Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully: The Power of Poetic Effort in the Work of George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C. S. Lewis by John Piper

Author:John Piper [Piper, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Leaders & Notable People, Religious, Christian Books & Bibles, Theology, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Religious Studies & Reference, Christian Literature & Art
Amazon: B00KCS49WK
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2014-05-14T05:00:00+00:00

The Bible makes clear that true conversion to Christ is not a merely natural event. It is not mere information, argument, emotion, and words connecting persuasively with someone’s brain and altering the way they think and feel about Jesus. True conversion is a miracle of new birth, or new creation, brought about by the Spirit of God through the message of the gospel. There is an intersection of natural and supernatural. Without the supernatural, the “natural man” would never be converted, Paul says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The only way the “natural person” can be brought to see and believe is for God to act supernaturally: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

When a rich man turned away from Jesus, he said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). When his disciples asked, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:26–27). Yes, and only possible with God. How does the New Testament say that?

When Peter confessed Christ as the Son of God, Jesus said, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

When Lydia believed on Christ, Luke explains the conversion like this: “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).

When Paul explained how unbelievers cease to be blinded by the Devil to the glory of Christ in the gospel, he said, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

When Peter explains this miracle he says that it happens through the preaching of the gospel: “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; . . . And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:23–25).

Similarly James says that the miracle of being born of God comes by the Word: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth” (James 1:18).

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