Do you have to have a conversion experience in order to be a Christian?

A couple of weeks ago I did a podcast on the fact that there's a heart behind every question, that often what seems to some, and often to me, as just an intellectual question, really has something that's deeply heartfelt behind it. The person perhaps asking about works, and salvation, or eternal security, or you fill in the blank, often isn't just trying to satisfy some intellectual curiosity. They have something that's troubling them emotionally, and existentially. Well, one of the examples I gave was of someone asking, "Do I have to have a moment? Do I have to have kind of a Damascus road experience where I was uniquely and powerfully aware of coming to Christ?"

Well, since that episode I've had some more conversations where that topic have come up and people have asked me to provide more details about that. I figured it'd be helpful for us to cover that today.

Do you have to have a moment? Do you have to have a time where you became distinctly, or let's say, powerfully aware of becoming a Christian? I'm going to say, no. You don't have to have such a moment. I want to establish a few things as we work towards an answer here. The first thing to point out is you're either a Christian or you're not. There's not a middle ground. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 1:18 Paul says, "That the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it's the power of God." One message, two groups. There's no middle ground. You're either perishing or you are being saved.

In Paul's vernacular, that would be someone who's a Christian and who's ultimately being perfected unto the time they die, and are glorified, and are with Christ. You're either a Christian or you're not.

Romans 8 says people who are in the flesh cannot please God, but if you're in the Spirit, you can please God. No middle ground. Once again, you're in the flesh or you're in the Spirit. You can't please God or you can. No middle category. The reason I'm bringing this up is to show that there's not kind of like a,” you're an almost Christian, you're a kind of Christian.” You either have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit or you haven't been. God has either taken out that heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh or he hasn't. You're either dead in your sins or you're alive in Christ. There is the reality of the fact that at some point for everyone who becomes a Christian or is a Christian, there will be a time when you were not a Christian and in the next instant you are a Christian.

When the Holy Spirit does that wonderfully transformative, glorious work on your heart and in fact, your nature, and in so many other things, that happens at a specific point in time. It's not a gradual process, it's a decisive act of the sovereignty of God. However, in spite of the fact that that is a decisive act at a point in time, our knowledge of that, our apprehension of that, may not actually line up with that event. I see nothing in scripture that leads me to believe that the Christian should expect an experience in coming to Christ.

Now, yes, in Acts at that transitionary point when the Holy Spirit has come, new people are included in the covenant. That transition and the apprehension of the Holy Spirit is marked by a sign, the speaking of tongues, and miracles, and other things at that point, but there's nothing in the text that leads us to believe this should be the norm for the Christian today.

Often also, the conversions that are described in scripture are for adults when there is a conscious shift that happens from someone who is opposed to Christ in their thinking, to someone who makes a conscious decision to submit their life to Christ, to rep…