DOES THE BIBLE REALLY SAY …

THAT GOD WILL NOT HEAR OUR PRAYERS IF THERE IS SIN IN OUR LIVES?

What is essentially at stake in this question is not our understanding of prayer but our understanding of the cross-work of Jesus Christ. Let us ask ourselves a few questions:

[1] When Jesus died for us, did he take all the punishment for all of our sins, or did he not?

[2] Are all our sins forgiven, or only our pre-conversion sins?

[3] Did Jesus take responsibility for our sin, or are we still held accountable?

[4] If he became a curse (that is, cut off from God) for us (Galatians 3:13), can our sin ever again cut us off from God?

[5] If God has ‘laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (Isaiah 53:6b), can our iniquities ever again separate us from our God? Or our sins hide his face from us so that he will not hear? (Isaiah 59:2)

The work that God did in the death of his Son is complete and final. It is given as sheer gift to those who truly believe in Jesus Christ. There are no conditions attached. No reservations expressed. No performance necessary for its maintenance. God states it this way:

‘Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith ...’ (Hebrews 10:19-22a).

To say that my sin prevents my prayers from being heard puts me back under the law of sin and death and its condemnation (see Romans 8:1-4). If any sin stops God hearing a believer’s prayer, then we can only assume that Jesus Christ did not bear that sin, and we thus effectively destroy the gospel. In addition, for anyone to assume that the fact that their prayers are answered means that they are without sin, or that they have ‘confessed’ every sin, indicates that they are also assuming that they have in some way merited being heard by God, and therefore have something of which to boast. This also is a denial of the gospel (Romans 3:27; Ephesians 2:8,9).

The only access any of us have into God’s presence is Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:18). No one can enter in his/her own right. We enter only in his name, trusting in his sinlessness, not our own. Our iniquities, which by God’s own decree separate us from him so that he will not hear us, have been laid on Jesus Christ. God has hidden his face from those very sins which by his own decree would otherwise cause him to hide his face from us.

Let us be sure to get this straight here. Our sins are forgiven. They will never again be held against us. They can never again separate us from God. Jesus bore them all; they were all counted against him so that never again will they be counted against us. David rejoiced in this truth in Psalm 32:1,2a:

‘Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sin the LORD does not count against him...’

David is speaking here of acquittal in the courts of the Supreme Judge. He is anticipating that announcement of acquittal which the New Testament calls ‘justification’ or ‘righteousness’ (both words have the same Greek root). It is always and only an imputed righteousness, a righteousness from God, Christ’s righteousness credited to the account of the believer. It is of this righteousness which Paul speaks at length in Romans 3:21 to 5:11 and in which he rejoices in Philippians 3:1-11. The righteousness he treasures is not his own righteousness which ‘comes from the law’, it is a not a righteousness dependent on his own performance, rather it is a righteousness which is through faith in Christ.

If we then go to James 5:16, where we read that ‘the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective’, and interpret it to mean that only the prayers of a person who keeps God’s laws are effective, then we are forgetting that God has told us ‘no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law’ (Romans 3:20). Those whom God considers righteous are those to whom the righteousness of Christ has been credited. It is these whose faith is in his righteousness, not their own, whose prayers are effective.

There are however two circumstances in which this assumption that sin in our lives stops our prayers being heard is valid:

[1] there are people who have the external appearance of being Christian believers, but really are not believers. They have never really believed in Jesus Christ.

[2] there are people who may be believers, and God alone knows if they are, but they are living totally as unbelievers, repudiating Christ in their daily lives.

To neither of these groups does the Bible give us leave to apply the promises and benefits of the cross. To both we must tell the gospel – that is, the truth about who Jesus Christ actually is and what he accomplished through his death, and urge them to believe in him, to acknowledge him as Lord and God.