8. Continued Conversion.
speak of a continued conversion, that is, a conversion that extends throughout the life of those who have already become believers. When the disciples of Jesus, in carnal pride, discussed the question which of them was the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, they were given the admonition: "If you do not convert (€&v otpagrite) and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 18:3). The necessity of continued conversion is based on the fact that even in the children of God evil flesh can still be found (j ebrepiotatov dpaptiav [the sin which doth so easily beset us], Hebr. 12:1; to kax6ov napdxertat [evil is present with me], Rom. 7:21) and therefore a continued turning away from unbelief and its evil fruits and a continued faithful return to the free grace of God and its good fruits must take place. Continued conversion factually coincides with "daily
cum a nauta aut vento agitatur, ut Memnonis statua dicitur locuta, cum solis radio tangeretur.
quatenus nunc Deus hominem, nunc homo seipsum convertere dicitur, etsi quoad rem una et eadem sit actio. repentance."!°?) But it cannot be overlooked that Scripture makes a sharp distinction between the continued conversion that extends throughout Christian life and the conversion by which a person becomes a Christian. Scripture calls those who have come from unbelief to faith converts and points to their conversion as a completed and backward fact, Petr. 2:25: "You were (nts) like the wandering sheep, but now you have been converted (emeotpagye vovv) to the shepherd and bishop of your souls"; also v.10: ot MOTE OV AAG VV 5E AGOG OEod oi ODK HAENpEvot vbv SE EAENVEvTEG. According to Scripture, Chemnitz therefore says at the colloquium in Herzberg: "I can say by the grace of God that I am converted and born again, although the conversion and renewal in me is only begun and grows through this whole life. °° With the first emergence of faith or initia fidei or scintillula fidei, the conversion is completed, through which man becomes a Christian. Later dogmatists, like Quenstedt and Calov, distinguish between conversio prima and secunda. By conversio prima they understand the first emergence of faith, whereby man behaves mere passive, and by conversio secunda the continued conversion, in which man is, however, involved in good works. This distinction was directed against Musaeus and the Helmstedters, who mixed continued conversion with the first conversion in order to eliminate from the first conversion the mere passive. 30)