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"Accepting Christ"
by I. C. Herendeen
In an effort to get sinners saved we often hear them exhorted to "accept
Christ as their personal Saviour" as though those who are slaves of Satan
and captives of the Devil could do so and be saved if they did so. But this is
utterly foreign to Holy Scripture; there is no foundation in Holy Writ for it.
It presents a false way of salvation, and therefore should be discarded along
with other similar expressions such as "Give your heart to Jesus,"
"Take Jesus as your Saviour," etc. Such expressions fail to take into
consideration the plain and sad fact that man is a fallen creature (Rom 3:23),
"Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of
God" (Ephesians 4: 18) with a heart stubbornly steeled against Him so that
he "will not" come to Christ (John 5:40) unless and until Divine power
overcomes his innate enmity and makes him willing to come that he "might
have life" (John 10:10). By nature the sinner's "carnal mind" is
"enmity against God" (Romans 8:7) so that naught but Divine power
operating within him can overcome this enmity. The salvation of any sinner is a
matter of "the operation of God" (Colossians 2:12).
A spiritual kingdom requires a spiritual nature, and in order to the
acquisition of that the natural man must be regenerated, Divinely regenerated,
for the creature can no more quicken himself than he can give himself a natural
being, Why not? Because regeneration is no mere outward reformation, process of
education, or even religious cultivation. No, it consists of a radical change of
heart and transformation of character, the communication of a gracious and holy
principle, producing new desires, new capacities, a new life. The new
birth is absolutely imperative, but this is the work of the Spirit of God from
the very nature of the case. Birth altogether excludes the idea of any effort or
work on the part of the one born, hence it is written "It is the Spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63).
The new birth is much, very much more than temporary remorse for sin, giving
mental assent to the acceptance of Christ as personal Saviour, changing the
course of life, or leaving off bad habits and substituting good ones. "It
goes infinitely deeper than that - it is the inception and reception of a new
life. It is radical, revolutionary, lasting, a miracle, the result of the
supernatural operation of God." "Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah
2:9), of Lord from beginning to end.
It is no marvel that the natural man needs to be born again, for he is
totally depraved, a slave of sin and Satan, devoid of any love to God, any
relish for heavenly things, and any ability to perform spiritual acts." The
sinner has been totally "ruined by the fall," is "without
strength" (Romans 5:6), hence it is written in John 6:44 "No man can
come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him."
Only those who have been "made meet to be partakers of it a
inheritance of the saints in light" (Col 1:12) and made holy shall enter
heaven which is a "prepared place" for a prepared people (John 14:2).
"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord" (Heb 12:14; Matt 5:8).
"By his apostasy man lost his holiness, is wholly corrupt and under the
dominion of dispositions and lusts which are directly contrary to God. The
corruption of man's being is so great and entire that he will never truly repent
unless and until he is supernaturally renewed by the Holy Spirit. In order for
any to have Christ as their Saviour they must first have received Him is their
'Lord' (Col 2:6; Acts 2:36), as their King to rule over them, for God saves none
in their rebellion against him." We must cease our rebellion against Him
and His authority and give Him the throne of our hearts as our Ruler or He is
not our Saviour no matter what our profession.
It seems to be the understanding of so many that if and when Christ is
"offered" to man for his acceptance and he "surrenders" and
he "gives his heart to Jesus" that the blood of Christ will then avail
to wash away his sins. But not so. As well offer food to a corpse, for Ephesians
2:1-2 tells us that sinners are "dead in trespasses and sins," and
certainly a "dead" man cannot "accept Christ" or cooperate
with the of God. It is a sad delusion indeed that any should think that it lies
it the power of the natural man to perform any act of what is naively termed
"simple faith" and thus be saved. The truth of the Word of God is that
before any man can be saved he must be "born of the Spirit" of God
(John 3:8) and surrender to the authority of God else his profession is
worthless and his religion vain.
To exhort sinners to be saved by "Accepting Christ as their
Saviour" without pressing upon them the imperative necessity of repentance
is dishonest, and is to falsify God's terms of salvation, for "Except ye
repent ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 17:3) is the Divine dictum. The
sinner must either repent or perish, there is no other alternative. And since
"All have sinned" (Rom 3:23) all therefore need to "repent and
believe the Gospel" (Mark 1:15) else they will be "punished with ever
lasting destruction" (2 Thes 1:9). To delay repentance then is most
perilous.
"Repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18) is "not of a work of
nature but a gracious work of the Spirit of God, begun in the heart and
manifested in the new birth, continued throughout the entire life of the
Christian, and consummated in Heaven."
"Accepting Christ as personal Savior" is a far, far cry, from that
repentance that God demands from the sinner before he can be saved (see Acts
17:30). For salvation, "repentance unto life" is just as necessary as
is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. No sinner was ever pardoned while he remained
impenitent, while he remained in rebellion against God and His authority, and
without submitting himself wholeheartedly to His Lordship. This involves the
realization in his heart, wrought therein by the Holy Spirit, of "the
sinfulness of sin" (Rom 7:13), of the awfulness of ignoring the claims of
God and of defying His Authority.
Repentance is a "holy horror and hatred of sin, a deep sorrow for it, a
contrite acknowledgment of it before God, and a complete heart forsaking of
it." Peter in Acts 3:19 did not say that all you have to do is to
"Accept Christ" as your personal Saviour, but instead he said "Repent
ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."
From the above it is crystal clear that a mental assent to the Gospel will
save no one, nor will a mere empty profession of faith in Christ. So many
flatter themselves that they are born again because they have been baptized,
joined some "church of their choice," received the Lord's supper, who
do not have a keen and humbling sense of sin. Professing to be Christians, they
are filled with a vain and presumptuous confidence that all is well with their
souls, deluding themselves with hopes of mercy while continuing to live in a
course of self-will and self-pleasing, But "the spiritual impotency of the
natural man is total and entire, irreparable and irremediable so far as all
human efforts are concerned. Fallen man is utterly indisposed and disabled,
thoroughly opposed to God and His law, wholly inclined to evil."
The sinner in his natural state has no power in himself to accept Christ as
his personal Saviour, or to "believe to the saving of his soul," nor
has he any real desire or intention of doing so for the reason that, as stated
above, his "carnal mind" is "enmity against God" (Rom 8:7).
He is "the servant {lit. bondslave} of sin" (Rom 6:20) and must be
made free from sin" (Rom 6:22) by the almighty "power of God"
(Luke 9:43). That he is utterly helpless to save himself is clearly brought out
in Jeremiah 13:23 where we read "Can the Ethiopian change his skin,
or the leopard his spots?" When he can do that then "may he also do
good, that is accustomed to do evil." The sinner's "spiritual
impotency consists in nothing but the depravity of his own heart, and his
inveterate hatred of God. He is so helpless and hopeless in himself that he
cannot take one step toward Christ for salvation." Hence he is cast upon
God "from the womb" (Psalm 22:10) if ever he is to be saved, so to
intimate to sinners that they can come to Christ whenever they agree to accept
Christ as their personal Saviour is to deceive and bolster them up on a false
"way of salvation." This is an exceedingly serious matter. They need
to "seek the Lord while He is to be found, and call upon Him while He is
near" (Isa 55:6).
How we do need to be reminded of the scriptural injunction to "Hold fast
the form of sound words" (2 Tim 1:13), and present the Gospel as far as
possible in "words which the Holy Ghost teacheth" and not in
"words which man's wisdom teacheth" (1 Cor 2:13). Selah.
As another has so well said, "The saving work of Christ, that is, the
saving of a soul from hell, is only one of His many offices and works
that the Saviour does for men. If you heard the preacher say at the wedding,
'George, do you take Margaret whom you hold by the hand as your lawful wedded
cook?' you would sit up in astonishment and wonder at what kind of a marriage is
taking place. No preacher calls attention to the work, or the ability, or the
service which the bride will bring to her husband. In fact, the husband takes
the wife for everything that she can do, and all that she is."
Yet in preaching the Gospel we call attention to one work of the
Saviour instead of to the Person Himself who does that wonderful work.
Let us see how the Scripture reads. Do we find in John 1:12, "But as many
as received Him, as their Saviour, to them gave He power to become the
sons of God"? No, the words "as their Saviour" are not found in
the verse. Do we read in John 3:16, "that whosoever believeth in Him as
his own personal, Saviour"? No, we do not. These words are not found in
the verse. Nor are they found in 1 John 5:12, Matthew 11:28, etc. In fact, the
expression never occurs, for the Holy Spirit does not attract the
sinner's attention to one particular work, but always to the wonderful and
precious Person who did, and who does the work.
"It is as at the wedding, the bride who married the rich man confesses
that she is his bride, his wife. She does not say I took him as my banker, or as
my companion, or as anything else. My experience has been through the years that
those who profess to be saved through that kind of phraseology that is not found
in the Bible quite often cannot be found after a few weeks or months" (Dr.
W. L. Wilson in the Defender).
Pink says that "Man, with his invariable perversity, has reversed God's
order. Modern evangelism urges giddy worldlings, with no sense of their lost
condition, to 'Accept Christ as their personal Saviour,' and when such converts
prove unsatisfactory to the churches special meetings are arranged where they
are pressed to 'consecrate themselves' to Christ as Lord"!
How we do need to "Prove all things" and "hold fast it at
which is good" (1 Thes 5:21).
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