Some Calvinists within the Southern Baptist Convention have come to their senses and have denounced the Baptist/evangelical "Sinner's Prayer" as superstitious and unscriptural.
The Arminians in the SBC who love and use this prayer are hopping mad! They are so mad, that they introduced a resolution at the recent SBC conference in New Orleans supporting the use of the prayer. I guess no vote was taken, but this debate shows the growing influence of Calvinism within the Southern Baptist Convention and their simmering battle with the Arminians.
For a full report on what happened, click here to read an article in Christianity Today:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/juneweb-only/baptists-sinners-prayer.html
Growing up as a fundamentalist Baptist, this is the version of the Sinner's Prayer that I was taught:
Dear Jesus,
I know that I am a sinner and that if I died right now, I would go to hell.
Please forgive me of all my sins.
Come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior.
I promise to forsake my past sinful ways and I choose to follow your will for my life.
Please save me right now.
Amen
To be clear, the Arminians in the SBC do not believe that simply reciting this prayer saves you. Absolutely not. You must mean it!
Is this prayer scriptural? No. You won't find it anywhere in the Bible. The Arminians will respond that, true, it isn't in the Bible, but the Bible does require that YOU do all the actions outlined in the prayer BEFORE God will save you.
Lutherans resoundingly reject this concept. It is called Synergism: man cooperates/assists God in his salvation. Where do Arminians get this belief?...Mother Rome! They haven't completely let go of this Catholic principle: salvation by works.
Lutherans believe that the Bible teaches that it is God, and God alone who saves. The Arminians are getting the cart before the horse, so to speak!
God, who predistined us to be his children before the world existed, saves who he chooses and when he chooses. The sinner is spiritually dead, remember? Faith, belief, repentance, and a change of heart are results or fruit of God's saving action. They are not necessary steps that YOU must fulfill before God will save you. See the difference?
Arminian Baptists point to their "decision" to accept Christ as proof of their salvation.
Calvinist Baptists point to their belief and faith as proof that they are one of the Elect, proof of their salvation. They can't always tell you when this happened but they are pretty certain that they have won the eternal "lottery" (to be chosen as one of the Elect, not one of the damned) based on how they feel. "I feel saved. I feel I believe. I feel I have faith. I feel I have repented, therefore I am saved."
Lutherans don't base our salvation on our decision or on how we feel. We pick up our baptismal certificate, as Luther said once, and shake it in Satan's face whenever he comes to cause us to doubt our eternal salvation.
God does 100% of the saving. Your faith, belief, repentance, and change of heart are all God's gifts that He gives to you at the same time that HE saves you!
Once again, God can save whomever, whenever; as a child or as an adult. Baptism is His seal that marks you as His. It is your visible, tangible proof of your salvation.
"Baptism doth also now save us." I Peter 3:21
Slideshow
It's still confusing. The sinners prayer does no good, we can't do any works--even turning from sin--and we can desire God with all our hearts. But unless we were chosen we do not have a chance. What is missing and making this so hard for me to understand?
ReplyDeleteWhat is missing is that you, like Calvinists, are making a very big assumption.
DeleteYou are assuming that because the Bible states that God has predestined, chosen, elected, those who will be saved, then that logically means that He has also predestined, chosen, elected, those who will be damned to hell.
There is nowhere in the Bible that says that!
In fact, just the opposite. In John 3:16 it says that "For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."
Whosoever means just what it says. Christ's blood was shed for all, not just the "Elect".
And in I Timothy 2:4 the Apostle Paul says, speaking of God, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of truth."
All men, means all men. It doesn't mean just the lucky few who won the eternal "lottery" as the Elect.
God desires all men to be saved. Christ died for all. God chooses those who will be saved. Man damns himself.
This may not seem logical, but that is what the Bible says. This is what the Lutheran Church teaches.
Believe the Bible, don't buy into theologies that invent doctrines based on human logic and reason.
I can see that I am trying to figure this out by logic. A neat little package complete with the right feelings. Doesn't the Bible say God gives our spirit witness that we are children of God? Trusting in God and His Word is also a gift if what you say is correct. I can't work up trust by myself. The question is: how do I get that and how do I know I am correct in what I believe? There are many beliefs out there, all with their "proof texts".
DeleteHere are my suggestions:
Delete1. Read the Bible with the faith of a small child. Believe the plain, simple meaning of what God says in His Word. Don't try to interpret what you read with adult logic and reason. Read the Bible without any preconceived doctrinal positions.
2. Read the writings of the early Church Fathers. Does your current denomination's doctrines reflect the understandings of Scripture as held by the early believers.
3. Pray. I will pray for you too!
In answer to your question on your second point, no. My denomination (non denomination) is kind of, well, symbolic. You know: nothing has meaning. It is all symbols. I love the way the Lord's Supper and Baptism mean something in the LCMS. Thank you for your suggestions and prayers.
Deletei believe you are misrepresenting (unintentionally) the issue at hand.
ReplyDeletehere is an excerpt of a statement by david platt, who spoke at the sbc pastor's conference, and is a calvinist (though he, like myself, does not wave that banner)- but voted *for* the resolution...
[david platt wrote:]
What grieved me about this issue, though, was the way it was reported in a few particularly prominent places that seemed to imply that this issue was dividing Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the SBC, or even me personally from various leaders in the SBC. Some even suggested that as “one of the SBC’s Calvinist stars,” I am “against the sinner’s prayer” because I “don’t want the hopelessly condemned thinking they are saved or joining churches when they actually have no chance for life in Christ.” In addition to how nauseous such a label makes me, words really can’t describe how much a comment like this pierces my heart, for nothing (I hope and pray) could be further from the truth. Any cautions I have expressed with a “sinner’s prayer” have absolutely nothing directly to do with the doctrine of election, and I definitively don’t believe that certain people “actually have no chance for life in Christ.” Instead, my comments about the “sinner’s prayer” have been deeply motivated by a concern for authentic conversion and regenerate church membership—doctrines which many Calvinists and non-Calvinists, as well as a variety of Christians in between, would rightly value.
I believe without hesitation or equivocation that God loves all people in the world (John 3:16) and He desires all people’s salvation (2 Peter 3:9). As followers of Jesus saved by His matchless grace (Ephesians 2:1-10), we are compelled to go with urgency to all people to tell them compassionately of God’s love for them (2 Corinthians 4:5) and to call them clearly to repent and believe in Christ (Matthew 4:17; Acts 2:38). As we do this, I believe we simply need to be as biblical as possible (2 Timothy 2:15). Do I believe it is “wrong” for someone to pray a “prayer of salvation”? Certainly not. Calling out to God in prayer with repentant faith is fundamental to being saved (Romans 10:9-10). Yet as I pastor a local church and serve alongside pastors of other local churches, I sense reasonably serious concern about the relatively large number of baptisms in our churches that are “re-baptisms”—often representing people who thought they were saved because they prayed a certain prayer, but they lacked a biblical understanding of salvation and were in reality not saved. This, in addition to a rampant easy believism that marks cultural Christianity in our context (and in other parts of the world), leads me to urge us, as we go to all people among all nations with the good news of God’s love, to be both evangelistically zealous and biblically clear at the same time (Matthew 28:18-20)."[end quote]
stephen cavness
cave city baptist church
southern baptist convention
This is a truly shocking statement by someone who professes to be a Calvinist.
DeleteEither Pastor Platt never was a Calvinist or he is recanting!
A true five-point Calvinist believes that God selects who will go to heaven and who will go to hell (“Double Predestination”). A true Calvinist believes that Christ did not shed his blood for all mankind, just for the Elect. A true Calvinist believes that someone who has not been chosen by God to be one of the Elect, is hopelessly lost, and on his way to hell.
Let’s look at some of Pastor Platt’s statements:
“My comments about the Sinner’s Prayer have been deeply motivated by a concern for authentic conversion and regenerate church membership…”
“I sense reasonably serious concern about the relatively large number of baptisms in our churches that are re-baptisms—often representing people who thought they were saved because they prayed a certain prayer, but they lacked a biblical understanding of salvation and were in reality not saved.”
“This, in addition to a rampant easy believism that marks cultural Christianity…”
This is Arminianism!
“Authentic conversion”, “lacking an understanding of (how) to be saved”, “easy believism”, indicate that Pastor Platt believes in Synergism: God needs man’s assistance, or at a bare minimum, God needs man’s cooperation, to save him.
This language is not scriptural. The sinner is spiritually dead. He CANNOT understand how to be saved. He cannot figure out an authentic way to be converted. (Ephesians chapter 2 and Colossians chapter 2)
Salvation is all God. He provides the faith, belief, repentance, and change of heart. All you do is follow God’s command and be baptized. God does all the rest!
When Christ appeared to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, did Christ wait for Paul to make a “decision for Christ”? Did Christ ask Paul to make a decision whether or not he wanted to “accept Jesus Christ into his heart, turn from his sins, and follow Christ as his personal Lord and Savior”?
No! Christ told him that he (Christ) had selected Paul to be his messenger to the Gentiles. He didn’t ask Paul for a decision. Christ elected Paul to be His, and then told him what to do.
What happened next? Paul’s eyes were opened, what is the first thing he does? Does he say the Sinner’s Prayer? Does he pray to accept Christ into his heart? No! Annaias tells him, “Don’t delay, get up, be baptized and wash away your sins.”
Pastor Platt certainly doesn’t talk like a Calvinist. He sounds like what the author of the Lutheran blog “The Lamb on the Altar” refers to as Calminian (otherwise known as 3 parts Calvinist, 2 parts Arminian).
My independent, fundamental Baptist church was Calminian. I and several others in the church prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” more than once to make sure we were saved. We worried that maybe the first time “we were saved” we didn’t really repent, or have enough faith, or have a true understanding of what WE had to DO to be saved!
This is Synergism: God needs me to do, say, or believe something to help in my salvation. This theology comes right from Rome: salvation by works.
Dear friend, God saves you by his supernatural, miraculous power all on his own! Just follow His command as Naaman did, as the Apostle Paul did, and go down and dip in the water (baptism). God will take care of the rest, and your soul will be washed clean and healed!
i assure you, platt believes in the doctrines of grace (though he never flaunts the label - he even gave a talk at the "together for the gospel" conference in april where one of his points was titled "the atonement of christ is graciously, globally, and gloriously particular". his ny times best selling book "radical" is more evidence of how he views the bible's teaching on salvation.
ReplyDeleteyou are operating with a lot of assumptions/ conclusions that *a lot* of people have different opinions on-all of which use scripture as there support.
so again, i appeal to the use of caution when making such broad generalizations and bold/ broad generalizations
here is a "summary" of the talk referenced above... it may change the way you assume"calvinists" think/ interpret scripture...
ReplyDeletehttp://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/04/11/tgc-6-david-platt-divine-sovereignty-the-fuel-of-death-defying-missions-revelation-51-14/
Calvinists are shifting sands. They simply refuse to be pinned down on the nature of Christ, WHO He is, and what He has done. What is most amusing is that Calvin had no problem signing onto this:
ReplyDeleteBut he did so because Melancthon, in his misdirected urge for unity, gave away not only the Most Holy Sacraments, but also, the Two Natures of Christ. Calvinists are not "pro-Christian" - they are, as was their founder, anti-Roman Catholic. Since its beginning, Christianity has been combating one heresy after another on the two natures of Christ, as God and Man. Arianism denied that Christ was truly God. Docetism denied that Christ was truly man. Nestorianism taught that Christ not only had two natures, but was actually two persons. Monophysitism thought of Christ as having only one nature, a kind of composite God and man. All of these Christologies were declared by the Church to be heretical. The Council of Chalcedon held in A.D. 451 finally declared four negations - that the one person of Jesus Christ to be acknowledged in two natures - inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably.
Christology at its most basic . . .
Genus Idiomaticum
Each nature has its own peculiar essential or natural attributes, which it retains even in the union, yet without conversion or confusion. The difference of the natures is not abolished because of the union, but rather the property of each nature is preserved intact and takes part in forming the one person. Example this can be seen when Jesus feeds the 5,000. This was wrought with the human hands of Jesus and his divine nature.
Genus Majestaticum
The divine nature of Christ in itself has received nothing from the hypostatic union, but his human nature has received and possesses innumerable supernatural gifts and qualities which are contrary to its nature and which are above every name and also above, beyond, and exceeding its own essential properties, which still, however, remain unimpaired. This can be seen in Jesus walking on the water, and walking through the wall and appear to his disciples in a locked room.
More importantly this genus starkly separates Calvinism from Lutherans in their view on the Lord's Supper. Lutherans maintained that this genus allowed Christ to be physically present with his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. As Jesus is God, Jesus – as both God and man – can be omnipresent, even in Communion. Calvinists did not hold to this genus and so they asserted that Christ’s divine nature, and not his human nature, could be present in the Sacrament - the "Spiritual Presence" View. Their reasoning is that Christ’s human nature could not be present on an altar while also being present in heaven.
Genus Apotelesmaticum
The union of Christ’s two natures took place in order that the work of redemption, propitiation, and salvation might be accomplished in, with, and through both of His nature. This essentially meant that when Christ died on the cross and rose again, he did so in both natures. This genus is very important to understand. If Jesus died only in his divine nature, he could not have died. If Jesus died in his human nature only, his death could not have made satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.
(continued from comment above) What Calvinists can never do is admit to the Genus Maiestaticum. They subordinate the human nature of Jesus to His Divine Nature - in essence - agreeing with the various sects that profess He is not really God. Which is why they refuse to admit Baptism is God's work upon us, or that the Real Presence is - well - the Real Presence. Jesus, in their theology, is stuck in a little cage at the "right hand of God" (that really means God's power and might!), and could not possibly be present in the bread and wine.
ReplyDeleteSheer nonsense!
Read Paul Scherer's "The Word God Sent" or anything of Luther, Chesterton or Lewis.
Calvinists reject one simple fact, as does Pastor Cavness. They cannot overcome their human reasoning (the Jews of Jesus could not, either), and admit Christ as the ULTIMATE, ALL-POWERFUL Lord of the universe.
anonymous,
ReplyDeletei reject your premise and your conclusion re: me & my beliefs.
stephen cavness
Anonymous @ July 2, 2012 4:38 PM, exemplifies how Luther in his day would disassemble an opponent. Except, that Luther would be a lot less forgiving of error(s). Any study of ιησου, in the Gospels, show that he was no less forgiving, of those who promulgated doctrinal error. We have a lot of weak and feeble (doctrinal training) pastors on the planet today. Unfortunately, for mankind's sake, this trend increasing, and will continue to increase to the end. (Sign of the "end times.") Sans all the feminist tendencies (overt and covert) occurring in the Body of Christ.
ReplyDeleteDoctrinal purity is even more paramount in these "last days." Many who think themselves qualified, and preach from a pulpit, are not. Many could be damned because of these false admonitions. The Body of Christ needs prayer like it has never needed before in Christian history against Satanic assault. We are at war, at a level warfare in past history has not been comprehended. It is not as much as warfare directed by Satan himself, and his minions. It is more warfare directed via man and his sinful self. Of sin, the devil, and the sinful self, that latter of the three, may prove to be the most devious and treacherous to humankind and its eternal salvation.
Klaatu -
ReplyDeleteYou are most correct.
Whilst you rightly point out that the sinners prayer is not found in scripture, you also falsely trying to point out a faith movement (possibly found in a repentant turn to God by the drawing of his Spirit) as A WORK.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this sort of accusation simply shows people more given to their doctrine then to the word of God. Scripture is clear that FAITH IS NOT WORKS, lest we should boast. Being able to point to a moment of repentance is not works or claiming to have earned salvation any more then your pointing to a baptismal certificate is a sign of salvation by works.
Simple question: How do you know you ARE saved? (present tense)
I know I am saved because my faith and trust is in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
DeleteThe point I am trying to make in the post is this: Neither having water poured over your head in a baptismal service nor the sinner thinking that HE made a free will decision to believe/accept Christ saves anyone.
We are saved by grace received through faith alone.
God saves those He has predestined before the world existed. What criteria He uses to make that decision we do not know. God chooses US. God accepts US, not the other way around.
A sinner's conversion to repent of his sins and to believe by faith in Christ is a consequence of God's "quickening" of one he has previously predestined to be his. Salvation is not dependent on ANYTHING that WE do.
My baptismal certificate is my visible "mark" that I belong to God, but it is my faith in Christ that proves that I am saved, a Christian.
Baptism is not an automatic ticket to heaven. Faith must be present to be saved.
One added point: Faith is not a work, faith is a gift from God.
DeleteThe Arminian idea that the sinner uses his own intellect and maturity to make a decision to accept Christ is a work.
Believing by faith in Christ as your Lord and Savior is not your doing. Believing by faith is a gift from God because he predestined you. He spiritually quickens you. He gives you the faith to believe.
My issue is not whether faith is a work, it definitely is not. My issue is with Christians who believe and teach that the sinner needs to make a "decision" to "accept" Christ. That language is nowhere to be found in Scripture.
The proper terminology should be: "Believe and repent."