What happens when a person believes?
Question 5 of 7. New birth, God's family, the Holy Spirit, being placed into Christ, and being made holy.
Where it begins
Many people think of being saved as having a debt cleared and nothing more: a person is forgiven, and then goes on as he was. Others think the rest comes later, if at all: the Holy Spirit for some believers, holiness for the very devout.
The last question showed that salvation is received the moment a person believes. This question asks what God does in him at that moment.
The answer Settled
God gives him new life. He is born of God. Those who believe "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (). It is God's work, not a fresh start a person makes for himself, and it is true of every believer: "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" ().
God makes him His child. He gives "the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (). Every person is God's creature, but not every person is His child. Scripture calls this adoption: God takes the believer into His family with a son's place and a son's inheritance, "no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ" ().
The Holy Spirit comes to live in him. There is no believer without the Spirit: "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (). He is received by believing: "having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" ().
The Spirit places him into Christ: "by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" (), and that body is Christ's. To be baptized into Christ is to be put into Him, joined to Him and counted as part of Him. That baptism is the Spirit's work, not water.
And God sets him apart as holy. Paul told the Corinthians, "you were sanctified," in the same breath as "you were justified" (). To sanctify is to set apart for God. From that moment God keeps making the believer holy by His Spirit, and He will finish what He began: "He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" ().
None of this is a reward for a good life afterward. All of it is given the moment a person believes.
The next question looks at the passages that seem to add other conditions to believing.
What you can see for yourself
- No one gives himself his own birth. People talk about a fresh start as something they make for themselves, with a resolution or a move across the country. But no one ever decided to be born. John says the new birth is the same: believers were born "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" ().
- An adopted child's name. An adopted child carries the family name and inherits like a child born into the family, though he was not born into it. Paul says the believer is adopted the same way: "you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ" ().
- A newborn is family on the first day. A baby belongs to the family the day it is born, though no one yet knows what it will grow up to be. John says the same of God's children: "now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be" ().
Dive deeper
Each page below takes one part of this answer and shows the passages it rests on.
- Isn't being born again just turning over a new leaf? Born of God, made alive, and a new creation.
- Isn't everyone a child of God? God's offspring, God's children, and adoption.
- Does the Holy Spirit come later? Every believer has Him, and what happened in Samaria and Ephesus.
- Doesn't "baptized into Christ" mean water? What the word means, and the baptism the Spirit does.
- Isn't holiness up to me? Set apart once, made holy over a lifetime, and finished by God.