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CONVERSION

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 6.

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CONVERSION.

By Elder William Covert

(Concluded.)
It was the entire surrender to the mind and will of God that gave the apostle Paul such wonderful victories over sin. His greatest conquests were made possible because of the absence of self. The Lord’s message to him was, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
When the apostle learned what his condition must be, for the power of God to become effectual through him, he said, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, . . . for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 2 Cor. 12: 9, 10. Saul of Tarsus was nowhere to be found. Paul of himself, such as he once had been, had passed and gone when he wrote his epistle to the churches. He wrote of himself: “I be nothing.” “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” “Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth.” “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.” Addressing others he wrote, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus.” Rom. 6: 11.
In all this the Lord is telling man that there must be a complete cutting away from the carnal nature and a transplanting into that which is divine. The penitent sinner is represented as a wild branch desiring to bear tame fruit; that this branch may be enabled to enjoy what it desires, it is cut off from the wild tree, and grafted into a tame one. There it must live, grow, and bear fruit among its branches; but the natural life of the graft is in its new relation reversed, so that its wild nature is no more manifested in its fruits, but in this position it bears fruit like the natural branches of the cultivated tree from whence it draws its life. A similar lesson showing how the nature of Christ through conversion takes possession of the entire being of the believer, is taught in the Saviour’s parable of the vine and its branches. As the vine imparts its own life and nature to all its branches, and its usefulness is manifested in the fruits which are gathered only from the branches, so it is with Christ and those united with him. What Christ desires to be to all, can be seen in the lives of those who truly believe in him. The good deeds manifested through them are the fruits of righteousness, which have their source in the life and power of Christ abiding in their hearts. As the branch can bear fruit only when connected with the vine, so man can be righteous only when Christ works through him.
The power and nature of Christ come into the soul through abiding faith and manifest themselves through a Christlike life. The expanding of the Christian character from the life of Christ is also likened to the growing of a plant from the soil. The believer is “rooted and built up in him.” From the living words of Christ, sown in the heart, a new life springs into being, which feeds from the source and strengthens for the service and conflicts of life, as it takes on spiritual tissue and muscle. This new creature comes forth to take the place of the old man that has been crucified. The apostle states that the former man was put off because of his deceitful lusts, and the new man “is created in righteousness and true holiness.” The man put away would tell falsehoods, get angry, speak evil of his neighbor, talk of corrupt and impure things, while the new man speaks the truth, loves his neighbor as himself, is tender hearted, forgives all injuries, speaks to edify the hearers, and is filled and sealed with the Spirit of God. See Eph. 4: 22–32.
It is the privilege of the child of God to continually draw life and strength from the Life Giver, and become stronger and happier in the Lord as the days are going by. For the “path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” As every little rootlet keeps an open mouth in the soil to feed its dependent plant, so should every faculty of the mind be opened to, and draw strength from, the Living Vine, so Christ is received into the mind through faith in the life-giving word. He then scatters the ignorance, dissipates the darkness, creates light, and restores to the mind the wisdom of God. The exhortation is, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” Rom. 12: 2. The transformation renews the mind so that there is a capacity to prove, and to know what the perfect will of God is.
The new man is “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” Col. 3: 10. The knowledge given is that which is imparted of the knowledge of Christ. It was the wisdom of God which made Christ of quick understanding and unerring judgment in truth and righteousness. Isa. 11: 2–4.
It was this wisdom that qualified the apostles for their labor in the gospel, and gave them such wonderful success in their ministry. The wisdom with which they taught was not the kind of wisdom possessed by the princes of this world, but that wisdom that God ordained for man before this world was created, the kind of wisdom which the Creator knew would be for the glory of man, even before he was given a being. See 1 Cor. 2. This wisdom can be received by man only through the medium of God’s Spirit.
There is much that God wants to make known to his children which cannot be taught through the fleshly senses. The apostle says these things God reveals unto them by his Spirit: “For,” he writes, “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. . . . Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
It is not until man lets go of his dependence on his carnal senses, and permits the Spirit of God to mentally endow him, that he can be taught of the Lord, because “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
It is essential to man’s own eternal interest that he should take hold of God’s wisdom and strength; because wisdom received not from this source is sin and foolishness. But when he does take hold on the Lord, Christ is made unto him wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.
The life and the light which will then be imparted will be the divine nature. The apostle teaches that this gift of God is for the building up of the body of Christ, till there is seen a full-grown man, who fills the measure of the stature of Christ, one who has grown up in Christ in all things.
The carnal nature cannot live in the mind that is constantly studying God’s word, meditating upon its teachings, and praying in faith for the divine illumination. The character built up through such a mind will be fragrant with kindness, sweetened with meekness, solaced with gladness, and made strong by the power of God. Through the renewed life Christ manifests himself to the sinner, the poor, and the needy. Christ within the believer is still working for the sick and the discouraged as he worked for them when he walked among men eighteen hundred years ago. It is Christ’s heart yearning over the sinner that pushes the gospel worker out into the highways and the hedges to hunt for the lost. It is because Jesus still lives and rules and directs in the lives of his children that men and women can be found who will leave their homes, to labor, to pray, to teach, and to give their lives to save sinners. In doing this they are walking as he walked, and he is by their side at every step, in the heat and in the cold, in the crowded city or upon the mountain top, at the desk or in the closet, whether sick or well, young or old, sorrowing or joyful, Jesus is there. “Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
Sinner, for you in this way the Saviour is calling. He wants you to lay your heavy burden of self down at his feet, and leave it forever. Would you not prefer to have pardon full and free, instead of the load of guilt which is crushing your soul? Would you not rather have righteousness and joy than to retain your sin and anguish of heart? You are offered a lovely home and endless life without money and without price, if you will forsake vanity and death. You can have an eternal weight of glory if you are willing to part with your shame and your folly. Will you do it? Will you let go all anxiety regarding yourself, and rest wholly resigned in the hands of the Lord forever?