The Sinner's Prayer Isn't a Thing (Controversies #2)

I don't know if Jeopardy has ever had a category called "Things that aren't in the Bible," but if they ever do, this one has to be included.

We've heard it many times: people streaming to the altar to say the sinner's prayer, one person asking another if they've said the sinner's prayer, pulpit references to the sinner's prayer. 

There are sinners, and there is certainly repentant prayer, but there is no sinner's prayer, and we need to stop using the term the way we do, lest we imply such a prayer (like the Lord's prayer, perhaps) actually appears in scripture. It doesn't--not in name nor in explicit words--anywhere in these pages.

Let me be clear. I think that responding in prayer at the moment you are genuinely struck with the truth and gravity of your own sinfulness, and your desire to be free of it, is not only appropriate but virtually inevitable. 

But it is not repeating a prayer that saves you, and too often we suggest that it is. I recall a friend, years ago, whose sister died unexpectedly and much too young. A few others, gently gently, broached the subject of the sister's relationship with Christ. "Oh, yes," said my friend. "Years ago, growing up in a Methodist church, a Sunday School teacher took kids out of class one by one to repeat the prayer in private. My sister did it, so yeah." Never mind the fact that the sister's adult life bore no evidence of a relationship with Jesus; the crux of the matter is this: relying on having repeated a prayer is salvation by works.

The Bible says we are to believe in his name (John 1:12-13; John 3:16-18; Acts 16:31; Eph. 1:13-14), be born again (John 3:3-7; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:23), and confess him with our mouths (Romans 10:9-10; although I don't believe for a moment that a person unable to speak cannot be saved). Is it possible to be saved after repeating a group prayer line by line after a leader? Of course. Are you necessarily saved after repeating a group prayer line by line after a leader? Absolutely not. 

Salvation is not by works, and when you are only repeating what you've been urged to repeat, without a heart-changing level of repentance, and expecting that this will be what "does it," That. Is. Works. No one is saved because they repeated a prayer, and we need to stop implying to vulnerable people, even momentarily, that doing so has settled their salvation for all eternity. 

Too much emphasis and reliance on "the sinner's prayer" is dangerous. I suggest we stop using the phrase entirely.