“What do I need to do to become a Christian?”
I asked my theology class this question today. Thankfully, no one said “invite Jesus into your heart.” Nevertheless, I was struck that their answers largely assumed that Christians have to say something to be saved—for example, say a prayer where you confess your sin, invite Jesus to be Lord of your life, etc.
At the same time, I wasn’t too surprised by their answers given that Evangelicals often emphasize saying a prayer, sometimes called the “sinners prayer,” as the means to getting saved. This may be because of the history of evangelical revivals, accompanied by altar calls, and because many evangelicals have been taught to evangelize using the so-called “four spiritual laws,” which end with a prayer.
Biblical Clues
On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection (Acts 2:22-36). In response, the crowd asked, “Brothers, what should we do?” (v. 37). Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38). Peter’s answer was repentance and baptism. Neither of these things necessarily require saying something.
I would add that Peter’s answer presupposes that a person needs to have faith in God—no one would repent or want to be baptized unless they first have faith in God. Hence, it makes sense that when someone asked Paul, “what must I do to be saved?,” Paul answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30-31).
But, What Should a Person Say?
Do we have to say something in particular to have faith, repent, or be baptized? No. There is no biblical formula or checklist for what a person has to say in order to be saved. Faith is found in our hearts (“believe in your heart…,” Romans 10:9). Nevertheless, authentic faith will no doubt be expressed with words and actions, such as prayer, baptism, participating in communion, and love for others.
One might protest with an appeal to Romans 10:9, which says “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord… you will be saved.” Note, however, that this statement starts with if—confession is sufficient, but not necessary. Note also that this is a fairly limited confession. It certainly isn’t a lengthy prayer.
By grace
My opening question is actually somewhat problematic. We don’t really have to do anything to be saved. Rather, we are saved solely by the grace of God. We respond by realizing that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves and, therefore, we trust ourselves to God (faith), and live in response to this (repentance and baptism).
Implications?!
On account of this, it isn’t always clear when a person is “saved.” If a child is raised in a Christian home, they may have faith long before they ever say a prayer requesting salvation or are baptized. Likewise, I imagine that if an adult decides to say the sinners’ prayer months after attending a church, they probably are doing so because they already have faith in God.
In saying this, I don’t deny that there is value in leading someone in the sinners’ prayer. People can express their faith with a prayer. Nevertheless, no one is required to say any particular prayer in order to be saved by God.
But, perhaps in saying all this I’ve missed something crucial. Perhaps the key is having people raise their hands at the end of a church service, while everyone in the congregation closes their eyes, so that no one knows who is getting saved ;).*
* Thanks to one of my students for inspiring my last point.
Andrew,
I am surprised at your misreading of Romans 10;9. It is a conditional sentence with two conditions:
(Condition 1) If your declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ [this is most obviously saying something] and (Condition 2) believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, (Result) you will be saved.” This is confirmed by the following verse: “For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and IT IS WITH YOUR MOUTH THAT YOU PROFESS YOUR FAITH AND ARE SAVED” [NASB].
James Craig
James,
A misreading or a different reading?
Yes, Romans 10:9-10 contains conditional sentences, but conditions aren’t always exclusive or necessary. For example, if I kiss my wife, she will know I love her. Likewise, if I tell her I love her, she will know I love her. There is more than one way to demonstrate love. Moreover, I can tell you for sure, I loved her even before I did either of these things. Similarly, as I was saying in the blog post, there is more than one way to express your faith in Jesus. Moreover, faith can be present before it is expressed verbally. Hence, a person could be saved before they actually say the sinners prayer (for example).
With respect to conditions for salvation, note also that many Evangelicals would think that confessing your sins is necessary for salvation, in keeping with 1 John 1:9, which says “if we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Nevertheless, if 1 John 1:9 is a necessary condition, then Romans 10:9-10 wouldn’t even be sufficient to receive forgiveness since Paul there says nothing about the need to confess one’s sins.
My understanding is that Romans 10:9-10 is expressing aspects that are sufficient conditions for receiving salvation, but not necessary or exclusive conditions. Hence, if “one believes and is justified” (v. 10) but have not yet confessed, I have every reason to believe that person would still be saved. Of course, I would expect that if the person believes, they will at some point eventually confess “Jesus is Lord” (verse 10), but I’m not going to say that the first time someone makes such a confession (or says the sinner’s prayer, which was more so my emphasis) is the exact moment at which the person becomes a Christian.
I would tend to lean toward your sufficient-but-not-necessary reading here, if you mean only that certain wording is unnecessary (and technically, Paul also did not record these words in English, but Greek, so we’re already practically not uttering the exact sounds he would have uttered in his confession). But I also tend to think that confessing “Jesus is Lord” was and is a loaded phrase, which tacitly includes a declaration of allegiance and repentance for having been un-loyal to Christ and God up to that point, i.e., a confession of “sin.” So, confession of sin here is probably implicit in the confession (although it’s not quite the same perhaps the revivalist altar call confession of sin prayer).
Further, I also tend to think that the oral confession piece is far more valued in the NT than we might emphasize today (since we can apparently “believe” all manner of things in our “hearts,” while keeping them a secret!). Following the allegiance emphasis (see Matthew Bates’ great book on this, Salvation by Allegiance Alone), what the NT emphasizes is outward allegiance to (belief in) Jesus as the means of salvation. So, while I would not want to deny that God might discern our inner allegiance, which I guess would be sufficient to make us eligible for eternal life, I would tend to refrain from identifying one as a full “convert” without it. In fact, I’d be reluctant to point to anyone as an example of a true convert unless they’d been baptized in water. To be clear, again, this doesn’t mean that person doesn’t have a saving relationship with Jesus (hopefully this explanation will help prevent me from getting too many angry emails! ;-)).
Peter, I agree with everything you say, except I would also add that even a confession of “Jesus is Lord” is only sufficient under certain conditions…under the conditions of the heart, and under conditions that lead to true repentance (turning from sin).
To be clear, I do affirm all Christians SHOULD affirm “Jesus is Lord,” and if they couldn’t, I would have to question their faith.