"Altar Calls" and Decision Theology

In some denominations people are asked to step forward and make a “decision”

to accept Jesus as their Savior. They are told that to be saved they must verbally

ask Jesus Christ to come into their hearts. We don’t do that. Why not?

The exercise outlined in the above is commonly referred to as an “altar call.” If you’ve ever attended a Pentecostal, Assembly of God, or Baptist Church, you may have witnessed this. If you’ve ever watched a Billy Graham crusade on television (or many other television evangelists), you’ve seen an invitation extended to the audience to come forward (to the “altar”) and publicly accept or receive Jesus Christ into their hearts. People have been presented with the Gospel and are now asked to act on that message -- making their “decision” to believe in Jesus as their Savior.

Our church appears completely different from these other churches in this regard. Never do we ask anyone to step forward and make a “decision” to accept Jesus or to ask Him into their hearts. Why not?

The answer is found in the Bible’s definition of what conversion is, what faith is, what believing is, and the part the sinner plays in his own salvation.

A widespread misunderstanding of these things has never become more evident to me than in the last several weeks. A few weeks ago I went on the Internet at home. For an hour or so, in the late evening, I have been “surfing the web.” In my travels there I have found several Christian chat rooms. For those unfamiliar with these “rooms,” they are places where people from all over the world can “talk” to each other -- actually carry on conversations by typing questions and answers back and forth on their computer. Sometimes up to 25 people are in a “room” at the same time.  After the usual opening questions like, “Where do you live?” and “How old are you?” someone usually asks, “Are you a Christian and, if so, when were you saved?” I answer by saying, “Yes, I am a Christian and I was saved when I was five weeks old at my baptism.” Every time I’ve answered this way it produces groans of disbelief from most of the people gathered there. “That can’t be! You have to accept Jesus! You have to make a conscious decision to believe!” Most of these people, you see, can point to a specific date and time in their teen or adult life when they made an “altar call” and made their “decision” to be a Christian. They, of course, have no use for infant baptism, either.

When I tell them I have never made such a “decision,” that Christ has been in my heart since my baptism as an infant, they question my faith, some even going so far as to say that I can’t possibly be a Christian if I haven’t made that “decision” to believe.  It all comes down to a misunderstanding of what conversion is -- that point when a person goes from being a lost unbeliever to a believer in Jesus Christ.

For most of my chat friends conversion happens when a person “decides” to believe and asks Jesus to come into their hearts. That sounds nice, but it’s not Biblical. To say that after hearing the Gospel a person must make their own decision is to do two things. (1) It denies that the Holy Spirit has any part in converting us (it is, after all, our decision, they would say). (2) It takes away from what Christ has done and makes salvation a work that we do. They say that Christ did His part, and now we have to do our part (by making our decision). Instead of Christ doing it all, instead of being saved by grace alone, salvation becomes a cooperative effort. In a small way a person becomes their own savior (or at least a co-savior with Jesus).

Yes, the Bible does say we have to do the believing, but we can’t believe unless we have faith. Faith (a noun, a free gift) and believing (a verb, an action on our part) are not interchangeable words. Faith is a gift we neither deserve nor ask for. When a person hears the Gospel the Holy Spirit, with no cooperation or help, creates faith in a person’s heart as a gift. Only then can a person say, “I believe.” My chat room friends who point to a specific time when they made a “decision” to believe don’t realize that they were asking for something they already had. You can’t ask Christ to come into your heart unless He is already there. After all, prayers and requests made without faith are not heard. You don’t pray to a God you don’t yet believe in. The desire to want Jesus in one’s heart is proof that the Holy Spirit has already delivered Jesus into the heart of the person asking. First we get the free gift of faith, then we believe. God does it all. We are “containers” for His gracious gift, not “requesters” of it.

As to the issue of my having faith as an infant (and why we baptize infants) -- check out the paper on infant baptism.