John 1
10But although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. 11Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. 12But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan—this rebirth comes from God. (John 1:10-13, NLT)
The Daily DAVEotional
I’ve been a Christian for a long time and ever since I can remember, I was told that becoming a Christian, or getting “saved” was simply a matter of “accepting” Jesus into your heart.
Not too long ago, I saw the above photo from one of my Facebook friends who regularly shows up in my feed. I respect Voddie Baucham as a teacher so I was curious about the context of the quote that seems to indicate that the idea of “accepting Jesus” is unbiblical.
Is it true that the New Testament nowhere mentions salvation being about “accepting Jesus”?
I think the short answer to that is NO.
John 1:12 is the most clear verse that would challenge that assertion as John states:
But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. [emphasis added]
Now to be fair, my Scripture reference is from the New Living Translation (NLT) which is the only translation I’m aware of that uses the phrase “accepted him.” Most other translations, including the NIV, King James, NASB, ESV and others, all use the phrase “received him“. So I suppose it’s possible, if you exclude the NLT, that one could argue that the Bible doesn’t say anything about “accepting Jesus” when it comes to salvation.
In my mind, though, this could be considered theological nit-picking. It seems apparent to me that the words “accept” and “receive” are synonyms. So why make the argument that salvation has nothing to do with “accepting Jesus”?
Honestly, I could not find a link to the sermon in which Dr. Baucham made the quoted statement, so it’s hard to know exactly what he’s getting at or why he felt compelled to make the statement in the first place.
The problem sometimes with sound-bite quotes is that you don’t always get the context and so the quote can appear to be saying something entirely different than what the author was really intending to communicate.
I can say, however, that in my many years of ministry, this is not the first time I have heard someone make a statement like this. So I’ll address the statement as I’ve heard it shared from others, not necessarily from Dr. Baucham’s perspective, which, as I’ve stated, I was not able to clearly determine.
In my experience, the argument that salvation is not about just “accepting Jesus” is often made by those who are seeking to address the problem of spiritual mediocrity within the church.
An overwhelming number of people claim to be Christians and yet, as we look around at the landscape of our culture, it’s hard to imagine that there are really that many people who legitimately ARE Christians. In other words, the lifestyles of most people do not seem to indicate that most people are indeed Christians.
So what is the problem?
Some people would argue that a major problem is in our evangelistic message – that we are not calling people to repentance but instead, we’re peddling a soft message that requires little to no commitment. Note that Dr. Baucham’s quote appeals to the need to “repent and believe.”
The argument is that if we tell people that salvation is simply a matter of “accepting Jesus” into their life, we’re giving them the impression that being saved is merely a verbal transaction where, if we say the right words, and “ask Jesus into our hearts”, we can escape the punishment of hell and then go on our merry way doing whatever we were doing.
This kind of approach, the argument goes, lacks commitment and ultimately is not transformational. Instead of producing mature believers whose lives reflect Jesus, it produces worldly people who think of themselves as Christians simply because they said “the sinner’s prayer.”
The oft-suggested solution to this perceived problem is to refrain from telling people that salvation is about “accepting Jesus” and instead, communicate that it’s about a higher level of commitment that requires repentance.
As I see it, there are two problems with this solution.
The first problem is that the idea of “accepting Jesus” logically includes the idea of repentance.
Repentance literally means to turn and change direction. One cannot legitimately accept Jesus while maintaining the view that they can earn their salvation through their own good works.
Accepting Jesus is NOT just saying some prescribed prayer. It requires an attitude of humility that recognizes we fall short because of our sin and that Jesus is the ONLY one who can offer forgiveness through His shed blood on the cross.
Accepting Jesus, or receiving Christ, means that we accept the free gift of salvation that Jesus offers to all people. How do we do this? Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we do this by faith.
What that means is that I literally change direction (repentance). Instead of my former course where I trusted in my own good works to earn God’s favor, I now choose a new course, where I place my trust in Jesus alone to provide forgiveness and to save me from the penalty of my sins.
There’s a second problem with the solution of saying we should refrain from saying that salvation is about “accepting Jesus”. The second problem is that even if we were to stop talking about “accepting Jesus” and even if we were to convince everyone to use the different language of “repent and believe” in our evangelistic presentations, there is no reason to believe that the outcome would be any different than it already is.
The reason for this is because spiritual mediocrity in the church is largely a reflection of the hearts of people rather than the specific wording of the evangelistic messages that are being promoted. Mark 4 tells us that there are 4 different soils that represent the different heart attitudes of people who hear the message of the gospel. (See my blog post: Which Soil Are You?)
Sharing a message of “Repent and Believe” to a person who has a hard heart, rocky heart or thorny heart is likely to yield the same result as sharing a message of “Accept Jesus”. Regardless of the specific verbiage of your message, the outcome will be the same, because it is already determined by the heart condition of the hearer.
Please note that I’m not saying that our evangelistic message and approach doesn’t matter. Our message should be biblically correct. However, the idea that one biblical approach will produce better results than another, equally biblical approach is wishful thinking and places too much emphasis on the sower for the results.
There is no silver bullet message or approach that will guarantee the hearer will become a fruitful Christian.
In addition, since we know that spiritual mediocrity among professing believers has been a problem since the outset of the church, it stands to reason that it’s an issue of discipleship more than evangelism. The issue was addressed repeatedly in the New Testament and has been a source of controversy for 2000 years. We’re not likely to see a change in this phenomenon, though we should certainly do our best to disciple believers to maturity, just as the apostles did.
(See my blog post: Why Some Christians Never Grow)
The most important thing we can do when communicating with a non-Christian is to give a clear and understandable explanation of what Jesus is offering. (See my blog post: What Does it Look Like to Follow Jesus?)
I think it’s clear that linking salvation to the idea of “accepting Jesus” is not unbiblical, as long as we help the hearer understand that accepting Jesus involves repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus as our one and only Savior.
Reflection
What has been your understanding of the idea that people must “accept Jesus” in order to be saved? What are they accepting?
What do you think are the main reasons why some Christians don’t grow? How should we change our evangelistic approach to ensure greater fruitfulness among believers?
Do you agree with the statement by the author of this blog that mediocrity among professing Christians is more a result of discipleship than evangelism? What are your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing?
How can we disciple others to greater levels of maturity and fruitfulness? What steps can be taken? What resources do you think are needed?
Photo is a screenshot from a Facebook post at Voddie Baucham’s Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10221114209364128&set=a.1532880861226)
The Lowedown 