IT is a common occurrence to hear one say of another, " What a change has taken place in his life: he is quite reformed, and is now a good Christian!”
That a great change may have taken place one will not doubt; but the question is, has it been a moral or spiritual one?
If moral, the reformed one would show a better life in many respects, turning from drunkenness to sobriety, or from a multitude of evil ways; yet such would be only morality, and the individual no nearer heaven than when in the depths of sin and degradation.
Now, many such changes one hears of, good as far as this world is concerned, but alas! of no avail for the next. To count upon such a reformation as a means of attaining to everlasting life would make heaven reached by good works; and the Scripture says, " Not of works, lest any man should boast " (Eph. 9). To rest one's eternal concerns on such a change in conduct leaves one in jeopardy every moment. This is simply REFORMATION, not SALVATION. And is it not strange that the mass of men cling to the former, and neglect or reject the latter?
It is quite possible for a person to be one of the most moral of men, and yet an infidel.
The world would speak of him as being a very good Christian. The Word of God would say the opposite.
But one may ask, “And are all the people in which such a change has taken place not Christians?”
Thank God, some are.
But how are we to know who are Christians, and who are not?
The Scripture says, “The Lord knoweth them that are His” (2 Tim. 2:19). Human beings often make a mistake, but God knows all things, and never errs. His Word tells us, "By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:20).
Now, what are these fruits? Are they merely the change in life? Certainly more than this. There mist be a confession of Christ. This is what God says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved " (Rom. 10:9).
Here are three important things: CONFESS, BELIEVE, SAVED; and they all run together.
One cannot confess or own the Saviour, except he believe in his own heart that Jesus died for him. Then follows the fact that he is a saved creature.
Note carefully that it says SAVED, not REFORMED. This is SALVATION, a far deeper and more important matter. REFORMATION is a mere change in outward life, good in its way, turning from former evil practices; but SALVATION is the being saved from the consequences of sin, so that the saved one is free from the judgment to come, has eternal life, is a child of God, has his name written in the book of life, may be quite sure of heaven, and has a peace that the world knows nothing of. The reformed one who is not a child of God, never confesses Jesus Christ.
How often do we meet with such, and never hear one word from his lips of the Saviour, not even so much as an acknowledgment of His name! Can such heartily sing,
“There is a Name we love to hear,
We love to sing its worth;
It sounds like music in our ear,
The sweetest name on earth "?
The fact is this: the reformed have a change wrought in them outwardly, as natural beings by resolution, and may be likened to the worm eaten plank, patched up and painted over, so that to the human eye it is sound. But a testing brings something to light.
Try these reformed with, “What think ye of Christ?” Then we soon learn their true state. As the worm in the plank continues its ravages till destruction comes, so sin in the natural man does its work, and at last he is left hopeless on the brink of eternity.
Now, here is where SALVATION comes in, and saves one from the awful consequences of a sinful nature. The merely reformed man cannot enter heaven; he must be born again. It was by birth that man became a natural being, and it must be by NEW BIRTH that he shall become a spiritual being. As at the natural birth one gets a sinful nature, so at the spiritual birth he gets another, a spiritual one.
Thus a child of God has two natures, one of the flesh which never loves God, no matter how reformed, and a spiritual nature which always loves God and the things concerning Him, and never loves sin. It is in this nature that the child of God serves Him. It is not that the old nature is made better.
But one may ask, “How am Ito know when I am saved, am born again, and have a spiritual nature?”
Only the Word of God can answer.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved "(Acts 16:31).
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Now, do you, anxious enquirer, believe that the wages of sin is eternal death, but that God loved you, and not willing that you should perish, gave His only Son, Jesus, to die for you, and in Himself to bear the judgment due to you, thus becoming the sacrifice for your sins, and the ransom for your soul?
You reply, Yes.
Well, then, you are saved, for God says so, and you cannot perish. You have now ever lasting life. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47).
Read those verses again, and see what He says. He is true to His word.
Before Jesus left this earth He told His disciples He would send them another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, and that He would dwell in them (John 14:17). This He has done, and Rom. 8:11 tells us that His Spirit dwells in us. The "US" are believers, for the epistle was written to believers (see chap. 1.). Again read 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14; 1 John 3:24; and 4:15. Various other passages show that the Spirit of God dwells in the saved. Now that you are saved, and have the Spirit of God, you are born again. 1 John 5:1 Says, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." You acknowledge that Jesus died for you, and He is the Christ whom God promised to be the Saviour of the world, and the Scripture says, " I, I am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Saviour " (Isa. 43:11).
This same Lord has said, “Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye MUST be born again” and He also tells us of the two births, for “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6, 7).
Thus the saved have two natures, the one of the flesh, and the other of the Spirit; and these two are opposed one to the other; but though Satan would lure men through their evil nature into sin and iniquity, would carry them to hell, yet let the redeemed thank God, that, weak and stumbling creatures though they be, they cannot now (being saved, and having the Spirit within them) be dragged thither. They have the victory over death, over the devil himself (who has the power of death) through our Lord Jesus Christ. He got the victory, and has given it to those who are His (1 Cor. 15:57).
Again: to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). The carnal mind is our evil nature, and such a mind is enmity against God, and cannot be made subject to the law of God (see Rom. 8:6, 7). With these passages before us how can the merely reformed creature, with a mind at enmity against God, be a good Christian?
Reader, he is no Christian at all, and is on the same ground, in the eyes of God, as the vilest wretch on earth. He must have SALVATION, which can only be obtained through faith IN CHRIST, trusting what He has done, and nothing else.
But, says one, “Would you say that there is no reformation in the life of a person who is saved?”
None whatever. The life of a Christian is not the old made better; but a NEW LIFE.
Reformation has in view the making of the old better, which nature was condemned long ago in the death of Christ (see Rom. 8:3).
The believer has a new life, a new nature, and by its power he is to keep the old mortified -dead; for spiritually we see ourselves in the natural man crucified with Christ, and the Scripture says, "Ye are dead" (Col. 3:3).
But when we are born again, it is not this evil nature re-born. It was on its trial long ago, found guilty, and condemned. Christ died on account of it, and He has now given the believer a new life, a spiritual one, in Himself. It is in this life, as saved creatures, we should now live. We cannot please God in the other; in this we can, and thus led by the Spirit we are sons of God (Rom. 8:14).
The believer is a new creature in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17). He is a reformed one. How true it is, though, that a great change will be seen in the creature thus born again in his new life as born of the Spirit, he will not practice the evils of his wicked nature as formerly.
There is this to remember, that having the evil nature present with him as long as he is in this body, he may through infirmity fall into error, and find himself doing that which he would not, even the very things which he hates. He recognizes this, he falls, he groans in spirit. He looks to the Saviour with sad heart to know that he has grieved that loving One, and learns from Him that it was for the sinfulness of that wicked self that He died on the cross. He speaks the word to all believers.
“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).
These failures, not willful, hut because of infirmity, humble the child of God, and he thus learns more and more of the truth of that passage, " For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing " (Rom. 7:18). He also realizes more fully what Christ has done for him, learns the worthlessness of self, and the preciousness of Jesus. When one gets, as it were, into the presence of God, and can truly say, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes " (Job 42:5, 6) then he can understand somewhat of the depths of love that God has for him, and from his own heart cry out, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name " (Psa. 103:1).
How happy is he that can thus live in the Spirit, and praise God! How miserable is he who falls into sin and grieves that loving Father! And this is the experience of the child of God. “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh" (Gal. 5:15). How often would he be found serving the flesh, if it were not for the Spirit of God dwelling in him! It is this Holy One that keeps the Christian from doing what otherwise he would.
Where, then, is boasting? Not in self, not in the natural man who receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14).
The boast of the saved should be in Christ who obtained eternal redemption for them, who dwells in them, gave them new life, His own, Eternal Life; gave them the victory over death and hell; hears their groans when through weakness they stumble; and when Satan accuses them unto the Father, Jesus, their Advocate, speaks for them. And though He cannot praise their goodness (for they have none), yet He can show the marks of the cruel nails of crucifixion in His hands and feet and the pierced side. These through all eternity tell of what He suffered for them.
When the days of stumbling are over, when the blessed One comes to take them home, He will change their vile bodies, and make them like unto His own; and then shall they sing without hindrance the praises of His name.