We have seen how the soul must be regenerated and how Christ Himself is the life of the soul that has eternal life. There is no eternal life apart from Christ and it is Christ Himself who dwells in the soul and is the life of the soul which is eternal life. Jesus said this: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). Jesus is not just the path to God, but He is the truth about God and the life of God. “Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” (John 3:15). “He who believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life” (John 6:40). One has to be in Christ and Christ has to be in that person to have life.
It is utterly vital to note that only the soul that truly believes has life. It is true that Scripture says that the soul that confesses Christ with the mouth will be saved. However, there is more to that verse. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). It says that one must confess Jesus as Lord and believe in the heart. It is not just that all that stand up and confess Christ by the mouth are saved, but only those that confess Him as Lord and believe in the heart that God raised Him from the dead that will be saved. Paul also said that “having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13). A confession must be from a heart that believes and not just be the words of the mouth.
Here we arrive at a sensitive but vital issue. We are told in most circles today that a person should pray the sinner’s prayer or pray to receive Christ. The Bible is full of the prayers of sinners, but it only has one sinner’s prayer in this sense and it is different than what we hear of today. “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'” (Luke 18:13). Scripture tells us over and over that the soul that believes will be saved. We never see anyone praying to receive Christ or of anyone repeating after another person a prayer that will save them. The sinner is justified by faith alone and not by a prayer. Sinners are justified by grace alone which is received by faith alone and not by an act of prayer. Sinners are justified by Christ alone and not by an act of prayer. Salvation is “by faith, in order that it may be accordance with grace” (Rom 4:16). Faith does not earn anything but receives grace.
Salvation comes to a converted soul and faith comes from a converted soul rather than a soul praying a prayer in order to be saved. The soul must be changed from one that has an unbelieving mind, heart, affections, and will to a believing mind, heart, affections, and will. The whole person is saved. A prayer will not change a heart because no work will change a heart. The soul must be truly converted or truly changed from one thing to another by the hand of God. The changing of the soul is not in the hands of the sinner, but rather in the hands of God who will only change that soul by grace. A prayer to be true prayer must come from faith or a believing heart. The work of prayer is for the believer to commune with God and plead with God based on the promises of God in Christ. The unbeliever has nothing to pray but to ask God for grace. A prayer does not force God to save sinners and it cannot move God to save apart from His grace. As we saw in the first newsletter on conversion, John 1:12-13 gives us the reason why sinners are born of God. They are not born of God by the hand of God for any reason found in them nor by an act of any human will. They are not born of God because of who their parents are. They are not born of God because of the act or will of any human flesh. They are only born of God because of the will of God.
What we must see is that when we tell people to pray to receive Christ we are giving them something to do other than to believe in grace and Christ alone. When we tell people to pray to receive Christ we are not telling them that God must convert them and give them new hearts. Instead they will look to something they are doing rather than to something that God must do and will only do based on grace rather than on a work or religious action that a person does. Salvation by grace is the teaching of Scripture and God will only save to the glory of His grace. When we have people pray to receive Christ, we are giving them something to do other than look to grace alone by faith alone. The soul must be converted or changed by God in order to truly pray rather than to pray and think that in that prayer the soul is converted. Scripture tells us that “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight” (Proverbs 15:8). It also tells us that “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment” (Isa 64:6). The soul must learn that it must lean on nothing else and that includes all that it can do in order to look to grace alone. God saves to the praise of the glory of His grace and nothing else.
One might argue that the prayer to receive Christ comes from a believing soul. The answer to that is that if a soul truly believes then that soul has already received Christ. The verses given in the very first of this newsletter shows that faith or belief in Christ and eternal life are inseparable. If there is faith in the soul then Christ has been received and there is no need to pray to savingly receive Him. But if there is no faith in the soul then giving the person a prayer to pray is giving them something to do other than to look to Christ alone. God does not give something called salvation to people because they pray, but because of His character. That is the nature of grace. The soul must be changed by God in order to believe and in order to truly pray. The conversion of the soul is when God makes the soul into a new creature. It is not just giving the soul a pass from hell in the future. The conversion of the soul is a dramatic and great change and it must happen in this life by grace or it will not happen at all.
In the Gospel of John we are told over and over again that people must believe in order to be saved. But over and over again in John we are told that people believe and yet later we see that they were not converted. In fact, most of the people that believed in some way in the pages of the Gospel of John were not converted.
John 2:23 – Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing 24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25 and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man. 3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Jesus was doing miracles and people saw that. They believed in some sense, that is, they believed something about Jesus because He was doing miracles. But the text goes on to say that Jesus was not entrusting Himself to them. In other words, Jesus did not believe or trust in their belief. They had some form of external belief, but they were not born from above and so did not have a true faith that comes from a converted heart. This is seen when Nicodemus came to Jesus and said that he saw the signs and he believed that God was with Jesus. But Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born from above to enter the kingdom of heaven. Nicodemus believed in Jesus or he would not have went to him in some degree of honesty. But even though Nicodemus believed, he was not a converted man. Many people today would have Nicodemus repeat a prayer or sign a card. After all, he was seeking in some way. Not only that, but we have a biblical warrant for saying that he believed. But if we keep reading we can also see that we have a strong biblical warrant for saying that he was unconverted as well. So we can make the deduction that Nicodemus believed in Jesus in some way and yet was not converted.
In John 6:1-13 we have Jesus feeding thousands of people (five thousand men and who knows how many women and children) from five barley loaves and two fish. Verse 14 tells us this: “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”” The people believed that Jesus was the Prophet. They believed enough that they wanted to make Him king. But as Jesus taught them it became obvious that they were not converted people. They believed something about Jesus because they saw the miracles and wanted the free food. But as the teaching of Jesus continued on in the chapter, it becomes obvious that these people were not truly converted and did not truly believe. In verse 66, after some hard teaching, the text tells us that “as a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”
If we followed the methods of the modern day we would simply have the people pray the sinner’s prayer or to pray to receive Christ. But instead the method of Jesus was to teach the people that believed in some way and it demonstrated that they were not truly converted. The method of today is really something like salvation by prayer alone. Sure more is involved in that, but that is what it boils down to. What we must see from the teachings of Jesus is that the souls of human beings must be truly converted from one thing to another in order to be delivered from hell and the power and love of sin. Sinners are not just saved from a future hell; they are fitted for a future heaven. Sinners are not just saved from the dread of hell now; they are given the hope of heaven now. Sinners are not just declared saved from hell; they are saved from the guilt, power, and love of sin. Sinners are not just saved sinners; they are transformed and made new creatures and saints in Christ Jesus. If we preach just to get people to believe something and to pray a prayer, we are not telling them the Gospel. The good news is that God changes the hearts of sinners and makes them His temple to dwell in now and forever. This is all done by grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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