It is fantastically easy to smooth over a rotten heart with niceness. The world is filled with nice people who have not been born again—nice, evil people. Niceness and wickedness are not mutually exclusive. They can even be mutually reinforcing (2 Tim 3:1-5).
A converted Christian is not the same person who is now really, really nice. They are not an improved version of the same person but a new person fundamentally re-wired. The new birth does not give us a new way to satisfy our old desires. It gives us new desires.
A believer does not differ from an unbeliever like an NFL linebacker differs from an All-American college linebacker—the same innate ability, only ratcheted up to the next level. A believer differs from an unbeliever as any football player differs from a corpse (Eph 2:1, 5). A true Christian has been granted resurrection, not refinement (Eph 2:6; Col 3:1).
Friday, November 26, 2010
Resurrection, Not Refinement
Dane Ortlund:
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