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Salvation and the Sinner's Prayer
Today, especially, we need to go into a subject that needs examination. It is not my intend to explore this subject exhaustively, but to open it up for examination, to be test in the light of revealed truth and to see it's significance in today’s gospel preaching, evangelism, outreaches and crusades. Few ever realize that the sinner’s prayer as it is known today is in fact never even once named in Scriptures!
Consider the following appeal:
"Just accept Christ into your heart through prayer and he'll receive you. It doesn't matter what church you belong to or if you ever do good works. You'll be born again at the moment you receive Christ. He's at the door knocking. You don't even have to change bad habits, just trust Christ as Savior. God loves you and forgives you unconditionally. Anyone out there can be saved if they ... Accept Christ, now! Let us pray for Christ to now come into your heart."
Sound familiar? This method of conversion has had far-reaching effects worldwide as many have claimed this as the basis for their salvation. Yet, what is the historical significance of this conversion? How did the process of rebirth, which Jesus spoke of in John 3, evolve into praying him into one's heart? I believe it was an error germinating shortly after the Reformation, which eventually caused great ruin and dismay in Christendom. So where did it come from and does it achieve what it should - reconciling men to God? For many this is a hair splitting formality. What may be said here is that there are many who have prayed "the sinner’s prayer" and are still lost in their sin. Unbelievable? Not if you understand and comprehend Biblical salvation and the gospel appeal. Thousands are being and were being misled in times past by this "strange fire," that is burning in evangelical circles. It has spread so vastly among the world that this appeal is what heaven is all about, many's salvation consist only in praying the sinners prayer and "accepting Christ" in ones heart. Few of these "converts" hoping in heaven and in the sinners prayer to save one, have the reality and witness of the Spirit of God in their lives. Many parents leads their children today into praying the sinners prayer and to "accept Christ" into their hearts without realizing that thousands of these very children never bears the fruit of true repentance and fewer still have any evidence of a change life! But they are being taught that if they have prayed the "sinner’s prayer" and have "received Christ into their lives" they are saved and must never doubt this!
This whole idea is the same as the Catholic Church teaching about baptismal regeneration. If you were baptized as an infant, well you’re saved and you are now on your way to heaven! That's a lie, and so is that of praying the sinner’s prayer. Listen, it is not the sinner’s prayer and receiving Christ that saves, it is Christ alone that saves, and not some kind of magic formula rightly termed, that saves! Although there is prayer or a cry from the heart involved in salvation, the "sinners prayer" has been so deceitfully been introduced by some that few ever looked at the validity of such a "strange fire" burning in the church and among professing Christians. Today more than 90% evangelicals do not even know what the gospel is all about, left alone what Biblical conversion really involves. I am from view that the sinner’s prayer has REPLACED true Biblical aspects of our common salvation. It has REPLACED repentance, real faith (change it to mere intellectual consent to some historical facts), baptism, the authority of Christ, etc. It has left us with a godless generation and a twisted society. It makes every prayer a believer without real repentance; it leaves the world in the vilest impurities while their confession is Christ!
I believe that it led to the fulfillment of the words of Paul to Timothy "that many will have an outward form of godliness," but that their very lives are untouched by the things they profess! You may be one that builds your entire salvation around the fact that you have once prayed "the sinner’s prayer" and had "received Christ as your personal Savior!" Early Christianity was build upon another foundation. Whole lives were affected by their conversion, Christ become pre eminent in their whole walk, He was Lord of all or He was not Lord at all, but today man is pre eminent and the center around which all things evolve. It is what God and Christ and the Holy Spirit can do for you! We need to see this to walk in the light and bring others into a Biblical understanding of conversion, even of that of our children so not to let them build on some false foundation or any unbiblical Christianity.
When involved in many outreaches, I have looked at this phenomena many times. The gospel is being presented in some fashion or by film or by preaching and with an appeal after each service or one after the crusade comes to the end in the last night or two. The whole enterprise is to get people to some reaction and some type of commitment, be it individually or as a whole group and one almost without distinction finds those responding being led in what today is known as the "sinner’s prayer." Then after some few months you return to the same places and seek out those same converts to find in most cases that was all their was to it, a "prayer" prayed some cliché of "asking Jesus into your heart" without any significance to early Christianity and conversion.
Many today reading this may object to such a statement. Some have themselves prayed the "sinner’s prayer" and the usual "receiving Christ" into "your heart", some I say have done this in the knowledge that they are safe and sound and heaven bound! But many may not be! Early Christianity did not operate on such evangelism and methods being use today to bring men to Christ. Never once we read of such techniques. It was not part of the gospel according to Jesus or according to the apostles. Imagine Peter on the day of Pentecost telling the people "it's all faith people, you need to accept Christ into your hearts, please pray this prayer with me... dear Lord Jesus, I am a sinner ...”
What do you find? "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ FOR THE REMISSION of sins..." (Acts 2:38) or again in 3:19 "repent and be converted THAT YOUR SINS MAY BE BLOTTED OUT...." But Peter are you sure this is what they must do to be saved? Can't they just pray the sinner’s prayer and ask Christ "into their hearts?" After all, they are seeking, aren’t they, why give them some requirements, don't you know that they cannot do something to save themselves? You can go through every conversion mention in the Bible and you will never once come across this type of conversion that was assisted or even co existing with today’s approach of sinner praying conversions. (I hereby does not refer to people being brought to a sure calling, to answer, or to as Moses states: "I have set life and death before you, therefore choose life that you may live" or like Joshua "Choose whom ye will serve..." etc) Where did it originate then if not from the apostles?
No one in the Bible ever prayed (some formula, sinner’s prayer, etc) for their initial salvation. They did however believe, repent, confess Jesus and was baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. The sinner’s prayer is an innovation that thwarts God's plan of salvation.
The earliest notion of the "sinner’s prayer" is less than 500 years old. It wasn't formalized as a theology until around the time of Billy Graham.
Today, hundreds of millions hold to a belief system and salvation practice that no one had ever held until relatively recently. The notion that one can pray Jesus into his or her heart and that repentance, faith, baptism, etc, is merely an additional unnecessary requirement, are actually late developments. The prayer itself dates to the Billy Sunday era; however, the basis for talking in prayer for salvation goes back a few hundred years.
The Reformation
Although
things weren't ideal after the Reformation, for the first time in over a
thousand years the general populace was reading the Scriptures. By the early
1600s, one hundred years after the Reformation was initiated, there were
various branches of European Christendom that followed national lines. For
instance, Germans followed Martin Luther. There were also Calvinists
(Presbyterian), the Church of England (Episcopalian), and various branches of
Anabaptists and, of course, the Roman church (Catholics). Most of these groups
were trying to revive the waning faith of their already traditionalized
denominations. However, a consensus had not been reached on issues like
rebirth, baptism or salvation--even between Protestants.
The majority still held to the validity of infant baptism even though they disagreed on its significance. Preachers tended to minimize baptism because people hid their lack of commitment behind sayings like "I am a baptized Lutheran and that's that." The influence of the preachers eventually led to the popular notion that one was forgiven at infant baptism but not yet reborn. Most Protestants were confused or ambivalent about the connection between rebirth and forgiveness.
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was the result of fantastic preaching occurring in Europe
and the eastern colonies during the early to mid 1700s. Though ambivalent on
the practice of baptism, Great Awakening preachers created an environment that
made man aware of his need for an adult confession experience. The experiences
that people sought were varied. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and John
Wesley furthered ideas of radical repentance and revival. Although there is
much to be learned from their messages, they did not solve the problems of the
practices associated with baptism and conversion.
Eventually, the following biblical passage written to and inspired for lukewarm Christians became a popular tool for the conversion of non-Christians:
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. ....Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:14-20)
This passage was written explicitly for lukewarm Christians. Now consider how a lecturer named John Webb misused this passage in the mid 1700s as a basis of evangelizing non-Christians:
"Here is a promise of Union to Christ; in these words, I will come in to him. i.e. If any Sinner will but hear my Voice and open the Door, and receive me by Faith, I will come into his Soul, and unite him to me, and make him a living member of that my mystical body of which I am the Head." (Christ's Suit to the Sinner, 14)
Preachers heavily relied on Revelation 3:20. By using the first-person tense while looking into the sinner's eyes, preachers began to speak for Jesus as they exhorted, "If you would just let me come in and dine with you, I would accept you." Even heathens who had never been baptized responded with the same or even greater sorrow than churchgoers. As a result, more and more preachers of Christendom concluded that baptism was merely an external matter--only an outward sign of an inward grace. In fact, Huldreich Zwingli put this idea forth for the very first time. Nowhere in church history was such a belief recorded. It only appears in Scripture when one begins with a great cataract of nonsense. In other words, it only appears in the New Testament through the imagination of readers influenced by this phenomenon.
Mourner's Seat
A
method originated during the 1730s or '40s, which was practically forgotten for
about a hundred years. It is documented that in 1741 a minister named Eleazar
Wheelock had utilized a technique called the Mourner's Seat. As far as one can
tell, he would target sinners by having them sit in the front bench (pew).
During the course of his sermon "salvation was looming over their
heads." Afterwards, the sinners were typically quite open to counsel and
exhortation. In fact, as it turns out they were susceptible to whatever
prescription the preaching doctor gave to them. According to eyewitnesses, false
conversions were multiplied. Charles Wesley had some experience with this
practice, but it took nearly a hundred years for this tactic to take hold.
Cane Ridge
In
1801 there was a sensational revival in Cane Ridge, Kentucky that lasted for
weeks. Allegedly, people barked, rolled over in the aisles and became delirious
because there were long periods without food in the intense heat. It resulted
in the extreme use and abuse of emotions as thousands left Kentucky with wild
notions about rebirth. Today it is generally viewed as a mockery to
Christianity.
The excesses in Cane Ridge produced expectations for preachers and those seeking religious experience. A second great Awakening, inferior to the first, was beginning in America. Preachers were enamored with the idea that they could cause (manipulate) people into conversion. One who witnessed such nineteenth century hysteria was J.V. Coombs who complained of the technique:
"The appeals, songs, prayers and the suggestion from the preacher drive many into the trance state. I can remember in my boyhood days seeing ten or twenty people laying unconscious upon the floor in the old country church. People called that conversion. Science knows it is mesmeric influence, self-hypnotism … It is sad that Christianity is compelled to bear the folly of such movements." (J.V. Coombs, Religious Delusions, 92ff).
The Cane Ridge Meeting became the paradigm for revivalists for decades. A lawyer named Charles Finney came along a generation later to systemize the Cane Ridge experience through the use of Wheelock's Mourner's Seat and Scripture.
Charles Finney
It wasn't until about 1835 that Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) emerged to champion the system utilized by Eleazar Wheelock. Shortly after his own conversion he left his law practice and would become a minister, a lecturer, a professor, and a traveling revivalist. He took the Mourner's Seat practice, which he called the Anxious Seat, and developed a theological system around it. Finney was straightforward about his purpose for this technique and wrote the following comment near the end of his life:
"The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this purpose. The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ, were called out to be baptized. It held the place that the anxious seat does now as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians"
Finney made many enemies because of this innovation. The Anxious Seat practice was considered to be a psychological technique that manipulated people to make a premature profession of faith. It was considered to be an emotional conversion influenced by some of the preachers' animal magnetism. Certainly it was a precursor to the techniques used by many twentieth century televangelists.
In opposition to Finney's movement, John Nevin, a Protestant minister, wrote a book called The Anxious Bench. He intended to protect the denominations from this novel deviation. He called Finney's New Measures "heresy", a "Babel of extravagance", "fanaticism", and "quackery". He also said, "With a whirlwind in full view, we may be exhorted reasonably to consider and stand back from its destructive path." It turns out that Nevin was somewhat prophetic. The system that Finney admitted had replaced biblical repentance, the nature of faith, baptism, etc, is the vertebrae for the popular plan of salvation that was made normative in the twentieth century by the three Bills --- Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and Bill Bright.
Dwight Moody and R. A. Torrey
However, it wasn't until the end of Finney's life that it became evident to everyone and himself that the Anxious Bench approach led to a high fallout rate. By the 1860s Dwight Moody (1837-1899) was the new apostle in American evangelicalism. He took Finney's system and modified it. Instead of calling for a public decision, which tended to be a response under pressure, he asked people to join him and his trained counselors in a room called the Inquiry Room. Though Moody's approach avoided some of the errors encountered in Finneyism, it was still a derivative or stepchild of the Anxious Bench system.
In the Inquiry Room the counselors asked the possible convert some questions, taught him from Scripture and then prayed with him. The idea that prayer was at the end of the process had been loosely associated with conversion in the 1700s. By the late 1800s it was standard technique for 'receiving Christ' as Moody's influence spread across both the United States and the United Kingdom. This was where a systematic Sinner's Prayer began, but was not called as such until the time of Billy Sunday. (Let me emphasize this - I do not intend to say these men were not used by God or that they were corrupted, etc. My intend is only to show how the "sinners prayer" has evolved and brought to a revered placed among the church today. In no way am I suggesting that these men were not sincere and devoted in what they were.)
R. A. Torrey succeeded Moody's Chicago-based ministry after his death in 1899. He modified Moody's approach to include "on the spot" street conversions. Torrey popularized the idea of instant salvation with no strings attached, even though he never intended as much. Nonetheless, "Receive Christ, now, right here" became part of the norm. From that time on it became more common to think of salvation outside of church or a life of Lordship.
Billy Sunday and the Pacific Garden Mission
Meanwhile
in Chicago, Billy Sunday, a well-known baseball player from Iowa, had been
converted in the Pacific Garden Mission. The Mission was Chicago's most
successful implementation of Moody's scheme. Eventually, Sunday left baseball
to preach. He had great public charm and was one of the first to mix ideas of
entertainment with ministry. By the early 1900s he had become a great
well-known crusade leader. In his crusades he popularized the Finney-Moody
method and included a bit of a circus touch. After fire and brimstone sermons,
heavy moralistic messages with political overtones, and humorous if not
outlandish behavior, salvation was offered. Often it was associated with a
prayer, and at other times a person was told they were saved because they
simply walked down his tabernacle's "sawdust trail" to the front
where he was standing. In time people were told they were saved because they
publicly shook Sunday's hand, acknowledging that they would follow Christ.
Billy Sunday died in 1935 leaving behind hundreds of his imitators. More than anything else, Billy Sunday helped crusades become acceptable to all denominations, which eventually led to a change in their theology. Large religious bodies sold out on their reservations toward these new conversion practices to reap the benefits of potential converts from the crusades because of the allure of success.
Both Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday admitted they were somewhat ignorant of church history by the time they had already latched on to their perspectives. This is highly significant because the Anxious Seat phenomenon and offshoot practices were not rooted in Scripture nor in the early church.
Billy Graham, Bill Bright
Billy
Graham and his crusades were the next step in the evolution of things. Billy
Graham was converted in 1936 at a Sunday-styled crusade. By the late 1940s it
was evident to many that Graham would be the champion of evangelicalism. His
crusades summed up everything that had been done from the times of Charles
Finney through Billy Sunday except that he added respectability that some of
the others lacked. In the 1950s Graham's crusade counselors were using a prayer
that had been sporadically used for some time. It began with a prayer from his
Four Steps to Peace with God. The original four-step formula came during Billy
Sunday's era called in a tract called Four Things God Wants you to Know. The
altar call system of Graham had been refined by a precise protocol of music,
trained counselors and a speaking technique all geared to help people 'accept
Christ as Savior.'
In the late 1950s Bill Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ) came up with the exact form of the currently popular Four Spiritual Laws so that the average believer could take the crusade experience into the living room of their neighbor. Of course, this method ended with the Sinner's Prayer. Those who responded to crusades and sermons could have the crusade experience at home when they prayed,
"Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be."
Later, in 1977 Billy Graham published a now famous work entitled, How to Be Born Again. For all the Scripture he used, he never once uses the hallmark rebirth event in the second chapter of the book of Acts. The cataract (blind spot) kept him away from the most powerful conversion event in all Scripture. It is my guess that its emphasis on repentance and association with Christ, for the forgiveness of sins was incompatible with his approach.
The Living Bible and Beyond
By
the late 1960s it seemed that nearly every evangelical was printing some form
of the Four Spiritual Laws in the last chapter of their books. Even a Bible was
printed with this theology inserted into God's Word. Thus, in the 1960s, the
Living Bible's translation became the translation of choice for the crusades as
follows:
"Even in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a few welcome and received him. But to all who received him, he gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them. All those who believe this are reborn! --not a physical rebirth resulting from human passion or plan--but from the will of God."(John 1:11-13, Living Bible, bolds mine)
The bolded words have no support at all in the original Greek. They are a blatant insertion placed by presuppositions of the translator, Kenneth Taylor. I'm not sure that even the Jehovah's Witnesses have authored such a barefaced insertion in their corrupt Scriptures. In defense of Taylor's original motives, the Living Bible was created primarily with children in mind. However, the publishers should have corrected the misleading verse in the 1960s. They somewhat cleared it up in the newer LB in the 1990s, only after the damage has been done. For decades mainstream evangelicals were using the LB and circular reasoning to justify such a strong 'trusting moment' as salvation, never knowing their Bible was corrupted.
A whole international enterprise of publishers, universities and evangelistic associations were captivated by this method. The phrases, "Receive Christ," and "Trust Jesus as your personal savior," filled airwaves, sermons, and books. James Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion (EE3) counselor-training program helped make this concept of conversion an international success. Missionaries everywhere were trained with Sinner's Prayer theology. Evangelicalism had the numbers, the money, the television personas of Graham and Kennedy and any attempt to purport a different plan of salvation would be decried as cultic and "heresy."
Most evangelicals are ignorant of where their practice came from or how Christians from other periods viewed biblical conversion. This is a subject that needs urgent attention in todays gospel appeal. We are commanded to: "Study to show ourselves approved, a workmen that needs not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY (skillfully) dividing the Word of Truth..." (2 Timothy 2:15)
The word use for "study" means to "make effort," or to "labor" which conveys the idea that one must be earnest to study and examine God's Word, as one that have made every effort to know what God said, so that when you are to be examined you will not stand ashamed, but as one whom God has approved or accepted, so that in handling God's Word you make a "straight cut" or you "expound" it correctly. Many build on what others had said and they copy their techniques and methods without realizing or even examining if the very way they do things are supported in Scripture and are reviewed against the conclusions of those that walked before us, especially of those recorded in Scripture. Many build ministries on things that have no support or authority in Scriptures for the things they are doing. With evangelism and salvation in view, study the Scriptural accounts of conversion, wherever they may be found in the life of the Apostles or even of Christ Himself. You will be amazed to find the methods and the very things that consisted in conversion in the early church.
Today we have a gospel appeal and exposition which are so revolutionized that one can hardly believe the Apostles held to such statements and methods. We need to examine these things again if we really want to be useful in God's hands. What is more alarming is the fact that the greater scope of children's evangelism today have so strongly swallowed this approach of the sinners prayer that children is being brought to only "accept Christ" and pray the sinners prayer. The way it is presented today establishes a whole new generation among many that will be deprived of true conversion and who will build on false foundations, while most when getting older will have only a form of godliness, strongly opposing the true work of God in Christ that they think they have, but they do not.
Parents today are angry at the mention of this. For many believe when a child (or whoever for that matter) was brought to the "sinners prayer" and the "receiving of Christ" or the "open the door of your heart" that child are saved on that very ground alone! If something happened or not, they comfort themselves and their children with that type of conversion, even if there is NO EVIDENCE of true faith, repentance or change of heart! Some point to Jesus Words saying that the work of the Spirit in new birth is likened to wind, that it cannot really be seen or observed. But the contrary is true, although wind cannot be seen with the physical eye, it can be observed, you can see its effects you can see the leaves move, the trees, etc, there are sure observations that the wind had blown!
With this in conclusion, do not be carried away by the stream of today’s gospel approach and methods. There was a departure from what true conversion is all about and what is truly involved. Thousands are being poisoned not knowing even if there own conversion is at all real. Many have a "make believe" conversion. It goes like this: "I have prayed the sinners prayer, received Christ as my personal Savior, was baptized, have some Bible verse to back me up, now, even thou I have no REAL EVIDENCE in my life of the new birth, I know I am saved, I just know that I know that I know because I believe that I have done all I could and all one could now I must only believe that I am saved and I must only believe that when I die I will go to heaven!"
What they have done and what many do is they take some Biblical words and concepts and they apply them to their ideas and make them their own without knowing that their is a work of God that needs to be done in their very life’s, an ACTUAL LIVING AND REAL work of God IN them! Jesus said that one does not throw new wine in old wine skins. The New will tear the old and both will be wasted! Many took from the new and try repair or make belief them in their still old state and then they will call that salvation and conversion. Then if it does not add up to Biblical conversion, we say that no two conversions are the same, and one's experience becomes the norm of each one's individual conversion. Many refer not any more to Scriptural conversion and how they have been conformed to it, but they refer to their own experience, even if it does not conform to the Scriptural record or not and held their experience as equally valid!
While most do this unknowingly, evangelicals are skewing church auditoriums all over the world from a clear picture of conversion with a nonsensical practice.
Many will be angry by the very things I speak of. Some must not even help others to Christ, for they may let someone on a false foundation. The words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy are for all of us wise to heed:
While many things are left unsaid, may our Lord grants insight and discernment to each one to fully apprehend what lie concealed behind this very truth and admonishment. God bless and may the Word of His grace establish you in Christ and in His Word, to all well pleasing in His sight, to Him be all the glory, Amen.