Following up on “Questioning the validity of the ‘Sinners’ Prayer’” October 7, 2008
Posted by Damian in Biblical Exegesis and Interpretation, Prayer.Tags: 'getting saved', Acts, baptism, christ, commandments, good samaritan, gospel, kingdom of God, Luke, magic, Matthew, process, Romans, salvation, salvation by faith, salvation by works, sinner's prayer, what is the sinner's prayer
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One of my most popular posts, and the one that’s attracted a lot of Google traffic, has been my post on the validity of the Sinners’ Prayer. There, I discussed my opinions on the Sinners’ Prayer as a means of salvation, and how I thought it was a symptom of a simplified and uninformed theology. But I didn’t go into detail about what I thought scripture truly tells us about our ‘Salvation’. So I thought I’d take a look at the scripture involved in my belief that the Sinners’ Prayer is a load of baloney.
There are many verses where Jesus speaks specifically about ‘inheriting eternal life’. Luke 10:25-37 gives us two criteria for inheriting eternal life:
- Loving God with all your heart
- Loving your neighbour as the good Samaritan loved his neighbour; that is, show mercy.
Luke 18:18-37 also says a few more things about inheriting eternal life:
- Obey God’s commandments
- Be willing to sacrifice everything in order to follow Jesus
Notice there’s no mentioning any prayer. Acts (2:38-41 and 8:35-36) speak of baptism as the salvation act:
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Again, notice it doesn’t say anything about praying. Rather it speaks instead of repentance and baptism, which is, of course, mentioned in many other places in the context of salvation: John 6:40 also speaks of receiving eternal life. Whilst John 6 is very complex text, it concludes in a fairly straightforward manner:
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
So, from these two passages, three more criteria for inheriting eternal life:
- Looking on Christ and believing in him
- Baptism
- Repenting and turning away from your sins
Now, on repentance, I think it’s fairly obvious from the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13 or Luke 11:2-4), which is something we are supposed to pray regularly, that repentance is not supposed to be a once off thing, but rather an ongoing lifestyle. We’re supposed to repent whenever we pray, and we’re supposed to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Acts 26 tells us that we must show repentance through our actions, not simply through one-off statements. So it should be noticed that it is ongoing repentance and turning from our sins that is important in salvation.
As you can see, there is a fair amount of scripture that doesn’t mention any ‘Sinners’ Prayer’. But there are a few passages in scripture used to support the concept:
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:8-9)
And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. (Luke 12:8-9)
Are there any others I missed? Let me know, but reading the whole of these verses in context (Romans 10 and Luke 12), I feel that they’re clearly not in the context of ‘achieving’ salvation, but rather in the context of living a life of faith publicly. Hence I don’t think they can be applied in the context of validating the practice of a Sinners’ Prayer as a salvation act.
So, what we’ve found are a number of criteria for obtaining eternal life:
- Baptism
- See Christ and believe in him
- Repent and turn away from your sins
- Obey God’s commandments
- Love God with all your heart
- Love your neighbour as the good Samaritan loved his neighbour (that is, show mercy).
- Be willing to sacrifice everything in order to follow the Lord
Only one criteria is a once-off action, and it’s Baptism, not the sinner’s prayer.
Now, a sermon could be preached on each of these points, and I won’t do that. It should be noted, however, that these criteria are not mutually exclusive, but rather interconnected and related to each other.
It should also be noted that each of these are ongoing processes. Salvation is, therefore, and ongoing process. You are not saved by one decision, but by ongoing decisions throughout your life. I believe with all my heart that these – scriptural – criteria should be well-known and clearly identified as what salvation is. Because a focus on a prayer – the Sinners’ Prayer for example – can assure those who are not saved that they are. The concept of a Sinners’ Prayer that transports you into the kingdom of God and promises eternal life is the concept of magic, not the Gospel. The Gospel tells us that we can enter the kingdom of God.
Am I affirming salvation by works? I don’t think so. I think I’m saying that faith is not simply something in mind and heart, but in your actions. I think this is evident in scripture, and I think that simplifying salvation does the Gospel injustice. As I’ve said before:
We don’t know how it works, and we should give up pretending that we know these things absolutely. All we can do is say, if the Gospel is true, and God has triumphed over sin and death, and Jesus is in charge, and will redeem the earth, then I how should I act accordingly?
[...] I’ve continued this conversation by looking more deeply at the scripture around this topic, here. Published [...]
Great post with some interesting insights. I share you doubts about the sinner’s prayer. Most of my doubts about it are summed up in baptism, not necessarily because that’s what scripture commands. The Sinner’s Prayer takes salvation outside of the place where it is to be located – namely, in the community of the people of God. Baptism does that – in particular, one can’t baptise oneself. The Sinner’s Prayer feeds into the individualistic notions of salvation that all I need to do is say this prayer and I am fine, but scripture speaks in a more nuanced way about salvation. One person whom I read that shed light on this is the evangelical/pentecostal theologian, Telford Work, who wrote this article called: Reordering Salvation:
Church as the Proper Context for an Evangelical Ordo Salutis
[...] Following up on “Questioning the validity of the ‘Sinners’ Prayer’” Filed under: Other Blog | Tags: Sinners Prayer [...]
Thank you for articulating what I’ve thought for quite a while. I feel like I’m in the vast minority on this.
Altar calls would be another one.
Jeff
It’s my pleasure, Jeff. I believe we are, but we have a far stronger argument than the masses ;).
I agree with you about Altar calls. To me they’re similar to the SP, I’m sure that most of my points here could be adapted quite easily to argue against the scriptural basis for altar calls.
I have to say, one thing I became incredibly sick of in my last church, a highly Charismatic one, was the fact that after almost very service, over half the congregation (so much that they had to get extra people to pray!) would go for altar call, most of them for the same reasons as last week. If this isn’t an example of ‘mere ritual’, than I don’t know what is.
And what’s worse is the incredible shaking and shouting in the faces of people who’re for the most part sincere. The ministers should know better.
Totally agree, Damian. We should not be adding requirements or teachings that scriptures do not give. Great post.
Thanks, Brent. In fact, everyone, it’s nice to know there are others out there who’ve noticed this as well.
Will, I haven’t been ignoring you – it’s just taken a while to read through the article you linked to. It’s a good one. I really like what the author has to say about the role of church, and about the location of salvation in community.
One of the things that I find most compelling about Catholicism is it’s visibility and unity as the church, despite it’s diversity. It’s quite difficult to find such unity in Protestantism, because of the spiritualisation of the church and the individualisation of salvation.
I think this article presents a pretty strong argument that salvation independently of the church (which implied ‘crusades’ and other movements that involve a small number of congregation members and a larger number of non-Christians) should not (and possibly cannot) be occurring. I’ve heard tell that large amounts of ‘converts’ due to such movements don’t continue their Christianity past their ‘decision’, because of a lack of ‘follow up’. This relocates the reasoning: There was no salvation because there is no salvation without the church, and in such a situation, the church is absent.
This is fascinating. Thanks for pointing this out to me, Will.
Nice and concise post – I think the Spirit has moved among many people’s inner thoughts about the “Microwave-ish” method that the SP can be. Einstein himself said “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” The SP simplifies too much. It takes away the full and blended authority of the scriptures you mentioned and holds the promise of salvation like a gun to the head of Christ. It’s not like He didn’t suffer enough – now *we’re* calling the shots via prayer? Who’s really accepting who?
Logic alone pricks the conscience of many who subscribe to this man-made method of, really, controlling God’s salvation with our own religiosity – rather than submitting to simple, basic gospel facts of (eternal) life.
History of the SP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners_prayer
http://www.biblestudyguide.org/articles/sinners-prayer.htm
You’re right Harold. Thanks for the links. I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
[...] it clearly. Especially favourite is the part where they tell you to go to church to find out more, rather than tell you to say a prayer which will magically transport you into God’s realm. I love myself some Orthodox theology. Published [...]
Romans 10:9: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Also, John 3:16: for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.
____
There’s a difference between religion and relationship. The Word of God is simple, theology is complicated.
Teressa,
Thanks for reading my blog! I appreciate your comment.
If you read through the entirety of what I wrote, you’d have seen that I addressed Romans 10. Note that I say Romans 10, not Romans 10:9 – this is because if you read the entire chapter, it’s obvious that Paul is talking about living a life of faith, not of being saved.
With regards to John 3, if you read the entire chapter, it’s clear that Christ is not simply talking about believing in his existence (this is implicit, in fact, because at the time he was walking around – ‘believing’ in him was an absurd concept) but believing in his message. His message, as expounded by him and his disciples, involved baptism for those who believe.
And, despite the fact that I’ve accounted for these scriptures. You haven’t accounted for the scripture that I’ve mentioned that contradicts your viewpoint. How do you account for the scripture I’ve quoted?
[...] We were saved when we were baptised (as a child, or as a adult). I’ve written a post extensively on this here. [...]