If we are to love the Lord above all, then every fabric of our thinking and believing and doing must be brought into closest possible alignment with God’s revealed will in the Bible. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

Walter Hooper, the literary advisor of C.S. Lewis’s vast estate after his death and, more importantly, a close friend of his, once described Lewis as “the most thoroughly converted man [he] ever met.” He expands upon this reflection by saying that Lewis’s “whole vision of life was such that the natural and the supernatural seemed inseparably combined.”

Through and Through

Now, what might Hooper have meant by the phrase thoroughly converted? Surely he did not mean by the word ‘converted’ that Lewis was, in contrast to other religious folks, completely united to Christ, whereas others were only partly united to Him; as though salvation were a matter of degrees, operating upon a spectrum of thoroughly converted on one side, partly converted in the middle, and utterly lost on the far side.

God forbid! For, “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). You are either united to Christ through faith, having had all your sins atoned for and forgiven, or you are outside of Christ, still under the wrath of God and in need of salvation.

What Hooper means here by thoroughly converted has nothing to do with justification (our being declared just and holy by God because of our union with Christ) and everything to do with sanctification (the process by which we are made more and more like Christ). After being reconciled to God through the work of His Son, it is then the work of every believer to, just like Lewis, begin the lifelong process of binding together the seen with the unseen. To live in such a way that there no longer exists a contradiction between your view of the world and the Bible’s. Indeed, to have such a living, breathing faith in God’s word that “the natural and the supernatural seemed inseparably combined.”

Sanctification begins in the mind of the believer only after they have been given new spiritual life by God the Holy Spirit. In Romans 12, Paul describes our work in sanctification, ever in step with the Spirit, in this way: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (verse 2). When an individual comes to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they undergo an initial change of mind (repentance) that is characterized by a turning away from sin and a turning to the Lord. Sanctification as a lifelong process, then, should be seen as the Christian’s daily habit of continual repentance until they see the Lord face to face in glory.

This initial change of mind and turning from sin must define the believer’s walk with Christ going forward as they put in the hard work of untangling their formerly ungodly affections from their new God-given affections. This is not unlike the digging up of rotten roots and weeds in a garden in order to cultivate healthy growth; indeed, digging up the rottenness of sin and unbelief that have so infiltrated the unbeliever’s inner life up until their appointment with God Himself.

In this way, I think Hooper’s estimation of what it means to be “thoroughly converted” is helpful, but let us go deeper, shall we? Let us consider, alongside the Apostle Paul, what it means to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

Just Like Jesus

As followers of Christ, a deep and abiding desire to be like Him should characterize our every waking moment. That is, however imperfectly, we should strive to love those things that He loves, hate those things that He hates, and do those things that He delights in. That in everything, in word and deed and thought, we would be as mini-Christs in the world. In this way, we demonstrate that we love Him—no matter how weak and paltry our attempts may be. Christian living then is nothing short of aiming to imitate our Creator as He gives us ability to do so: “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:9-10). At its most basic, to be thoroughly converted is to be thoroughly Christ-like.

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