Accepting Christ

by I.C.Herendeen
"In an effort to get sinners saved we often hear them exhorted to "Accept Christ as their personal Saviour" as though those who are slaves of Satan and captives of the Devil could do so and be saved if they did so. But this is utterly foreign to Holy Scripture; there is no foundation in Holy writ for it. It presents a false way of salvation, and therefore should be discarded along with other similar expressions such as "Give your heart to Jesus", "Take Jesus as your Saviour", "Let Jesus into your heart", etc. Such expressions fail to take into consideration the plain and sad fact that man is a fallen creature (Rom. 3:24), "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18) with a heart stubbornly steeled against Him so that he "will not" come to Christ (John 5:40) unless and until Divine power overcomes his innate enmity and makes him willing to come that he "might have life" (John 10:10). By nature the sinner's "carnal mind" is "enmity against God (Rom. 8:7) so that nothing but Divine power operating within him can overcome this enmity. The salvation of any sinner is a matter of "the operation of God" (Col. 2:12)."