it is an awakening to reality, a deliberate choosing of a life program. When a man assumes this new attitude, he is by that very fact a Christian. He has put himself into such an attitude that God is able to forgive him and take him back into his approving love. "To be converted," says Prof. William James, “to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance—are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior, and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold on religious realities.""1 In Study I. we have attempted to show that the steps by which one enters the Christian life are perfectly natural steps. Religious life is not something apart, but is the whole being going out to God, in accordance with the very laws by which we live our lives of human friendship. When one becomes a Christian (if you wish to use the word), when one becomes converted, when one deliberately puts himself into the presence of God with the desire to live the God life, something has really happened. If nothing really happens, if we are not different after we become Christians, if some new dynamic has not entered our lives-then all talk about religion is twaddle. If, however, something has actually happened, and we have a new power and a new life, every man wants this thing we call religion. If we can show that religion makes a real difference, we have made it binding for all men. In this Study let us face this question frankly. Meditation: If you are a Christian, can you tell what actually did happen in your case? If not a Christian, what are you expecting to happen? Do not be satisfied with general terms, but make your thought specific. 3 1"Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 189. STUDY II. WHAT REALLY HAPPENS WHEN A MAN BECOMES A CHRISTIAN. "Create in me a clean heart, O God; Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; And uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Ps. li. 10-12.) "Come now, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land." (Isa. i. 18, 19.) "But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." (2 Cor. v. 18-20.) PART 2. SENSE OF ESTRANGEMENT REMOVED. ONE of the most serious results of sin is the fact that it estranges the sinner from the person against whom the wrong has been committed. As soon as you have wronged or injured another you at once begin to shun him; you will walk a whole block not to meet him. It is very unpleasant to be thrown in his presence. A great barrier has been raised. This feeling of estrangement makes one afraid even to ask forgiveness. Once, when I was at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi, a fine fellow became a Christian at one of the meetings. The next morning he came to my room and threw down before me a stamped envelope addressed to his father, and asked me to write his father telling of his changed life. When asked why he did not write himself, he said that he did not feel that he could because his life had been so sinful, and he and his father had been so deeply estranged. Sin breaks up the harmony of friendship between man and God. When a man turns back and asks forgiveness, this estrangement is at once removed. The way is opened up for a genuine communion. We are so accustomed to measure the guilt of sin by its physical results that we often overlook the fact that the removal of this sense of estrangement is the most vital and fundamental result of the soul's turning from sin. The removal of estrangement at once creates in the soul of a man a feeling of oneness with God. The dawn of a God consciousness is therefore one of the fundamental results of a man's deliberate giving himself to the Christian fellowship. "When the sense of estrangement," writes Professor Lueba, "fencing man about in a narrowly limited ego breaks down, the individual finds himself 'at one with all creation.' He lives in the universal life; he and man, he and nature, he and God are one.”1 1Quoted from "Varities of Religious Experience," p. 247. |