Encord Post: Our evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ are all about making a decision for Christ. They will often ask, “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?” Such a question sounds strange to Lutherans, along with the similar question, “are you born again?” The reason is Lutherans believe these are really the wrong questions. Why? Because Jesus sought us, found us, saved us by his suffering and death, accepted us in baptism and gave new birth in it by water and the Holy Spirit. So, yes, thank you, I am born again, but no, I did not accept Jesus as my personal Savior. He accepted me and made me God’s child and his brother. There is nothing more personal than that.
I once was asked by someone if I could study all the Bible passages with him that talk about accepting Jesus as Savior. My answer was no, because there are no such passages. In fact, if you go through the Bible looking for people who were lost and sought God, you will find very few. Think about it for a moment: God made Adam and Eve. When they sinned, he came and found them. He went to Noah and told him to build the ark. He found Abraham and told him to leave home, promising to give him a son. He came to Jacob when the patriarch ran away and wrestled with him. He called to Samuel in the night. He sent Samuel to find and anoint David. Almost every book of the words of the prophets begin with: “and the word of God came to…” We don’t seek God, he seeks us out.
Why is this? We were dead in our sins. (Ephesians 2:1-3) As the saying goes, “Dead men tell no tales.” As Martin Luther says it, “I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to him.” (Small Catechism 2.3) Because he loved us, he is gracious to us. He was moved in Christ Jesus to become one of us, live a perfect life for us, take our sins upon himself and die on the cross for us. It is by this grace we are saved, through his gift to us of faith.
In a sense, we can talk about decision theology, then. God decided to save us. He is our personal savior, because he made it so. We will live with him forever because of this. We can rest in the peace this brings, confident that he will remove every sin from us one day, the day he calls us forth from our graves and dries every tear in our eyes.
Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Thank you for posting this great explanation. Lutherans don’t want to talk about this it seems as I believe they have a fear of offending other Christians with such decision theology. However it is biblical truth that God chose us! Thanks!
We are not climbing Jacob’s ladder.
Many years ago I was approached in an airport and asked, “have you been baptized?” The answer given have the questioner pause. ” Yes, ” I replied, “but not in the way you ask. ” We then had a fruitful discussion of baptism.
Great Biblical response, overflowing with the grace of God for lost sinners.
Saving faith is God’s gift.
Thank you for this explanation. My husband’s Aunt Mary is certain I’m going to you-know-where because I’ve told her I’m not “born again”. She just can’t grasp my Lutheran beliefs when I try to explain what you just explained here. Seeing it print will help me next time she brings it up…which is every time she sees me because she thinks she’s got to “save” me.
Thanks. Of course, she’s mistaken. You ARE born again (from above). You are baptized.
O how I thank you for this wonderful, logical explanation!!!!!
Great explanation for all the Christians that do infant Baptism
Thanks, have had discussions with others who think I am wrong! And one Bible Study leader told me I was wrong when I said that once saved, always saved is wrong! Needless to say, I quit that study, everyone in the class agreed with her!
I guess that teacher has never heard of apostasy or blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. It is sad when no one wants to disagree with a teacher. Good for you. We are all fallible.
And yet, how sadly often I come across that phrase, “personal Lord and Savior,” even in the publications of the most orthodox Lutheran denominations. It annoys me almost as much as the phrase, “We are saved by the shed blood of Jesus.” When we add these adjectives to the simpler phrases of Scripture, it’s because we have some theological axe to grind, not with our fellow Christians, but with the Author of the Bible. If more Christians realized this, fewer of them would engage in the practice of adding words to a Gospel that has done very well, thank you, for centuries without our editing.
What about those who have been baptized but have turned their back on their Saviour
People are able to reject Christ. This doesn’t change that it is God who seeks them out and accepts them. It is why it is good to use the gifts he gives us to strengthen and maintain faith.
From Solid Decl Free Will Article 2
69] But when the baptized have acted against their conscience, allowed sin to rule in them, and thus have grieved and lost the Holy Ghost in them, they need not be rebaptized, but must be converted again, as has been sufficiently said before.
[70] For this is certainly true that in genuine conversion a change, new emotion [renewal], and movement in the intellect, will, and heart must take plac
Solid. Very well written Gospel truth.
Jeff read 1 John 1:7, it clearly states were cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
Do you believe that every person will go to heaven? Do you believe that there is a hell? Who will go to hell?
No, not everyone will go to Heaven. Hell is a place created for Satan and his angels. (see Matthew 25) Everyone who rejects the grace of God will go there. THe Bible calls it eternal death.
Quick question about sharing the gospel. If someone says they want to become a Christian , how do you respond? Take a 16 week baptism class at the local Lcms church??
Depends upon the individual. Is this after a long time sharing the gospel? What do they mean by they want to become a Christian? Do they think they have to do something? My usual answer is “you already are!” Now, let’s help you grow in your faith. coming to church is a good way to begin.
“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.” – Acts 17:26-27
Saint Paul literally preached at the Areopagus that God has arranged and ordered the world for the purpose that men would seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.
Also, according to St. Paul, quoting Ps. 14 & 53, “no one seeks God.” So, what do we make of this? In Acts, Paul points out that God arranged the world so that people would seek him. How do they respond? They do not seek him.
Psalm 14:2-3 – “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
Psalm 53:2-3 — “God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good, not even one.”
These verses do not make Luther’s point: “I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to him.” Luther wants to say that you do not have the power, the reason or strengthen, seek the Lord and find Him. The examples you provide from the Psalms show that men chose wickedness with their freedom and actions, but it doesn’t prove that they could not have made a different choice. You have to supply the deterministic anthropology, it’s not in the text of Scripture itself.
You have switched topics. The point, if you recall, is that no one seeks God. God seeks them. So, to the post, it is not we who decide to follow Jesus. Jesus seeks us. So… unless you can stop the bait and switch, there is no point discussing this with you. I suggest you read Ephesians 1-2 if you want to understand just one place where Luther gets his explanation of the 3rd Article.
It’s not a bait and switch, it’s where you went with your post. You made the connection when you said, “We don’t seek God, he seeks us out. Why is this? We were dead in our sins. (Ephesians 2:1-3) As the saying goes, “Dead men tell no tales.” As Martin Luther says it, “I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to him.” (Small Catechism 2.3)”
It’s not clear why you oppose the question “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?” by emphasizing that God seeks out his lost people to save them. Lots of evangelicals would agree with you about what God does to call and save his people. An evangelical could totally agree that God seeks them out but they can choose to reject or assent to what God is trying to do.
You’ve made a point that Paul quotes the Psalmists to make an absolute point about ability to seek God. “No one seeks God.” But the way words are used in Scripture doesn’t back up your point.
Exodus 33 is an example of what I am thinking of.
“Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” – Ex 33:11
But a little later in verse 20 of the same chapter we read, “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
Or again, John 3: “Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” You could use this to argue that baptism is *absolutely* necessary to enter the kingdom of God. “Unless means unless”.
Then you have Luke 23 and the exchange between the Thief on the Cross and Jesus: “And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Did Jesus not really mean “unless” in John 3 since he waived that requirement in Luke 23 for the thief on the cross?
I know that you’re trying to make a point about God’s grace, assurance of salvation and nothing that we as people can do contributes to that because you’re concerned about people doubting their salvation if anything they do is involved with the process, but it’s not at all clear that Scripture works in the way you’re wanting to in order to make the point.
Yes it is bait and switch. The discussion was about seeking the lost verses people going out seeking God. Both of the Psalms and the Romans passage that quotes it make it absolute. No one seeks God. The reason for opposing the “accept Jesus as your personal savior” is it makes salvation dependent on the good works of an individual at best and emotions at worst. Having been an evangelical, I know this from personal experience. So, the point: we do not seek God; he seeks us. Do you have a passage which says the opposite?
I have not changed topics. There has been no bait and switch. I have only discussed how I see your main point and the supporting points. I have introduced a Bible passage from Acts that I believe is evidence from Scripture against your argument about what Scripture teaches and it’s implications on the topic of whether or not a person seeks. I also gave reasons why I think the passages you cite don’t say what you think they say and I provided just a couple supporting examples of how language is used in Scripture which demonstrates what I think is going on in the passages you cited. You have declined to address most of it.
It seems plain to me that the authors of Scripture use hyperbole to intensify the meaning and importance of what is being said. “No one seeks God” – hyperbole. Acts 17:26-27
Exodus 33 – “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” – hyperbole — we know from a few verses before that the Lord spoke to Moses face-to-face in the tent of meeting as a man speaks to his friend.
Jesus says unless you are baptized you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Hyperbole. We know that when the thief on the cross sought and found Jesus with his prayer to be remembered in His kingdom, the Lord promised him that he would be with Him in paradise that day without baptism.
Ephesians 2 – “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—” etc. “dead” is hyperbole. Paul goes on to describe how they walked in trespasses and sins, following the devil, etc. A dead body doesn’t *do* anything. Yet he describes a very active life of sin. Clearly he wants to emphasize the gravity of their situation before they came to know Christ. But it’s hyperbole.
While I think you have good intentions, I think the argument of the post is sloppy and misrepresents Scripture. I don’t think you’re being malicious in doing so, but I think your broader point can be damaging to souls and lead to fatalism, determinism and despondency rather than hope and joy in the Gospel.
It is wonderful news for man that God seeks us, loves us and accepts even though we’re sinners. But that doesn’t require an unnecessarily negative view of man and unhelpful comments about how a man relates to God as he is getting to know Him.
George,
To your own textual support. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-9)
Paul is quite clear within himself and without hyperbole. The death in sin and trespasses is the inverse of being made alive in Christ (passive tense). Neither are physical death and life on earth. Both are very real and have eternal consequences or rewards. While walking, dead to God, we walk only in sin and trespasses. But, by the grace of God, who sought us while we were still lost, dead, Christ has brought us to life in Him, living to Him.
You have been saved by grace though faith, and it is not your own doing. The saving is not my doing. The grace is not my doing. Even the faith, the believing, the seeking of God, is not my own doing. Your use of St. Paul distorts the Word of God in the opposite what He is clearly saying.
You are not the doer. Jesus seeks the lost. Having been found, the lost seek him by the faith given to them. They are now alive in Christ and seek after Him in that faith.
When we say “all you have to do is…,” we are placing ourselves into God’s work for us. Believing as an act of will, deciding within ourselves to pursue God first, Inviting Jesus into our hearts are all false and misleading ways of talking about God’s work for us. It is not of your own works. Making faith into a work we do to gain God’s notice, favor, attention, salvation is a semipelagian error. It has been rejected by the whole of Christianity as and antichristian and antiscriptuaral error.
George, please turn from this intransigent error. It is separating you from the Word of God.
Jason,
Thank you for the reply. I agree with some of what you wrote, but not all of it. I think there’s a Lutheran tendency to assume a negative anthropology in the text that isn’t actually there.
One reason I think this is that if Saint Paul shared this assumption that some Lutherans want to say is there in Ephesians 2 and the other commonly cited texts he would have preached differently in Acts.
“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.” – Acts 17:26-27
Why would Saint Paul lead his audience on when really he didn’t think man, apart from Christ, had any power to seek and move towards the Lord in his natural state, before baptism?
I don’t think he does. I think problem is that some Lutherans aren’t acknowledging the assumptions they’re brining to the texts and that effects how you interpret them.
There’s no reason to assume such a negative anthropology.