What’s to Come:
On Monday, I plan to publish a controversial post called “Does the Bible Really Contradict Itself?”
On Thursday, we plan to publish on the podcast a conference message I delivered called “The Ultimate Issue.”
You don’t want to miss those.
Today, I want to talk about this business of having a “personal Savior” and a “personal relationship” with the Lord. Actually, I’ve already spoken on this subject. Here it is.
As stated previously, the sinner’s prayer eventually replaced the biblical role of water baptism. Though it is touted as gospel today, this prayer developed only recently. D. L. Moody was the first to employ it.
Moody used this “model” of prayer when training his evangelistic coworkers. But it did not reach popular usage until the 1950s with Billy Graham’s Peace with God tract and later with Campus Crusade for Christ’s Four Spiritual Laws. There is nothing particularly wrong with it. Certainly, God will respond to the heartfelt prayers of any individual who reaches out to Him in faith. However, it should not replace water baptism as the outward instrument for conversion-initiation.
The phrase personal Savior is yet another recent innovation that grew out of the ethos of nineteenth-century American revivalism. It originated in the mid-1800s to be exact. But it grew to popular parlance by Charles Fuller (1887–1968). Fuller literally used the phrase thousands of times in his incredibly popular Old Fashioned Revival Hour radio program that aired from 1937 to 1968. His program reached from North America to every spot on the globe. At the time of his death, it was heard on more than 650 radio stations around the world.
Today, the phrase personal Savior is used so pervasively that it seems biblical. But consider the ludicrousness of using it. Have you ever introduced one of your friends by such a designation? “This is my ‘personal friend,’ Billy Smith.”
In Jesus Christ, you and I have received something far greater than a personal Savior. We have received Jesus Christ’s very own relationship with His Father! According to New Testament teaching, what the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and me.
Because we are now “in Christ,” the Father loves us and treats us just as He does His own Son. In other words, we share and participate in Christ’s perfect relationship with His Father.
This relationship is corporate just as much as it is individual. All Christians share that relationship together. In this regard, the phrase personal Savior reinforces a highly individualistic Christianity. But the New Testament knows nothing of a “Just-me-and-Jesus” Christian faith. Instead, Christianity is intensely corporate. Christianity is a life lived out among a body of believers who know Christ together as Lord and Savior.
Excerpted from Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna, Tyndale, 2008, pp. 191-192. Footnotes documenting sources are contained in the book.
I’m Building a Team – A Personal Invitation
I read a tract from Last Days Ministries several decades ago about the topic “personal “Savior, and this phrase has been like a grain of sand under my skin ever since. Thank you for addressing it precisely and yet without harshness. After a recent discussion with an old friend on this topic, I will be forwarding a link, because your words are so much better than mine. In doing my Internet search on the origin of the phrase, I was pleased to find your blog. Our family has read several of your books and appreciates your writings.
A very personal Happy Birthday to you, Frank!
My relationship with you is first via The Beloved Son Jesus Christ and then via your 10 books and other ministry over the last couple of years – thank you for caring for your sisters and brothers around the world!
Frank:
I hope that this question is not expanding upon the topic too much, but I ran across a concept in T. Austin-Spark’s book “Spiritual Senses” that has me scratching my head, a bit. (BTW, after being introduced to one of your books last year, and thereafter consuming several of your writings and your Indwelling course, I am now on my second Austin-Sparks book. It’s good that you helped me give up institutional religion; otherwise, I would have no time for all of this new reading.)
On the subject of salvation and pressing on to God’s eternal purpose, Austin-Sparks writes the following regarding Paul’s urge to the Corinthians to continue seeking spiritual maturity, “We know that, while we may not fall from salvation, we may fall from the inheritance. We know that we may lose God’s full purpose by not going on. Otherwise, why this urge?”
My question is, have you addressed this issue in your writings or podcasts? I am not asking about your view of once-saved-always-saved, as this quote goes beyond that. If I am reading Austin-Sparks correctly, our salvation is secured through believing in Christ in the waters of baptism. That act, though, does not necessarily secure our inheritance in the inhabited earth to come, governed by Jesus. What does it look like to be “saved” but to not secure our inheritance as adopted sons and daughters?
Admittedly, I have not finished his book, so my question may be answered by the end of the reading. Further, I have no doubt for the need to strive toward achieving God’s eternal purpose, through his grace. However, receiving salvation without inheritance has never been a concept that I have heard discussed in my 50 years of existence.
Mike, this is a bit off the topic of the post. But briefly, Sparks is referring to the reward of the believer. Texts like 1 Corinthians 3 allude to this aspect. Some will be saved, but their work will be burned in the fire.
Salvation is referred to as a “gift” in the NT, while reward is referred to as the “prize.” It’s a big subject, but that’s an intro. Not every believer will have the same reward (inheritance) in the coming kingdom. What that looks like exactly isn’t specified in the NT and there are all sorts of theories. But the principle is clear in Scripture.
Greetings Frank,
Good word. I never thought about the term ‘personal savior’ in that way. We are, after all, created for relationships, thus we should think of the great commission as a matter of bringing others into a corporate relationship with Christ, which we all enjoy as a family.
To understand our relationship with Christ in this way makes us . . . dare I say . . . responsible for one another. The issues I deal with or you deal with are not “Personal issues” that we should be left alone to deal with by ourselves, rather they are “Family issues” that we must deal with together as a family through fellowship and accountability.
Erick
Indeed. We certainly have an individual relationship with the Lord, but it’s an outflow of the Father’s relationship with the Son. And the idea of a “personal Savior” is quite a bit off. I don’t have personal friends or personal loved ones. I have friends and loved ones. 🙂
Anyways, I wrote this in a 2008 book and it’s still pertinent today, I believe.