If you’ve spent any time with evangelical Christians, then
you’ve no doubt had at least one of them tell you that you need to confess your
sins and accept Jesus into your heart. You’re promised that if you do so, you’ll
have eternal life in heaven.
Does this sound a little odd to you? In this way of
thinking, if you just so happen to come across a Christian who gives you the
right words to say and you say them, then you’ll get to spend eternity in heaven.
Conversely, if you never meet a Christian or none of your Christian friends pass
this very important information along to you, then God will have no choice but
to throw you into hell where you’ll be tormented with fire and brimstone for
all of eternity.
The basic message being communicated is that our eternal
destinies are riding upon confessing our sins and accepting a dude who lived
2,000 years ago into our hearts. When I step back and evaluate it from a
logical perspective, it sounds pretty superstitious to me.
Yet, almost two thirds of self-proclaimed Christians believe
that they will go to heaven when they die because they confessed their sins and
accepted Jesus into their hearts.[1]
Are they right? Or have they gotten caught up in a heretical superstition which
has spread like wildfire through American Christianity? Let’s take a closer
look.
Is Accepting Jesus Biblical?
When Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee and found
four fishermen, did he give them an invitation to confess their sins and accept
him into their hearts? Not at all. Instead, he said, “Follow me, and I will
make you fishers of men.”[2]
When three men asked Jesus if they could follow him, did he
offer them an invitation to confess their sins and accept him into their
hearts? Not at all. He told one that it was going to be very uncomfortable. He
told another to let the dead bury the dead. And he told the third one that he
had to be totally surrendered to him.[3]
When the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles at
Pentecost, did Peter offer the crowd an invitation to confess their sins and
accept Jesus into their hearts? Not at all. Instead, he told them to repent and
be baptized.[4]
None of these key passages mention anything about confessing
sins (confessing is different than repenting) and accepting Jesus into our hearts.
Is it absent because it was unintentionally omitted by the authors? Or is it
absent because it never happened?
Having read every word in the Bible over and over and over
again, I have yet to find any evidence to support the claim that if we confess
our sins and accept Jesus into our hearts, then we will be given a one-way
ticket to heaven. Instead, I have come to see that Jesus doesn’t need nor does
he demand our acceptance. Instead, we’re the ones who need his acceptance.
Why Do We Need Jesus’s Acceptance?
Did you know I get in trouble with Amy sometimes? I don’t
intent to do it, but I hurt Amy seemingly all the time. I’ll say something mean
to her or I’ll fail to come through on a promise I made. When I hurt Amy, there’s
nothing I can say or do to make up for the hurt I’ve caused her. I’m completely
at her mercy; she has the ability to decide whether she’s going to continue to accept
me or whether she’s going to cease accepting me.
It works the same way with Jesus. We sin against Jesus every
single day of our lives, even if we don’t intend to do it. This means we’re completely
at his mercy in regards to whether he wants to accept us or not. He may choose
to accept us and he may choose to not accept us.
Let’s say I had an extramarital affair with another woman. How
do you think that would impact Amy? Obviously she would be extremely hurt by
it. Would there be anything I could do to make up for the pain I caused her? Absolutely
nothing would make up for it. At that point, I’d be completely at her mercy. She
could decide to forgive me or she could decide not to forgive me.
Let’s say Amy was very merciful and decided to forgive me. Is
it then up to me to accept her forgiveness? What if I didn’t want her to
forgive me? Would my lack of acceptance of her forgiveness make her forgiveness
ineffective? Not at all. Whether I accept it or not, she can still choose to
forgive me.
In this example, it makes perfect sense that when I sin
against Amy, she is now in control of the relationship. But when it comes to Jesus,
we don’t see it this way. We view ourselves, the ones who’ve sinned against
Jesus over and over and over again, as somehow being in control of the
relationship and having the ability to accept or reject what he’s done for us.
Somehow we’ve arrived at the conclusion that Jesus’s forgiveness is only effective
when we accept it. This makes absolutely no biblical or practical sense.
What’s a More Biblical Approach?
How does this conclusion relate to accepting Jesus into our
hearts? Isn’t it one thing to accept Jesus’s forgiveness and another to accept
him into our hearts? Actually, they are pretty much one in the same thing,
meaning that it’s just as foolish to think we have the ability to control
whether Jesus works in our hearts as it is to think that we have control over
whether Jesus forgives our sins.
Thankfully, there is a much more biblical approach to
evangelism than trying to get people to say a superstitious prayer to confess
their sins and accept Jesus into their hearts. To prove this point, let’s look
at when the twelve disciples accepted Jesus into their hearts.
Did they accept Jesus when they were first called to follow
him? Did they accept Jesus when Peter realized he was the Messiah? Did they
accept Jesus when he died on the cross? Did they accept Jesus on the day of Pentecost?
I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us. All we know is that they are saved,
but we don’t know when it happened or how it happened. If we need to confess
our sins and accept Jesus in order to get to heaven, then wouldn’t you think
the biblical writers would’ve included it somewhere in the New Testament?
What can we learn from the absence of any wording in the Bible alluding
to the need for us to confess our sins and accept Jesus into our hearts? Apparently that’s not how we receive eternal life in heaven. Instead,
the Bible tells us that God chooses to save his people and works in their
hearts to bring them to repentance and draw them to him.[5]
We’re not disciples of Jesus because we accepted him; we’re disciples
of Jesus because he accepted us.
[1]
According to a study conducted by the Barna Group, 63 percent of the
evangelical Christians surveyed believed they would go to heaven because they
confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their savior: Barna Group, “What Do
Americans Believe about Jesus? 5 Popular Beliefs.” April 1, 2015, accessed
October 7, 2016, https://www.barna.com/research/what-do-americans-believe-about-jesus-5-popular-beliefs/.
[2] See
Matthew 4:18-22.
[3]
See Luke 9:57-62.
[4]
See Acts 2:1-41.
[5]
See John 6:37-44, 15:16, Acts 2:39, and Ephesians 1:3-6.
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