Conversion Experiences of Great Leaders

It is the minister's prerogative and duty to preach on conversion—whatever is understood by that term.

DANIEL WALTHER, Professor ot Church History, Potomac University

A young minister trained by Spurgeon came to see the great preacher. "I haven't had a conversion as the result of my ministry for months," he wailed. "But surely," remarked Spur­geon, "you don't expect con­versions every time you preach, do you?" "Why no," said the young man. "Then that's why you don't get them," replied Spur­geon.

It is the minister's prerogative and duty to preach on conversion—whatever is understood by that term. Either he expects an individual to understand and accept the teachings of the threefold message or, if baptized, to pray for and insist on heart conversion if that experience has not yet taken place.

As any minister knows, the acceptance of the message for these times and the conversion experience, which is a change of heart, of thoughts, and purposes, are not simultaneous experiences.

The preacher is expected to think of and work for others, but what about himself? What about his daily experience in the light of Paul's statement "I die daily"?

In the wild frontier days of America, when revivalism swept the colonies like a "spiritual hurricane" the preachers tried to convert each other. Thus Gilbert Tennent preached on "the dangers of an unconverted ministry," de­nouncing in harsh terms his fellow preachers as "plastered hypocrites" resembling the Phar­isees of Christ's day "as one crow does another."

Christian ministers and leaders throughout the ages have wrestled with the conversion problem. In the last resort (and to begin with) the preacher has to be concerned about his own salvation, the forgiveness of his sins, his temptations, and his relationship with his Sav­iour. He may be so wrapped up in clerical professionalism that he loses sight of his own salvation, which he takes for granted. Let us observe some of the great church leaders as they wrestle with themselves.

Augustine tells of his conversions in his Con­fessiones. It is the recital of the restless strug­gle of an uneasy soul that tries to escape God, knowing all the while that God, though un­seen, is unescapable. In the first paragraph he speaks about the restlessness of his heart in the often-quoted words: "My heart is restless until it finds rest in Thee." After having meandered through many experiences that led him through philosophical schools and heretical sects, finally, at the age of thirty-two, he was converted, as he writes, when he heard a child's voice saying, "Take and read." The passage that finally caused him to make the decision was Romans 13:13, 14: "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof."

Quite different was the conversion experience of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). Endowed with one of the keenest of minds, he was one of the most creative scientists of all time. At twenty-three he came in contact with the writings of the Jansenists who had revived St. Augustine's theology of grace—as opposed to the teaching of the Jesuits. That discovery was his "first" conversion. Eight years later he visited his sister Jacqueline at Port Royal (the center of Jansen­ism, near Paris) and there experienced his "second" conversion; he termed it a mystical experience. Yet Pascal was no mystic; but what may be termed a "mystical experience," in the favorable sense, happens to many who are not mystics. Later he wrote: "Some imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God which is like a business transaction. . . True religion consists in annihilating self before that Universal Being Whom we have so often pro­voked."—Pensees, No. 470.

Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), who founded the Herrnhuter movement in Bo­hemia and reinvigorated the Moravian brother­hood, was said to have been converted at the age of nineteen while beholding a painting by Domenico Fetti. This is what he wrote in his diary at that time: "Among the hundreds of beautiful paintings of the gallery at Diissel­dorf there was one entitled 'Ecce Homo' which retained my complete attention. The feeling of it was incomprehensibly well expressed in the Latin legend: 'This is what I have done for thee; what hast thou done for me?' . . . (May 22, 1719)."

Martin Luther passed through various stages in his evangelical development. The first "shock" came to him in 1505 (he was then twenty-two years old) , when he was overcome by a thunderstorm. It was that experience that caused him to enter the monastery. "I became frightened by a flash of lightning and said 'llelp me, dear Saint Anne. I wish to become a monk.' Later I repented of my vow . . . but I persevered." And he spoke of this event sev­eral times and insisted: "I made a vow not for the sake of the belly, but for the sake of my sal­vation."

The second event was in 1507, when he said his first mass. He was terrified at the thought that at a specific moment of the ceremony he was appearing before the awful majesty of God of whom he was afraid. And it is quite possible that this feeling so overwhelmed him that he would gladly have fled from the altar.

The third experience was the so-called Tower experience. It was in intensive study of the Bible in the quietness of the Tower that he hoped to find a merciful God. While studying he often met the evil one in tribulations, temp­tations, and doubts, until finally the light came to him with the assurance that the just shall live by faith. "It was when I discovered the difference between the law and the gospel—that they are two separate things—that I broke through."

When did that happen? D'Aubigne thinks that it was in Rome when Luther ascended Pilate's staircase that the thought flashed through his mind, "the just shall live by faith." Dean Strohl wrote that the break-through came when he prepared his lecture on Romans. Other historians also believe that the lecture on Ro­mans contains the seed and dynamite of the Reformation. Bohmer thinks that the break­through came in his Tower experience, which lasted several years.

What is actually meant by "conversion" in Luther's experience is, as usual, difficult to define. It was not a mere change of heart or a transformation in Christian living, but prima­rily the clear grasping of the truth that man is justified by faith. His conversion experience was therefore more of a theological than of a practical nature. It is primarily faith that matters, not action; it is what and how a man believes, and not what he does, that counts. This was Luther's understanding.

John Calvin's conversion experience has been an intriguing subject for the specialists. Calvin was by nature rational; by predilection he was a humanist, and by profession a jurist. His for­mation and outlook was that of a Frenchman.

Our words, our actions, our deportment, our dress, everything, should preach. Not only with our words should we speak to the people, but everything pertaining to our person should be a sermon to them.—Testimonies, vol. 2, p. 618.

lie was not under princely protection as was Luther, yet Calvin was the most powerful and the clearest defender of Protestant theology, the mastermind of Protestant evangelism.

It is relatively easy to have access to Luther's thinking because he always kept "open house." The German reformer talked profusely on ev­ery conceivable topic. But Calvin's house was quite sheltered. Little is known about his own life.

The conversion experience in Calvin's life was primarily a transition from Catholicism to evangelical Protestantism. At the age of twenty-five he could have become a Catholic priest. When he was twenty-four years old he was still a Roman Catholic, outwardly, taking part in church processions. At twenty-five he renounced his Catholic ecclesiastical benefits and became a Protestant, immediately entering into an active leadership. At the age of twenty-six he published in Basel the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

However "sudden" his conversion was, to use his own expression, it is apparent that for sev­eral years before that his mind was drawn in diverse ways to religious matters.

There is nothing sentimental or emotional in Calvin's conception of conversion. He defined conversion as "a reviewing of our will, freeing us from the empire of original sin, but only gradually so that full liberty cannot be obtained in this life." Furthermore, and as is expected from him, "conversion is the work of God alone; it is a remedy of divine grace."

One of the best-known conversion experi­ences is that of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. If by conversion is meant a turning from a course of sinful living to a life of rev­erence and devotion, it cannot be said that the famous experience at Aldersgate Street, London, accurately describes Wesley's conversion. Before that event Wesley was an exemplary Christian. After the event he still had to strug­gle with himself.

When he was twenty years old he watched his actions very closely, and indicated the way he spent every hour, the friendships he had formed, the books he had read. "I began to alter the whole form of my conversation and to set in earnest upon a new life. I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retirement. I com­municated [sic] every week. I watched against all sin whether in word or deed. I began to aim at and pray for inward holiness."

That was his aim—holiness. It is surprising to see a man so devoted, thinking only of the glory of God and being so meticulously care­ful of his life, yet being so far removed in his own sight from having a genuine Christian experience. "I know that my Redeemer liveth —and that Jesus Christ the Righteous is my Lord and the propitiation for my sins. I know He has loved me. He has reconciled me, even me, to God." This indicates that he knew about Christian experience but had not necessarily entered into it, and that thought caused him to despair of his salvation.

At the age of thirty-two he decided to em­bark on a mission to the Indians of Georgia. If we are to believe Wesley himself, his main purpose in going to America was "the hope of saving his own soul." And the obvious ques­tion was asked, "Do you have to go to Georgia to save your soul? Can't you do that just as well in England?" He answered, "No, neither can I hope to obtain the same degree of holiness here which I may there." He does not indi­cate the reasons that made him think that the climate of Georgia and his contact with the Indians would be more propitious to the saving of his own soul.

During these years of spiritual growth, he often came in contact with the Moravians who seemed to point the way and give him spiritual counsel. Thus, on the shores of Georgia he was greeted by a Moravian pastor, Augustus Span­genberg, who asked him bluntly: "Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?" To this question Wesley had no answer to give. Again he was asked, "Do you know Jesus Christ?" Then he paused and said, "I know that He is the Sav­iour of the world." "That is true," said the Moravian, "but do you know He has saved you?" "I hope He has died to save me," replied Wesley.

The well-educated Oxford divine was thus given a rather rude reception on coming to America, but it revealed that he was unaware of the basic spiritual condition of his own life. He admitted that he knew the way of sal­vation, but not the experience. There was little in his early sermons about Jesus as the Re­deemer. Wesley stressed especially church for­malism, strict formality, ceremonies, and ethics.

After a stay of a little more than two years in America, he returned to England. Again he analyzed himself severely and found that after his experience in America, where he osten­sibly went to save his own soul, he thought he had failed:

"It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity, but what have I learned in the meantime? Why am I, who went to America to convert others, not converted to God?" As is the case in Augustine's Confessiones and in any self-portrait, a man's words should be read with a certain amount of caution. To this last sen­tence, questioning whether he was converted, more than thirty years later he added the words, "I am not sure of this!"

Wesley again met a Moravian, Peter Boehler, and he poured out his heart to him. It was clear to the Moravian that what bothered Wes­ley was that he tried to improve his spiritual condition by rational argument rather than by an experience. Wesley came close to throwing his entire profession overboard because he wondered how he could possibly preach to oth­ers if he did not have faith himself. But his Moravian friend said, "By no means abandon the ministry; preach faith until you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith." He was seeking heaven by a program of heavy work in the Lord's vineyard, but there was that unceasing inner distress; outwardly he was successful, but inwardly suffering martyr­dom in his own heart because of the doubts and the great chasm that separated him from his ideal of holiness.

And then the great moment came. The date —Wednesday, May 24, 1738. "I think it was about 5:00 this morning that I opened my Testament upon these words, 'There are given to us great and exceeding promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature.' Just as I went out I opened it again upon these words, 'Thou art not far from the king­dom of God.' In the afternoon I was asked to go to St. Paul's. The anthem was, 'Out of the Deep Have I Called Unto Thee, O Lord, Hear My Voice.' In the evening I went very unwill­ingly to a. society on Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epis­tle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine while he was describing the change whereby God works on the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and the assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and He saved me from the law of sin and death."

Yes, Wesley had a heart-warming conversion that made him what he was. Having received the full assurance that his sins were forgiven and that he was a child of God, he went for­ward with conviction to preach the Christ he knew. However, Wesley was human and sometimes he experienced periods of discourage­ment. Even as long as eighteen years after the Aldersgate experience he wrote a letter to his brother Charles, in which he expressed feel­ings that certainly contrasted strangely with almost everything else we know of him. He must have been passing through a difficult pe­riod, for after having said, "I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me, nor can I believe it does," he went on to question and wonder if he had ever really loved God or been truly converted.

We know that the home situation of John Wesley was very discouraging, and he doubt­less wondered at times why he, a leader of the rapidly expanding revival, should have to be the victim of such circumstances. Nevertheless, like every true child of God, Wesley refused to remain discouraged for long. Those who knew him described him as a cheerful and confident leader. Charles, his brother, evi­dently possessed the more winsome personal­ity of the two, and exerted perhaps the more steadying influence over the rapidly-growing congregations. Charles was the poet of the move­ment. His hymns breathed confidence, and many times John turned to him for counsel and encouragement. However, lest we get the impression that John was unsteady and lacked assurance in his relationship with God, all we need to do is to remember his last words spoken to friends while he lay on his death bed. With his face radiant with joy and the peace of heaven, he closed his life work with the follow­ing words: "And best of all, God is with us."

The example of influential leaders in the Christian church teaches us the importance of a deep personal religious experience. God's abundant grace is needed by the minister as much as by the individual members of the flock, and unless the shepherd takes extreme care he will not be able to furnish the type of spiritual leadership to which the flock is entitled. A minister above everyone else should know his own spiritual condition. Therefore it is wise to make an honest inventory of our personal religious experience. When Paul, admonishing one of his younger workers, said, "Take heed unto thyself." he was laying down a principle that every minister of Jesus Christ needs to heed. Only as we ourselves are strong in the Lord can we exert the influence for good that is expected of a true spiritual leader.


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DANIEL WALTHER, Professor ot Church History, Potomac University

April 1959

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