Are You Converted by Ole Hallesby

He was an atypical combination of Lutheran seminary dogmatics professor and pietistic revival preacher; but in every arena, Ole Hallesby proclaimed the message of conversion. There could hardly be a message more relevant today.

Current theological trends often describe the Spirit's inner workings as imperceptible, faith as mere intellectual and verbal endorsement of Christian doctrine, and man as already right with God and needing only to assuage his troubled conscience through self-application of comforting Scriptures.

In contradistinction to this, the Norwegian Hallesby declared the Biblical imperative of conversion: the subjective experience of the objective Savior as communicated to the heart by the Holy Spirit through God's Word. "[The Spirit] in a new way opens to you the invisible, eternal world," explained Hallesby, "…by giving the truly repentant sinner that new spiritual sight which 'sees' the invisible reality…. You experience [Christ] as a present, blessed reality." "Most often it is a brief passage of Scripture which becomes 'living' to your soul" (Why I Am a Christian, 54, 51).

Like Jesus and the apostles, Hallesby actively urged people to enter conversion at its narrow doorway of repentance: acquiescence to the Spirit's conviction of sin and the yielding of one's heart to God. This, he said, was necessary, not only for the unsaved and backslider, but also for the baptized child in response to the new light received from God while maturing into adulthood.

Though the experiential conversion message may offend some as it did in Hallesby's day (1879-1961), many who have experienced the crushing oppression of sin will welcome the beautiful prospect of an equally experienced liberation from sin. May God give hope and deliverance to such souls through this new compilation of Hallesby's writings.