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A woman who restores valuable paintings says many works of art that seem hopelessly damaged can be saved by an expert. Rebecca McLain has brought color and life back to dulled oil paintings by carefully removing dirt and discolored varnish. But she has also seen the damage done when people attempt to clean their own soiled art with oven cleaner or abrasive powders. Her advice? If you value the art, take it to an expert in restoration. The same need exists in lives soiled by sin. Our efforts at ridding ourselves of the guilt and defilement of sinful actions and attitudes often end in frustration and despair. In our attempts to get rid of guilt, we sometimes blame others. Or we simply give up, thinking that we cannot be any different.

When it comes to cleansing the canvas of our souls, we cannot do it ourselves. But Jesus our redeemer is the expert who can restore the most damaged and discouraged person. Call on Him today for expert restoration. Only God can transform a sin-stained soul into a masterpiece of grace.

~ D. C. McCasland

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A Transformed Man 

Pictures of Mel Trotter (1870–1940) show a distinguished gentleman with serious face, slight smile, silver hair, wire glasses around perceptive eyes. His favorite verse was 2 Corinthians 5:17, and for good reason.

Trotter’s father, a bartender, taught Mel the trade at an early age. Despite the earnest prayers of his mother, Mel followed his dad headlong into runaway drinking, smoking, and gambling. When he married, his habits reduced his family to poverty. Mel sold the family possessions from under his wife’s nose to replenish his drinking money, then he resorted to robbery to satisfy the craving for more booze.

One day Trotter staggered home to find his young son dead in his mother’s arms. Over the boy’s casket, Mel promised to never touch another drop of liquor as long as he lived, a resolve that barely lasted through the funeral.

Shortly afterward, Mel, age 27, hopped on a freight car for Chicago. It was a bitterly cold January night, but he sold his shoes for some drinking money. After being evicted from a bar on Clark Street, he headed toward Lake Michigan to commit suicide. Somehow he ended up at the Pacific Garden Mission so drunk the doorman had to prop him against a wall so he wouldn’t fall off his chair.

Despite his inebriation, at the close of the service, Trotter raised his hand for prayer and trusted Christ as his Savior. The change was instant and remarkable. Mel Trotter became a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 became his testimony verse, and he began sharing it everywhere. His wife came to Chicago to join him, and in time Mel Trotter became one of the most sought-after preachers, speakers, soul-winners, and rescue workers in America.

“The greatest day I ever lived was the 19th of January, 1897,” he once said, “when the Lord Jesus came into my life and saved me from sin. That transaction revolutionized my entire life. Don’t call me a reformed drunkard. I am a transformed man, a child of God.”

~ Robert Morgan

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One of Goethe’s tales is of a rude fisherman’s hut which was changed to silver by the setting in it of a little silver lamp. The logs of which the hut was built, its floors, its doors, its roof, its furniture,—all was changed to silver by this magic lamp. The story illustrates what takes place in the home when Christ comes into it. Everything after that is different. The outward conditions and circumstances may be the same, but they shine now with a new beauty.

Coley

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What a statement of the transforming power of Christ! If we receive Him as our personal Savior, we don’t just adopt a new philosophy of life; we don’t just get a new set of friends; we don’t just have a new destination. We actually become a new creation. We are born again and everything changes–our actions, our thoughts, our habits, our goals, dreams, our attitudes, everything! And if it doesn’t, i.e. if there is no difference in our lives since we made a profession of faith, the conclusion must follow (how can you escape it?) that the profession was not real, that we are not, in fact, “in Christ.” I was convicted by the words of Robert Yarbrough, one of our profs at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School: Where . . . (life change)...is lacking, there is good reason to suppose the heart still languishes in unbelief. There may be assent, there may be emotional affirmation, there may be selective obedience to gospel imperatives. There may even be impressive displays of religious activity . . . But when Jesus called for taking up the cross and following him, he probably had something more radical in mind than motoring to an air-conditioned sanctuary, amen-ing the show, and returning to the real life of Sunday TV and family fun. Friends, we must not minimize the powerful, effective, life-changing nature of a true conversion experience! But when this metamorphosis happens, do we get any credit for it? No!

Michael Andrus

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Obviously there is both continuity and discontinuity that takes place at conversion (justification). Paul was not denying the continuity. We still have the same physical features, basic personality, genetic constitution, parents, susceptibility to temptation (1Co 10:13+), sinful environment (Gal 1:4+), etc. These things do not change. He was stressing the elements of discontinuity: perspectives, prejudices, misconceptions, enslavements, etc. (cf. Gal 2:20+). God adds many new things at conversion including new spiritual life, the Holy Spirit, forgiveness, the righteousness of Christ, as well as new viewpoints (2Co 5:16-+). (Expository Notes)

Thomas Constable

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There are some occurrences, however, that use the formula “in Christ” in a locative sense, denoting the idea of incorporation (Rom. 8:1; 16:7; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 5:17; Phil. 3:8–9). In this sense, Christ is depicted as the locus of the believer’s life. If the preposition (en) is interpreted in a local, spatial sense, and Christos is understood mystically as the Spirit of the glorified Lord, then close union of Christ and the Christian is meant (2Co 5:17). “In Christ” is an expression of intimate interrelatedness, analogous to the air that is breathed: it is in the person, yet at the same time, the person is in it. Thus, Paul’s use of the phrase is similar to his concept of being baptized “into Christ” (Gal. 3:27), with connotations of intimate spiritual communion with Christ. Those who have been baptized into Christ are “in him.” There are, however, eschatological dimensions of the phrase that indicate a dynamic influence of Christ on the Christian who is incorporated into him. (Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology)

R. David Rightmire

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