Here are three common versions of the Sinner’s Prayer.
“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your Name.” (Billy Graham Ministries)
“Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.” (Campus Crusade for Christ)
“Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe You died for my sins. Right now, I turn from my sins and open the door of my heart and life. I confess You as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank You for saving me.” (Greg Laurie)
Unlike so much of modern Christianity, these prayers do acknowledge sin in some way. They also acknowledge Jesus as our forgiveness. But, we’re missing what confession does. That’s why the church pulls confession and absolution into their own area.
In the confessional prayer at the beginning of the divine service we say, “most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of your holy name. Amen.”
The Greg Laurie version is particularly problematic. It flips the confession after the acknowledgement of forgiveness.
All three of these have a very high anthropology. That is to say, they put me into a high position relative to God. “I turn… I open… I invite…” This language is the opposite of what scripture teaches us concerning forgiveness. We were dead in our trespasses and sin. Lost, and hopelessly trapped, Jesus sought and found us.
“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.” [Ephesians 2:4-9]
The inviting, opening, and turning puts all the work of Jesus back onto to me. We rarely see it this way, but the Sinner’s Prayer is a works righteousness view of Christianity. It requires Jesus to wait on me to invite Him. The Bible calls us dead. Dead things don’t make decisions or open doors.
On the contrary, our Sunday morning prayers use a form that consists of address, rationale, petition, benefit, and conclusion. We do this, because it teaches us to pray from the word of God about the blessings God has already promised to us.
Address: Heavenly Father, O God, O Lord, etc.
We pray to the Father directly because Jesus taught us to pray this way. He is our advocate with the Father, who hears us when we pray.
Rationale: You give us all worldly leaders and authorities for our benefit.
We should always remember and acknowledge that every good gift comes from our Father in heaven.
Petition: Grant us relief from tyrants and wicked men.
This is the ask. What is it that we beg of God today? The rationale and the petition go together. The Father has blessed us and we want Him to keep lovingly giving us His blessings.
Benefit: That through this temporal relief we may be free to love and serve You and to better serve our neighbor.
Why? There are things that God’s blessings grant to us. His blessings are not just for us, but also that we may be a blessing to others.
Conclusion: In Jesus name. Amen
We should always pray in Jesus’s name. He is our advocate with the Father.
There’s probably more to be said. The whole thing also centers around the idea that Jesus doesn’t enter my heart without my invitation. This is entirely oppositional to the witness of the Scriptures. We are dead in our trespasses and sin. There is nothing we can do or ask apart from the gift of the Holy Spirit to trust in Jesus Christ.
Pray to the Lord, the God of our salvation!
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
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I grew up Baptist and marvel so much now how this Calvanistic view of salvation always places our Lord in an almost totally passive role. Decisional theology is all about me and much less about what our Triune God does and did for us.
Yes ma’am, you are absolutely right. The Sinner’s Prayer really is a sort of a creed that defines an understanding of salvation and how God interacts with us. And, it’s not what the bible teaches us.
Great explanation and also a guide on how to pray. Thanks.
You’re welcome and thank you too.
So how would this work as a sinner’s prayer that fulfills the requirements you listed in this article:
“Almighty God, Heavenly Father, You so love the world that You gave Your Son Jesus to die for our sins and be raised for our justification. Cleanse me of my sins by His blood, grant me salvation through His resurrection and with Your sacraments, and seal me with Your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ Your only Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever; Amen.”
Thoroughly Biblical, references John 3, Romans 4 and 10, Ephesians 1, and I John 1. The pray-ers do what the Bible requires (confesses the Lord Jesus Christ, believes that God raised Him from the dead), do not give any indication that salvation is an act of anyone other that God, but do indicate that they will submit to baptism and the Eucharist as means of salvation, and demonstrated by the seal of the Spirit.
It’s not as direct as, say, the prayer used by the late Rev. Falwell (“God, be merciful to me a sinner, and save me for Christ’s sake”), but it ticks all the boxes in your article.
Jim,
I’m not sure how those 5 entire chapters of scripture are intended to play into this discussion.
I suppose that prayer is fine. But, the actual notion of a sinner’s prayer in concept misses the mark. It draws not from the Word of God, but from George Whitefield’s enlightenment era process of salvation (conviction, conversion, and consolation). Similarly, a sinner’s prayer draws from Charles Grandison Finney’s new measures, which are derivation the enlightenment process. These are the primary sources of American decision theology. They were and remain innovative deviations from the historic Christian faith we have received.
In particular, Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar are gifts we receive from the hand of God Himself. They deliver the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The seal and submission language, again, come from the enlightenment and revivalist traditions.
The Luke 18:13 tax collector’s confession “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Is a brilliantly simple confession. It’s the cry of all of us sinners. Empty, without pretension of decision, he merely begs for mercy. We should all have our eyes so fixed upon Jesus.
Love this lesson! Thank you so much. Been LCMS all my 59 years this reminded me why I continue.
You’re welcome. I’m glad to hear you remain convinced.