Whatever happened to repentance? The word, as well as what it means, has all but vanished from today’s Christian vocabulary. We have lost the biblical teaching of repentance, and replaced it with something that is not found anywhere in the Bible. By doing that, we have lost an essential element to biblical evangelism. What does it mean to repent? The shortest definition is that it means to turn away from sin in order to follow Christ.

Take a short walk through Scripture, and see what the Bible has to say about this great doctrine. In Matthew 3:2, John the Baptist proclaimed: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." As Matthew records it in 4:17 of his gospel, the first word of Jesus’ first sermon was "Repent." And then in His farewell message, He tells His disciples that repentance should be proclaimed in His name (Luke 24:47). Jesus’ earthly ministry was bracketed by calling for repentance at the beginning, and then telling His disciples to continue doing the same before He left this earth. Twice in Luke 13 Jesus spoke of the necessity of repentance (vv. 3, 5).

Learning how to evangelize from Jesus, the disciples did what they saw Him do, and went out and preached that men should repent (Mark 6:12). Peter proclaimed that same message, saying to his audience in Acts 3:19: "Repent therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away. . . ." Peter gave the same message again, this time in Acts 8:22, telling those who were listening, "Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours. . . ."

When one surveys the New Testament, it becomes very clear that repentance is an essential element to biblical evangelism. Why is repentance so important? Because it is the clearest indication of true conversion. If someone says they want to follow Christ, but will have no part in repenting of their sins, then they do not really want to follow Him.

With such overwhelming evidence that repentance is important to the gospel message, why do we not hear more about it? The answer is in what has replaced it, and that is The Sinner’s Prayer. An example of this is in Rick Warren’s hugely successful book, The Purpose Driven Life, where he writes: "I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity: “Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you." And then he writes: "If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulation! Welcome to the family of God!" (pp. 58-59). Despite such a promise, the Bible nowhere endorses this prayer, nor the assurance of salvation by saying it.

A Brief History of the Sinner’s Prayer

The earliest history of the sinner’s prayer, and what led to its formulation, can be traced back to possibly around 500 years ago. The specific prayer itself can be linked with the time of Billy Sunday (1862-1935), a former professional baseball player. Although he was a fiery, animated "evangelist," he had no theological education.

Predating Billy Sunday was Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899), the man who helped lay the groundwork for Sunday’s evangelistic practices. By the 1860s Moody had a national reputation. Instead of pressuring his listeners into on-the-spot conversion, he came up with what was called the Inquiry Room, where trained counselors would speak individually to those who were interested in Christianity. The counselors would then pray with the "seeker" if they expressed an interest in following Christ. Moody’s example of how to evangelize spread across north America and into many different churches.

Because of the success he seemed to have, when he died many followed in his footsteps, including Billy Sunday. In turn, he himself appeared to have had great success, and that resulted in his methods being imitated as well, which included telling the lost that if they prayed, or walked the "sawdust trail," that was enough to secure their salvation.

Jumping to the 1950s, we see another who employed the sinner’s prayer. Whereas before, the sinner’s prayer was only sporadically used, Billy Graham made it a regular part of his gospel presentation. At the end of his crusades, consisting mainly of music, testimony, and an emotional appeal, Graham would invite all who were interested in Christ to come forward. For those who responded, they would then be met by trained counselors who would pray with each one, the result being that they were assured of salvation. Graham’s dependency on this prayer can be seen in his book Four Steps to Peace with God, which was a variation of Billy Sunday’s tract entitled "Four Things God Wants you to Know." Graham had taken Sunday’s methods of evangelism and modified them to suit his own taste.

It was also during the 1950s that Bill Bright presented his Four Spiritual Laws. It was an easy "How To" method of evangelism that was presented as a biblical means through which to get the lost saved. Of the four laws, Law 4 has serious misuses of John 1:12, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Revelation 3:20, where these end up being nothing more than proof-texts to support Bright’s unscriptural teaching.

Following Law 4 Bright promises that through prayer one can be guaranteed of salvation: "Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? If it does, I invite you to prayer this prayer right now, and Christ will come into your life, as He promised." But where does the Bible teach that Christ will come into an unbeliever’s heart by saying a prayer? It doesn’t, and that’s the issue.

When the 1960s came around, the Four Spiritual Laws could be found just about everywhere, including in many different Christian books. A form of it had found its way into a new Bible translation, the Living Bible (1971). This version was composed by an Illinois business man, Kenneth Taylor. Though he had some education from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, he was not proficient in either Hebrew or Greek; certainly not enough to have translated the Bible in a competent manner. Such work takes years of intense study, and complete saturation in these languages. Moody Press had employed this Baptist layman to come up with a popular version to use with children in family devotions.

The translation found favor with Billy Graham, who in 1963 offered Taylor’s paraphrase through his evangelistic Crusades. This gave the Living Bible the exposure which catapulted it into great popularity.

This particular version of the Bible, though well-liked, is plagued with improper translations, one of the most serious being John 1:12-13. Although Taylor used the New American Standard as the primary text for his paraphrase, he took great liberties throughout, making his version tendentious (reading his bias into the text). Compare how the New American Standard reads, with the liberty Taylor took to modify the original meaning:

New American Standard

v. 12 "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, v. 13 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

The Living Bible

(Taylor’s added words are in italics.)

   5.

      v.12 "But to all who received him, he gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them. All those who believed this are reborn v. 13 not a physical rebirth resulting from human passion or plan but from the will of God."

Taylor’s supplement is not supported by anything in the original Greek. So why did Taylor add these words? Whatever the motivation, his handling of the text was sloppy, and what John was intending to write was misrepresented. When the publishers should have corrected the error, it wasn’t changed until the publication of the New Living Bible in 1996, 25 years after the publication of the first version.

By 1977 Billy Graham had published a book that was to become known by many evangelical Christians: How to Be Born Again. An interesting fact about the book is that Graham does talk about how man is dead in sin (pp. 35, 36), and he does describe repentance (pp. 150, 156, 158, 160, 168), and he supplies solid passages from Scripture to back up these teachings, but then he ends Chapter Twelve by telling the reader to pray so as to receive salvation, without providing even one verse to support doing it: "O God, I acknowledge that I have sinned against You. I am sorry for my sins. I am willing to turn from my sins. I openly receive and acknowledge Jesus Christ as my Savior. I confess Him as Lord. From this moment on I want to live for Him and serve Him. In Jesus name. Amen" (p. 169).

When Graham should have stuck with what the Bible says, he instead followed his predecessors, and leaves people to believe that they can have assurance of salvation by saying a prayer a teaching the Bible never supports.

What the Bible Actually says as it Relates to Conversion and

Unbelievers Praying for Themselves

When one carefully studies what the New Testament says about conversion, the following is evident: first, no one doing evangelistic work ever instructed an unbeliever to pray in order to receive salvation; second, not even one conversion can be attributed to anyone doing this; third, salvation comes through the gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9); fourth, the New Testament does not talk about sinners accepting Christ, but Christ accepting sinners; finally, God does not promise to answer an unbeliever’s prayer, for salvation or anything else. In fact, John 9:31 specifically says God does not hear the prayers of the unsaved (Lenski offers a helpful explanation of this verse in his commentary).

If saying a prayer in order to receive salvation were supported by the New Testament, surely we should see some evidence of it in Luke’s book of Acts. But of the nine times Luke describes those who were converted, not once does he ever mention unbelievers praying so as to receive salvation. In Acts 2:14-42, Luke describes the conversion of 3,000 on the Day of Pentecost; in Acts 8:4-12, he tells of conversions among the Samaritans; Acts 8:26-39 tells of the Ethiopian Eunuch being saved; and Acts 9:1-19, and 22:3-16 tell of Saul’s conversion; Acts 10:44-48 is the story of Cornelius’ household coming to faith; Lydia is converted in Acts 16:11-15; the jailer is saved in Acts 16:16-34; as are the Corinthians in Acts 18:1-8. And then the Ephesians are saved in Acts 19:1-7. Where is it mentioned in any of these passages that these people prayed to be saved?

A key text offered in support of the sinner’s prayer is Luke 18:13, where the publican lifted up his eyes to heaven, beat his chest, and cried out, "God, be merciful to me the sinner." However, there are a few problems with using this passage. First, in his prayer the publican made no mention of wanting Christ to come into his life. Second, nowhere does Luke say that the publican believed in, or trusted Christ for salvation; he only begged God for mercy. Third, whatever justification the publican received, it wasn’t necessarily the justification that saves sinners, because Romans 5:1 says that we are "justified by faith," not by crying to God for mercy.

One of the great differences between the sinner’s prayer, and the biblical teaching of repentance, is that when someone is instructed to pray this prayer, rarely are they told to repent of their sin. That does at times occur, but the emphasis is more on the prayer, rather than repentance. And it is typically presented the way Warren offers it, and that is to "invite Jesus into your life."

On the contrary, when a sinner is told to repent, they are being told to own up to their sin against God and completely forsake it. This forsaking of sin is accompanied by deep sorrow for having offended God.

In his time-honored book, The Doctrine of Repentance, Thomas Watson summarized repentance as a sorrow for sin that is a "holy agony. It is called in scripture a breaking of the heart: “The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17); and a rending of the heart: “Rend your heart” (Joel 2:13). The expressions of smiting on the thigh (Jeremiah 31:19), beating on the breast (Luke 18:13), putting on of sackcloth (Isaiah 22:12), plucking off the hair (Ezra 9:3), all these are but outward signs of inward sorrow" (p. 20). And therein lies the difference between the sinner’s prayer and repentance. In repentance, the unbeliever is forced to come to grips with how serious their sin problem is to God. But with the sinner’s prayer, there may be little--if any--mention made at all of sin.

True repentance shows a deep sorrow for sin, because it is sin that keeps unbelievers separated from God. If we are to be biblical in our evangelism, we should be telling unbelievers to repent, instead of telling them to pray the sinner’s prayer. For it is only through repentance can we say that that person has any understanding of what it means to follow Christ.