The fourth mark of a healthy church that we considered on Sunday was "A Biblical Understanding of Conversion."  I said that conversion is, essentially, a change of heart.  When we trust in Christ we move from being a slave of sin to a slave of righteousness and of God.  And that change involves a change of heart.  We have new desires for righteousness.

Now, anyone who is familiar with the Lordship salvation debate will immediately recognize that this is exactly what we are dealing with.  There are those who insist salvation only requires mental assent to the truths of the Gospel of Christ.  So, in their view, it is possible to have Christ as Savior and not as Lord.  But the New Testament knows nothing of such a view.  To be saved a person must believe and repent.  We are not adding repentance as a second requirement separate from faith.  Repentance is a necessary part of saving faith.  Faith turns away from sin and trusts in Christ.  The turning away is repentance.

I honestly believe that a non-Lordship, decisionistic view of salvation is greatly responsible for the state of the church in America today.  Churches are often filled with sin because they are filled with sinners.  This is not to say that believers are not still sinners in a real sense; we still struggle with the flesh.  However, since believers are now slaves of righteousness and have the Spirit within them, we should expect a church filled with believers to bear "fruit unto sanctification," that is, the fruit of the Spirit.  When that happens, the church will look far different from the world, rather than the slightly distorted mirror-image of the world that we often see.

If you want to read more on this issue, try John MacArthur's book "The Gospel According to Jesus."