Transcript

ANNOUNCER: What happens in terms of change, at the point of belief, when a person believes for eternal life? Do we instantly get new capabilities? And what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? Hello, friend. Thank you for joining us today. This is Grace in Focus. It is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Delighted to have you with us as we begin a new week of broadcasting. The Grace Evangelical Society is a focused free grace organization. Learn about us at faithalone.org. We have a free magazine we want to send you. It is also called Grace in Focus. Get the details on that and we also want you to know about our upcoming national annual conference. It’s held in May each year. This year the dates are May 18th through the 21st. Get all the details, get registered at faithalone.org/events. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right Bob, we’ve got a question from Ruth, primarily dealing with 2 Corinthians 5:17. She gives a little bit of background about, she was talking to a friend and explaining that when someone believes in Jesus for eternal life, there’s various things that happen. And so the first that she mentions is when someone believes they immediately receive the Holy Spirit, but then she said she also told this person, I believe there is a change within a person once he believes, based on 2 Corinthians 5:17, which says whoever is in Christ is a new creature. And so she’s asking about that second point. Is she correct in saying that the moment someone believes in Christ for everlasting life, they do receive the Holy Spirit. Are they immediately a new creation?

BOB: Okay, very good question, Ruth. Well, Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder of Dallas Seminary, famously said there were 33 things that happened the moment we believe in Christ. And as she said, Dr. Chafer said, one of them is we’re permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit. Another thing is we’re regenerated, given eternal life. Another one is we’re justified, we’re declared righteous by God. Another thing is we gain citizenship in heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven. We become a child of God, right? There’s a whole series of 33 things. I don’t totally agree with all 33 of his points, but it’s a large number. 

I have a problem with Ruth’s second one, and that is change of life. The implication made by that is if you are born again, then you are different. Your life is different. And what this leads to, a misunderstanding of 2 Corinthians 5:17 leads to people not knowing their eternal destiny. Why would that be Sam? Why would someone, if they misunderstand, well, maybe you first should read 2 Corinthians 5:17? 

SAM: Yeah, it says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 

BOB: Now, how could that lead somebody to doubt their salvation? 

SAM: Well, if you are an unbeliever and then someone evangelizes you and you believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life, and then you wake up the next day and you don’t feel very different, you might start to think, well, did I really believe or was it just a feeling?BOB:Okay. Yeah, say, for example, a person’s an alcoholic and they come to faith Sunday morning and Sunday night they get drunk again. Well, Monday morning when they wake up with a hangover, might they think, wow, I don’t seem to have changed much. And somebody told me that if I’m in Christ, old things have passed away, all things have become new. All things aren’t new for me. I got drunk again on Sunday night. 

The same thing could be true if a person has an issue with anger, if a person has an issue with immorality, whatever it is, if they have some besetting sin, they have come to faith, and now someone says, wait a minute, if you’re truly in Christ, then your life changes, well, then you’re going to say, oops, I guess I didn’t really believe, which means, of course, that you’ve stopped believing what you believed before, right? Because before, you just thought it was a matter of believing in Jesus. There was no magic way to believe in Jesus. But now it’s like, oh, if you really believe—

Let me tell you a story I had, Sam, when I went to a Baptist church to speak, I was a guest speaker. I think this was Sunday school class. I was talking about this passage and someone in the class raised the view that that guarantees that everything has changed in your life. I said, no, I don’t think that’s the correct understanding of the verse. And before I got very far this one guy in the class said, you know, I’m recovering alcoholic. He said, I haven’t been drunk in five years. But he said, I have a desire to drink every day. And if I thought that somehow becoming a Christian meant that instantly I was changed, I would say, I guess I’m not born again, because it took me a long time to quit drinking after I came to faith. And I struggle with that on a daily basis. I have to daily decide not to drink. It’s a day by day experience. And he said, everything didn’t become new for me all at once. 

And what’s interesting, if you have a New King James there, Sam, do you notice that it says, if anyone is in Christ, the words “he is” are in italics, right? 

SAM: That’s right. 

BOB: Because the Greek says, “if anyone is in Christ, new creation.” I looked this up the other day. There’s something like 10 or more English translations, translate, “there is a new creation.” In fact, the Geneva Study Bible, I recall looking at it and it understands this as “there is a new creation.” “Old things have passed away, all things have become new,” doesn’t mean your life is instantly transformed. If that was the case, then we wouldn’t need growth, would we? We’d just instantly be mature in the faith. What did you see what he says after that? What does he say in the next couple of verses? 

SAM: “Now, all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” 

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BOB: “We are beseeching people on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.” So we know there’s a whole lot of people in this world who have not been reconciled to God. That’s a new world. But go to the preceding context. Doesn’t it say we recognize no man according to flesh any longer? 

SAM: Yeah, verse 16. “Therefore from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.” 

BOB: So what he’s saying is, our new world that we’re in, before we thought everybody was the same. Now we realize there’s two types of humans, those with eternal life and those without eternal life. And we now realize that all the people around us who have eternal life are our brothers and sisters in Christ and we don’t recognize them in a fleshly way. We don’t say, well, that’s a poor person or that’s a Jewish person. That’s a person who’s Eastern European or whatever. We don’t really care about their ethnicity or their language or anything else because they’re our brother or sister in Christ. We have an affinity to them. We’re part of the same family and the whole world has changed because we realize that the people who are not our brothers and sisters in Christ are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire if they don’t come to faith before they die. So then we become ambassadors for Christ. We’re beseeching people to be reconciled to God. And so we’re part of a whole new structure in which we don’t view people in a fleshly way anymore. 

Now, having said that, that’s not an automatic. A lot of people, when they come to faith in Christ, they need to understand the ramifications of what has happened. They need to be taught that we don’t look at people the way we used to look at them anymore because we’re now part of a new world—since I’m a believer and you’re a believer, we’re brothers in Christ. And so everything changes because we’re part of a new world.

The point is, although we’re part of a new world order that new world order isn’t here yet. Remember, it’s when Jesus returns, then it’s going to be inaugurated. So even though we know that the people in this world who are believers are brothers and sisters and the others aren’t, we also know we’re not in the kingdom now. 

SAM: And I think this passage, what it’s dealing with is more on the sanctification side, right? Because this is about becoming more Christ-like, having the mind of Christ, but we know from Paul’s writings, that’s not an instant thing because to my knowledge, there’s not ever going to be a point in your life where you finally, it clicks and you’re like, okay, now I understand it the way Christ does. 

BOB: Okay, that’s a good question. Yes and no. In 1 Corinthians 2:14-16, Paul talks about the spiritually-minded believer. In Greek, it’s pneumatikois. He ends by saying, the end of verse 16, “we have the mind of Christ.” “We,” meaning the spiritually-minded believers. However, he goes on to talk about the carnal believers in Corinth. They’re the sarkikois. They’re the ones who have fleshly mindsets. They see things from a fleshly perspective. And so a believer can grow to have the mind of Christ, but you are correct. We don’t have that perfectly. 

But in some limited sense, we do have the mind of Christ if we’re viewing the world through the lens of Scripture and the lens of the teaching of Jesus. But ultimately, of course, we’re going to have that fully. Then we will know fully just as we have been fully known. When we’re glorified, we’re going to know, fully doesn’t mean omniscient, but it means we’ll know everything we need to know about God’s program and plan. 

SAM: Well, before we wrap up, Bob, I want to bring it back to her question again. Her first point, spot on, when someone believes in Christ for everlasting life, they receive the Holy Spirit. 

BOB: Yes. 

SAM: Two, where she says there’s a change within a person, the fact that we have the Holy Spirit in us is what gives us the opportunity to be spiritually-minded, have the mind of Christ. 

BOB: Yes. 

SAM: So in that sense, there is a change because when you were dead, that wasn’t possible. You couldn’t have the mind of Christ. You couldn’t start on that journey of sanctification, before you have life. Now that you have been reborn, you have life, you have the Spirit in you. That’s what allows us to start on that journey. So it’s not guaranteed. It’s not an automatic, but it is still a change within a believer because that wasn’t possible for you before. 

BOB: Excellent. We have new capabilities. We didn’t have that before. We have it now. And so we now, like Peter says, God has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness. So at the moment of regeneration, we have what we need to follow Christ to grow and mature and to become a spiritual believer. 

But as you said, it’s not an automatic. It’s not instantaneous. And once we attain spiritual status, it doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed we’ll stay there. I’m concerned all the time that I don’t fall away because I know that that’s a danger. And you’ve seen in the news about lots of people in ministry who’ve fallen away. So it’s vital that we apply what God has given us, that we do utilize our capabilities. 

Well, great question, Bruce, and thank you, Sam, for your comments. And let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: is 1 John 1:9 evangelistic? Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.