Conversion

Turning to God

The commonest Old Testament word for conversion is shuv (שׁוּב), ‘to turn back, return’. The prophets called a wandering people home: "Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11). In the New Testament epistrephō (ἐπιστρέφω) says the same. Peter urged his hearers, "Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away" (Acts 3:19), and the risen Lord sent Paul to the Gentiles with this charge:

to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.

Acts 26:18

Conversion has two sides: repentance, turning from sin, and faith, turning to Christ. Luke joins them in one line: "a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord" (Acts 11:21). The Thessalonians "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Yet no one turns by their own strength alone. Ephraim prayed, "Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God" (Jeremiah 31:18). If regeneration is God giving new life within, conversion is the answering turn of the one who has received that grace.

Conversion does not end on the day one first believes. Jesus said to Peter, already his disciple, "when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). The Heidelberg Catechism treats it as the work of a lifetime:

In how many things does true repentance or conversion consist? In two things: the dying of the old man, and the quickening of the new.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 88

Many ways of turning

Church history has its famous conversions. In a garden in Milan in 386, as Augustine tells it, he heard a child's voice chanting ‘take up and read’, opened Paul's letters, and broke with his old life (see the lesson Augustine, doctor of grace). On 24 May 1738, at a meeting in Aldersgate Street where Luther's preface to Romans was being read, John Wesley wrote, "I felt my heart strangely warmed," and found that he trusted in Christ alone for salvation John Wesley, Journal.

Not every conversion is so dramatic. Saul was stopped suddenly on the Damascus road (Acts 9:3-6); Timothy had known the Scriptures "from infancy" (2 Timothy 3:15). Many believers raised in Christian homes cannot name the day they began to believe. Jonathan Edwards, sifting the experiences of the Great Awakening, taught that the truth of a conversion is shown not by the strength of feelings or the order of experiences but by holy fruit in the life Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections.

Where the traditions differ

Every tradition confesses conversion as the fruit of God's grace, but the emphasis differs. The Catholic Church sees baptism as the principal place of the first and fundamental conversion, and teaches a lifelong second conversion, to which the sacrament of penance belongs Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Orthodox churches likewise teach repentance and turning as a lifelong way. Lutheran and Reformed churches describe conversion as the repentance and faith the Spirit works through the Word, continued in daily repentance.

Since the Pietists and the Great Awakening, evangelicals have laid special weight on a personal turning to Christ. Revival preachers such as George Whitefield and D. L. Moody urged their hearers to come to Christ now, while many churches have treasured faith that grows within the family and through catechism. Some experience conversion as a clear moment, others as a long road, and Scripture shows both. Whether conversion is God's work alone or includes a response that grace enables is taken up under effectual calling and prevenient grace. See also How can I begin to believe?