Closing with Christ

When modern evangelical churches seek to bring the unregenerate to Christ (and they should do so with passion), they often fall prey to a formula which produces disappointing results. The pattern runs something like this:

This pattern has been passed down and repeated because few are taking the necessary time to examine both its flight from Scriptural precedent and precept and its dismal effect. When asked to give more careful consideration to its content and outcome, however, we are finding that many, thankfully, are rejecting this inept structure in favor of a better, more biblical one. The above list will seem familiar to every soul-loving believer, but the very evangelistic passion we have for our neighbors and unconverted family members should drive us to lay our present methods up against the truth for a well-needed examination. Like the short-of-breath fifty-year-old who has never been to the doctor, it is time for a major check-up. What then is wrong with the above list?

First, there is no biblical precedent or command regarding a public altar call. Whatever might be said for its use, we cannot resort to the Bible for support. Jesus nor Paul, nor any other early Christian leader used it. Did Jesus ask his listeners to come to the front after He preached the Sermon on the Mount? Did Paul say, "Every head bowed, every eye closed" as Luke quietly sang the invitation hymn on the Areopagus? Did Peter have seekers raise their hands as a sign of their interest in Christ at the end of the Pentecostal sermon?

Quickly it must be said that I espouse a verbal call to Christ in a most serious way and believe that the spoken invitation to come to Christ is a part of all gospel preaching. We "compel them to come in." When Moody failed to offer a public altar call on the evening of the Chicago fire, he stated a new resolve: "I learned that night [a lesson] which I have never forgotten; and that is, when I preach, to press Christ upon the people then and there, and try to bring them to a decision on the spot. I would rather have that right hand cut off than to give an audience a week now to decide what to do with Jesus." I could not agree more with his underlying sentiment, but this does not argue for an altar call. Evangelistic preaching does say, "Repent and trust Christ now." But there is nothing sacrosanct about getting people to occupy a certain piece of geography at the front of a building. Nor have I kept them from Christ by not having them respond to a public altar call. Rather I am offering them Christ without anything in between. I want nothing between their soul and the reality of Christ's offer. To put something in between is a practical sacramentalism.

Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) popularized this method through his mourner's bench. There was a person here or there that used it in an occasional manner prior to him, but he put it on the map. Reacting to Finneyism's ineptness, theologian Dabney commented:

On the other side of Finney was the veteran evangelist Asahel Nettleton (d. 1844), whose converts stood. For instance, in Ashford, Connecticut there were eighty-two converts, and only three spurious ones. In Rocky Hill, Connecticut, there were eighty-six converts and they all were standing strong after twenty-six years, according to their pastor. Nettleton rigidly refused to offer public altar calls, believing that it prematurely reaped what would turn out to be false converts. C. H. Spurgeon, the Victorian "Prince of Preachers," thought similarly. The long-term history is consistent on this issue; you may and should examine it.

Attached to the altar call (and to personal evangelism) in this model is the use of "the sinner's prayer." What can be said about this? Is it found in the Bible? The sad truth is that it is not found anywhere but in the back of evangelistic booklets. Yes the Scripture says, "whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved," but this means to evoke or place confidence in the name of Christ. The sinner may express genuine faith through a prayer, but to pray such a prayer is not the essence of the required response to the gospel invitation.

The typical "sinner's prayer" as evangelicals have come to express it, has three elements: (1) a mere acknowledgment of sin, which is not the same as repentance, (2) a belief in the act of Christ's death, which is far removed from trust in his person and work, and, (3) an "inviting Christ into the life." The last phrase hangs on nothing biblical (though John 1: 12 and Rev. 3: 20 are used, out of context, for its basis). It is considered, nonetheless, to be the pivotal and necessary instrument for becoming a true Christian. But God commands us to repentingly believe, not to invite Christ into the life.

Following the above, immediate assurance is given to the one who prayed on the basis of the sincerity of the person and the accuracy of the prayer. But it is the Holy Spirit who gives assurance of life in Christ, not the evangelist (Rom. 8: 16). We are to relate the basis of assurance but leave the actual assuring to the Spirit. This is rarely practiced in modern evangelicalism. We prefer rather to take the place of the Spirit in assuring the pray-er and therefore seal many in deception. It is not the efficacy of a prayer that saves; Christ alone saves. The well-quoted passage on assurance, 1 Jn. 5:13 states: "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." "These things…written" are the tests in the rest of the letter which give a basis to determine if we are truly converted.

In many cases the next step is to publicly introduce the one who has prayed the sinner's prayer and has just been told that he or she is a Christian. I have cringed to find that some leaders turn around after five minutes of "Just as I Am" and announce that the persons coming forward are converted. Sometimes the person has not been known to the pastor until that moment! Regardless, his optimism is often not founded, since extremely high numbers of these never show any competent sign of being converted. I am not intimating that people cannot be saved immediately, but that our early acceptance of the persons coming forward has often led us to "eat our words" about their new life in Christ.

Finally, there is the last stage of public baptism. It is interesting to note that in much of evangelicalism which is Baptistic, the number supposedly "being saved" and those being baptized is vastly different. If a hundred were purportedly converted during some sort of evangelistic effort, then we might not baptize but thirty of them. But out the thirty, as seen among Southern Baptists as an illustration, statistically only ten or eleven of those thirty (34 %) would show up on a given Sunday morning and only four or five (12%) on a Sunday evening (in churches that have services at that time). They do not really love the brethren or the atmosphere of godliness. All of these, however, have prayed the prayer, walked the aisle, been told they are Christians by someone in authority, and were publicly declared to be such.

Would it not be better for a system to be re-instated which comes closer to recognizing only the smaller number of true Christians? Is it love for the lost that will perpetuate practices producing such damning deception in so many—or is it merely love for success? Or should we assume that most leaders have simply gone on with "business as usual" without ever thinking it through at all? I prefer to believe the later is true in most cases. Whatever the motive, however, those deceived on our rolls are still damned.

The more biblical way of "closing with Christ" is to focus on the gospel itself, without props. Whereas the altar call method can be tacked on to just about anything, no matter how absent the gospel, the biblical method demands the hearing of the Word. "How will they believe without a preacher."(Rom. 10: 14). It is the "by the will of God that they are begotten, through the Word of truth" (Jam. 1:18, emphasis mine). They are "born again…through the living and abiding Word of God" (1 Pet. 1: 23, emphasis mine).

It is interesting to note that the Bible account focuses attention on the object of our faith, Jesus Christ, and his life and work, when presenting the gospel to those who do not believe. There is virtually no explanation of the nature of repentance and faith; merely its mention seems to be enough. Why is that so? It is because of this wonderful reality. When the Word is preached and the Spirit is at work, the sinner is brought to conviction of sin and he cannot love his sin any more. He must repent. And when the Word presents Christ as the only hope and the Spirit is at work in the sinner, he sees no refuge for his soul but Christ. He must believe. Where else could he possibly go?

What about those passages that deal with the nature of repentance and faith in detail? Those passages are there for the presumptuous. The Epistle of First John, James, and many other portions help the professing believer understand the nature of faith to test the quality of the faith he says he has. But on the main, evangelism, after laying out the awfulness of man and his sin, and the consequence and offense against God, focuses its gaze on Christ and His work on behalf of sinners. And the people simply believe. There is no emphasis on anything else. They just believe—no laboring of mechanics or methods or perfectly worded prayers, or walks to the front. They believe because it is all they can do.

The New Tribes Mission has been instrumental in giving us the best of missiological tools in their chronological approach to working with tribal groups. They teach the Bible from its beginning, laying out each story in sequence without revealing what is beyond that point. When they come to Christ, they do not present the gospel in its doctrinal entirety until it comes in the passage. In other words, they leave the person to experience the New Testament as it was experienced by those closest to Christ. In their video depiction of a tribal group in this process, the day to explain Christ's death comes. To the man, the New Guinea tribe visibly shows its sense of shame and remorse for the crucified Master. Three days are given before the group returns. Then the resurrection is explained. In the midst of the presentation, an older man jumps to his feet and loudly exclaims, "Ee-Taow," or "I believe." Others stand with the same exclamation, though this tribal group is normally reserved in their expressions. In time the whole tribe is chanting "E-Taow, Ee-Toaw," and jumping up and down. This went on for an extended period of rejoicing. A tribe was re-born in a day!

Such a response, with varying degrees of emotion, is the nature of believing in the New Testament. It was entirely incidental whether anyone prayed a "sinner's prayer" or walked to another place to take someone's hand. The powerful Word had encountered the people through the invincible Holy Spirit. This is New Testament evangelism.

You may not agree with my assessment, but it is my contention that our use of the altar call and the accouterment of a "sinner's prayer" is a sign of our lack of trust in God. Do we really believe that the Spirit convicts and regenerates, and that His Gospel preached and read is the ordained means He uses? Surely there is nothing unbiblical or non-evangelistic about the man who preaches the gospel forthrightly, prays earnestly, appeals urgently and places his entire trust in God to do what only He can do.

One of the biggest obstacles presented by many churches and evangelists is the "conversion experience." (Some of the more charismatic churches would go so far as to say that if you haven't spoken in tongues, then you aren't saved.) In my opinion, modern Christendom places more emphasis on esoteric experience than a sound biblical presentation of the gospel.

i am reminded of the passage in Acts where the Spirit leads Phillip to the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch. The Spirit moved Phillip to answer the sincere questions that the eunuch had. The result was a baptised convert. Notice that there was no "external signs" involved in the "conversion experience", the scriptures record simply that the eunuch went on his way rejoicing.

If there be a difficulty in the way that our churches and it's outreach ministries are presenting Christ, it is in the three general injunctions given to us in respect to scripture:

1) Add nothing to scripture;
2) Take nothing away from the scriptures;
3) Do not go beyond what is written;

The scriptures do record conversion experiences, some rather dramatic. They do not tell us that these experiences will always be the way that God works on an individual.

You are absolutely correct in assuming that you were inviting people to Christ every time you preached. That's the nature of the gospel. If you present the truth, then the truth should speak for itself. It doesn't require getting someone's body to move based on some emotional response.

I wonder if some evangelists and pastors use altar calls for their own benefit--to see the fruits of their labor, as it were. I know that's probably not the motivation of the majority, but I'm sure it happens.

Absolutely right. I would always make clear that it wasn't their legs that needed moving, it was their hearts!

I'm sure you're right, on both counts. I'm sure that, to most, this is how they labor to be used by God to bring people to the (very Biblical) realities of conversion, saving faith, and union with Christ. But I'm equally sure that others revel in the crowds; and that partially accounts for the long, drawn-out, manipulative invitations with which I have sometimes seen fellows shame Christ.

Now, what do you think about his implication that converts virtually go through a catechism class before they're baptized, or granted access to the Lord's Supper? I lean his way, but on the other hand, I just don't SEE that explicitly in the NT. Acts 2 certainly paints the portrait of a sermon, an "invitation," a response, and a massive baptismal service immediately following. That pattern is repeated. Certainly no idea of the weeks, months, years and even decades that often separate conversion from baptism today. Or again, Communion. It celebrates our union with Christ, and His death for us. When did that happen? At conversion. How long should we force people to wait?

Asking that they undergo baptism, to attest to conversion, makes Biblical sense to me. But as I just suggested, I don't know if I'm Biblically warranted to put a lot of requirements on the former. As I read in the Bible, there just will be phonies, until the Lord comes back. I can't prevent it. I can do all I'm worth not to give false comfort, but even the Puritans had that "judgment of Christian charity" on others' profession of faith.

I axe you.

Dan
(c8

I don't know. I guess there really isn't a right or wrong answer to these things, but I think that when it comes to the Lord's Supper (and baptism, for that matter) there should at least be the ability to examine one's own heart. I know that we are called to examine ourselves before taking part in the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:28), and baptisms recorded in scripture typically show that people simply "believed and were baptized."

A 6th bullet on your list should read: Must instantly stop smoking or drinking, etc. to prove you are a Christian. It makes the previous 5 bullets, works. Sadly there is no understanding of grace and mercy.

And, of course, we must make sure that the Spirit must do absolutely nothing to transform the new believer. After all, it might make some of the others who have been sitting there all these years 'feel' badly about themselves.

How silly! Of course, the Holy Spirit is going to make changes in the life of the new believer -- some right away, some over time. It may be smoking, or drinking or sex or theft or whatever the sin de jour is. But the Good News is not just some legal transaction ("Call for an appointment"). Christ offers Life and that more abundantly. Necessarily, that sometimes instantaneously crowds out sin. And, aren't we glad it does?

I don't disagree with any of the approaches the article mentions. To me, it is silly to debate whether those wishing to accept Christ should go forward or stay in their seats. (Although 'call for an appointment' does seem a bit cavalier for the most important decision one can make.)

As Paul said, "I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some." We should use all means to save some.

Some will be put off by an invitation hymn and an altar call. Others will be put off by the lack of one. I agree with the author that the Scriptures do not enjoin one, neither however, do they forbid one. This is the old "I am of Paul, I am of Apollos" partisanship.

While not offering an altar call, the pastors at my church will take a moment just before communion to invite people to accept Christ and partake of the elements along with other believers. This has always seemed odd to me, since I had grown up believing that communion was something for relatively "mature" Christians. Thoughts or comments?

I think it's absolutely appropriate to administer Communion to new Believers. The Sacrament is a Means of Grace (even if we lay aside the Presbyterian doctrine of "Spiritual Presence", and we take a strictly Baptistic view that Communion is observance of a Symbolic Ordinance -- it is still one of God's means of imparting Grace to a believers spirit for a believer to obey the Lord's ordinances!!).

Provided that they examine themselves to confess known Sins, and are submitted to their Elders -- Why should we deny participation in the receipt of sacramental, sanctifying Grace to those who (arguably) need it most, New Believers?

(Not that any of us can do without)

Of course, I should admit in the spirit of Full Disclosure that I'm nearly a Paedo-Communionist myself -- I don't believe in Communing the Infants as some paedocommunionists do, but I don't believe in withholding the Sacrament until the adolescent years, either. In the absence of any Biblical case law on the matter of which I am aware, I advocate the continuance of the Hebrew custom for the Passover Seder -- administering the Supper to covenant Children as soon as they are old enough to explain the meaning of the sacrament to their Elders.

JMHO, as always.

best op

Doesn't it boil down to the fact that it doesn't matter how they come, as long as the come?

I am quite sure that many altar rail conversions are pure emotion with no real commitment. Likewise, I would think that many appointments in the Pastor's office would lead to a "commitment" if for no other reason than to end the appointment.

I would suspect an "office" conversion to be more likely real than one at the altar rail..at least there is time for one on one prayer and some teaching .

But either way God is God of that moment

The typical "sinner's prayer" as evangelicals have come to express it, has three elements: (1) a mere acknowledgment of sin, which is not the same as repentance, (2) a belief in the act of Christ's death, which is far removed from trust in his person and work, and, (3) an "inviting Christ into the life." The last phrase hangs on nothing biblical (though John 1: 12 and Rev. 3: 20 are used, out of context, for its basis). It is considered, nonetheless, to be the pivotal and necessary instrument for becoming a true Christian. But God commands us to repentingly believe, not to invite Christ into the life.

I have a problem with this one point, that this guy is complaining about ONLY believing in Christ's death, and not trusting in His person and work. Excuse me, but wasn't Jesus' work exactly that; his death? The cross of Christ is the centeral tentant of our faith, the great central divine act which brings men to salvation. Romans 10:9 does not say that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that He was a great teacher and healed a lot of people we will be saved. We confess belief in His death and resurrection.

While I to have a few concerns about the "Sinners Prayer" as such, it seems necessary, to me at least, that confession of belief in the cruxifiction, death and resurrection of Jesus, far above any good teaching or healing He did in life, is a crucial aspect to conversion.

But, that could just be me. I might be wrong.

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