Ask a room full of people who grew up around Christianity, “Do you know you’re a child of God?” and listen to the answers. “I hope so.” “I try to be.” “I was baptized.” “I prayed a prayer once.” Very few can say, plainly and with peace, “Yes. He has saved me.”
That should bother us. Not because we want to scare anyone, but because the Bible talks about the new birth as something real. And the men God used in the Great Awakening weren’t shy about saying so.
They expected something to happen
Historian Thomas Kidd notes that Whitefield and Edwards put the new birth at the very center of their preaching, and that this preaching is what set off the Great Awakening. He even calls the new birth the signature moment of evangelical faith (Kidd, God of Liberty, chs. 1 and 7, paraphrased).
Listen to Whitefield himself, preaching on 2 Corinthians 5:17:
“Christianity requires a thorough, real, inward Change of Heart.”
(George Whitefield, “Of our New Birth in Christ Jesus,” Sermons on Various Subjects, 1739, pp. 14–15)
He then asks whether words like “born again,” “new creatures,” and “putting off the old man” are “mere Metaphors.” His answer is no. They describe something God actually does.
And he ties our assurance right to it. The new birth, he says, is
“the only solid Foundation, whereon we can build a well-grounded Assurance of Pardon, Peace, and Happiness.”
(Whitefield, same sermon, p. 25)
Jonathan Edwards said the same thing, just as bluntly:
“if there be no great and remarkable abiding change in persons, who think they have experienced a work of conversion, vain are all their imaginations and pretences, however they may have been affected.”
(Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, Part III, sign 7, Works, 1834)
In the same paragraph he calls conversion “a great and universal change of the man, turning him from sin to God.”
Today that kind of talk is almost taboo. We worry it sounds judgmental. But notice: these men weren’t measuring people by a checklist. They were saying that when God gives new life, it’s new. Edwards describes it as
“a new inward perception or sensation of their minds, entirely different in its nature and kind from any thing that ever their minds were the subjects of before.”
(Edwards, Religious Affections, Part III, sign 1)
He explained it elsewhere with a simple picture:
“There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind.”
(Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” 1734, in Works, ed. Hickman, 1834)
Knowing about God is one thing. Tasting that He is good is another. And that taste doesn’t come from us. Edwards says that “due sense of the heart … is immediately by the Spirit of God” (same sermon).
What it looked like for one man
John Wesley was a minister, a missionary, and a disciplined religious man, and he still lacked assurance. Kidd retells how a Moravian asked him on board ship whether he knew Christ had saved him (Kidd, God of Liberty, ch. 10, paraphrased). Then came May 24, 1738:
“I felt my heart strangely warmed … an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine.”
(John Wesley, Journal, May 24, 1738, ed. Curnock, vol. 1)
And the first thing he did afterward?
“I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me.”
(Wesley, same entry)
That’s the change. Not just a warm feeling, but a heart that suddenly prays for its enemies. That’s Christ’s own heart showing up in a man.
But don’t make the change the goal
This is where we have to be careful. If you go hunting for “the change,” you’ll end up staring at yourself: your feelings, your progress, your bad days. That road leads either to pride or to despair.
The change is not the goal. Christ is the goal. The change is what happens when the Holy Spirit joins you to Him. You don’t manufacture it, and you can’t work it up. You look to Jesus, and the Spirit does the work.
And the Spirit doesn’t leave us guessing. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16, ESV). The Westminster Confession says true assurance is not “a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope,” but rests on “the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God” (WCF 18.2). Notice the order: first God’s promises, then the fruit of His grace, then the Spirit’s witness. All three point back to Christ.
So expect a change, the way you expect a sunrise to bring light. But you look at the sun, not at the light on the floor.
A word for the tender heart
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m not sure I’ve changed enough,” hear this too.
The Westminster Confession says assurance
“doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long.”
(Westminster Confession of Faith 18.3)
A true believer may wait long. But the Confession doesn’t stop there. It goes on: “yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto” (WCF 18.3).
So here’s your next step. You don’t have to wait for lightning. The Confession says assurance comes “in the right use of ordinary means,” not by some extraordinary sign. So stay in His Word, and keep coming to Christ in prayer. The Confession says this assurance enlarges the heart “in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God” (WCF 18.3).
Not every Christian has a datable Aldersgate moment. And even Edwards, who spoke so strongly about change, said right after that allowances
“must be made for the natural temper, which conversion does not entirely eradicate.”
(Edwards, Religious Affections, Part III, sign 7)
So if you’re still quick-tempered, or anxious, or quiet by nature, that doesn’t mean God hasn’t touched you. New birth doesn’t erase your personality. It turns the whole man from sin to God.
The question isn’t “Have I changed enough?” The question is the one Jesus asked: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15, ESV). Turn there. Run to Him. Ask Him for the new heart He promised. He doesn’t turn away anyone who comes.
Expect Him to change you. But come for Him.
Next: Part 2: Assurance Is the Base of the Mountain, Not the Top →
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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