Do we have to accept Christ?

I love to read biographies.  I noticed that several prominent evangelical leaders grew up in churches, where they never came to personally accept the truth.  Even though they had been taught the basic doctrines of the Christian faith, they failed to comprehend and appreciate what the Lord Jesus had done for them.  In their younger years, they had never internalized the truth; they were not yet regenerated and so they could not see Christ crucified for them.  I have met several people, who told me that before their conversion they had read the Bible, hoping to get blessed by it.  Yet, at that time they thought it was a collection of irrelevant and rather boring stories.  Years later, when they knew that God is there, they read it all again.  Even though they could not comprehend it all, the book was suddenly bursting with significance.  Finally they realized that it was about them!

We may grow up in a Christian family and from a young age go to church, but that does not make us into Christians!  Unless God’s Spirit opens our eyes and hearts, the book cannot inspire us.  Only through the work of the Spirit can we see and embrace the Truth that is Jesus Christ.  There is a tension here: While God requires people to repent and believe, they can only do so when regenerated by His Spirit.  And yet, we do make personal decisions and choices.  Alister McGrath, in ‘Intellectuals don’t need God’ writes, “Justifying faith rests on our decision to believe- at least, what seems to us, from our standpoint, to be our decision. Theology, with its more reflective standpoint, is able to discern the decision of God behind our decision; the movement of God towards us in advance of our movement toward him; God’s search for us beneath what we discern as our quest for him.” (p.60) 

When I wrote my book ‘Praying for Rain’, I was frequently told that “accepting Christ” is bad language.  In fact, our church jargon seemed to differ from the language of the apostolic church.  The word “covenant” was used all the time, as was “infant baptism”.  Yet, we rarely heard about “the kingdom of God”.  We never learned about our need to “be born again” or our need to “accept Christ”.  Even talking about the church as “the body of Christ” was frowned upon.  As one of our pastors scoffed, “We should not use such body language”.

Several pastors insisted that we all, as baptized members in the genuine church, were (being) regenerated, as we had already received Jesus Christ.  We should not urge members to personally accept Jesus as their Savior, for our salvation does not depend on what we do, but merely on what Christ has done for us.  “Accepting Christ” was said to be terminology from evangelical churches that don’t have the true doctrine.  Ironically our church’s confession (NGB, art.29) states that true Christians (those who are of the church), “have accepted Jesus Christ as their only Savior”*.  And yet, the leaders proclaimed that this was not reformed!  Their translation had adopted the passive term “have received…”

Although I had not yet studied theology, I discovered that the Greek term “lambano”, which is used in the biblical passages about faith, do not just apply to a passive concept, as if we have received something in the mail.  It has an active component and meaning, which implies that we open the door (of our heart) to Jesus Christ, when he comes to us “clothed in the Gospel”.

It seemed to me that at least some pastors were describing faith as merely an (intellectual) agreement to a set of teachings.  If you believe to be sinners, saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, then you are a believer and your sins are forgiven.  Faith does not require obedience.  Our pastor even wrote an article in the “Reformed Perspective”, condemning lordship salvation as in contradiction to the reformed (that is the true, biblical) doctrine!

Check the Internet about “Lordship salvation” and “Sandemanianism”.

*wanneer zij, aangenomen hebbende den enigen Zaligmaker Jezus Christus