What Is Conversion’s Role in Salvation?

If you ask most evangelical Christians to give their testimony, they will tell you the story of how they became followers of Christ. We typically identify this beginning of our Christian lives with the time of our conversion. At our conversion we willingly turn from our sin in repentance and turn to Christ in faith, resulting in our salvation. Conversion thus involves two elements, flip sides of the same coin: repentance and faith.

Repentance is our willing turn away from sin (Ps. 51; Luke 18:9–14; 2 Cor. 7:8–11). Theologians often point out that repentance has three aspects. Intellectually, our view of sin changes and we see more clearly what it is really like, how destructive it is to us, and how heinous it is in the sight of the living God. If I see sin for what it really is, it naturally follows that there will be an emotional response. I will come to hate my sin, feel sorrow for its presence and effects in my life, and want deliverance from it. This in turn is accompanied by a volitional element. I purpose to set my life in a new direction away from sin. In short, to be saved from sin, one must actually want to be saved from sin.

But saving repentance is not merely turning over a new leaf when I feel badly about my wrongdoing. Many people seek to do that; just think of our annual New Year’s resolutions. Indeed, such an endeavor is at the heart of human religion’s attempt to earn salvation. In contrast, saving repentance is inextricably bound to saving faith in Christ (Mark 1:15; Acts 20:21). For when we truly repent, our sin prompts us to turn from that sin in hope and trust to the only One who can truly deal with our problem.

Saving faith is believing and trusting in Jesus Christ for deliverance from our sin and eternal reconciliation with God (John 3:14–18; 6:35–40; Acts 13:38–39; Rom. 10:8–17). As with repentance, saving faith has three aspects. It begins with knowledge of the gospel message about Christ; one must understand who Christ is and what He has done to save us. In addition, one must believe that the gospel message about Christ is actually true. Still, knowing and believing about Christ is not enough. One must also trust oneself entirely to Christ for salvation. Consider a chair, for example. I can recognize a chair and understand that it is designed to hold me up if I sat in it. I can also believe that it would hold me up were I to sit in it. But the chair avails me nothing until I actually entrust myself to it and sit in it. Similarly, anyone who comes to Christ for salvation rests in Him alone for salvation.

But how is conversion even possible? If fallen human beings left to themselves are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), hostile to God, and unable to submit to His law (Rom. 8:7), how can they turn to Christ in faith? At this point, it might be helpful first to discuss how Calvinists answer these questions. Calvinists insist that our conversion is monergistic, that is, it is due solely to the gracious work of God in us. God does His work in us through the gospel call, the sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ through God’s people (Rom. 10:8–17). But along with proclamation of the gospel comes effective calling—God’s internal, special work of grace in the heart of God’s elect ensuring that they will respond positively to the gospel call (Rom. 8:30; 1 Cor. 1:22–31; John 6:37, 44, 64–65; Acts 16:13–15). Accompanying effective calling is regeneration. In regeneration, the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead so that they are “born again” to a new life of faith in Christ (John 3:1–8; 1 Peter 1:22–23; Eph. 2:4–5). Having been internally changed with a new heart and new affections, they necessarily and willingly turn from sin to Christ and are saved (1 John 5:1).

Non-Calvinists reject the Calvinist account of how fallen people can turn to Christ. Some maintain that sinful, fallen human beings still have the capacity in some small way to respond to the offer of salvation. More commonly, however, non-Calvinists agree that fallen human beings are unable on their own to respond to the gospel. But they deny that effective calling exists and that regeneration precedes conversion. Instead, they believe that God imparts to all human beings (or at least to all who hear the gospel) a prevenient grace that restores to them the ability to choose either to accept saving grace or to resist it. In short, they hold to synergism, the belief that conversion can only happen if the human being cooperates with God’s saving grace instead of resisting it. Regeneration then follows conversion, rather than being the basis for conversion, as it is in Calvinism.

Whether monergistic or synergistic, conversion results in radical change in the lives of new believers, for when they turn from sin to Christ in faith, they are saved.