WE are familiar with Abraham’s justification. We read how that he “believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness;” but he was converted long before this declaration was made to him.
Now, it is always a matter of interest to know how people become converted, especially how those of great celebrity in divine things first apprehended the truth.
For instance, we read with intense pleasure the conversion of Luther, Bunyan, Whitfield, and others, and adore the grace that saved such men, and then qualified them for the wonderful work that characterized them. We ponder too the extraordinary conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the chief sinner, who, whilst on his blood-thirsty way to Damascus, commissioned, as he was, to imprison and kill the dear unoffending saints in that city, was arrested by a sight of the Lord Jesus, who appeared unto him in the way, and said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” a sight and a sound that completely turned this violent superstitionist from his course, to the zealous espousal of that which he had previously destroyed. Miraculous conversion indeed! This chief opponent of Jesus, now and henceforth, became his stanchest disciple.
But if Paul was, through grace, a light so bright and burning, none the less so was he of whom I write, ―Abraham, the great father of the faithful.
And how was he converted? In a manner not very dissimilar from that of Paul. “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia” (Acts 7:2).
The God of glory appeared to Saul in the way to Damascus. The same glorious Person, though not seen as the once crucified Saviour, appeared to Abraham in far-distant Mesopotamia. This appearing produced his conversion.
At this time the world was sunk in idolatry. The flood which, four hundred years earlier, had swept all but eight human beings off the earth’s guilty surface, had not swept sin out of the hearts of the eight survivors, nor, therefore, from their successors. Indeed, sin became, if possible, more flagrant, and the worship of false gods readily usurped that of the true. Of this awful sin Abraham’s family was guilty (see Josh. 24:2). The judgment of the deluge failed in teaching the truth of God’s abhorrence of sin. Ah! when will man learn the lesson of wisdom?
But the grace that dealt with Abel, Enoch, &c., and that saved the eight from the flood, could not be restrained now; and hence the God of glory appeared to Abraham. Bursting in upon that scene of dark idolatry, and eclipsing, by the splendor of His grace, all the pride of Mesopotamia, did the God of glory thus disclose Himself to Abraham. Further, He deigned to speak to Abraham. Marvelous condescension! And what did He say? Ah! He made use of the very word which, of all others, sounds the sweetest in the sinner’s ear, ― “Come,” said He, “come into the land which I shall show thee?”
True, he had to abandon “his country, his kindred, and his father’s house,”―for the call of God was then, as it is now, separative and sanctifying; but before he assumed the pilgrim life, he had seen the God of glory; and before forsaking his natural and evil associations, he had the promise of the land. Quite enough. God for the present, and both God and the land for the future, and Abraham’s heart was won!
God winning my heart, is conversion; God forgiving my sins, is justification. Both are the fruit of faith, and both were true in principle in Abraham. His heart was fully won by this revelation; and then, long afterward, when God promised him a son, he believed, whereupon he was justified.
“But what has this to do with me?” some reader may say. “I am not an idolater, like Abraham, nor the chief sinner like Saul. Do I need to be converted, whose birth is of a Christian land, and character of moral stamp?” Yes, my friend, conversion is as necessary in your case, as in that of a pagan or a prodigal. “Except ye be converted... ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”
(Matt. 18:3).
“Well, but if conversion be the winning of the heart, how can God win mine?”
He makes no revelation of Himself as of old, but He has told the story of His grace. And what a story! A Father giving His Son; that Son giving His life, bearing the judgment due; so that the guilty one should receive, by faith, all that love can give. “Hear, and your soul shall live.” This did Abraham. Let him, dear reader, be your example.
J. W. S.