DOES THE BIBLE REALLY SAY

I MUST ASK JESUS TO ... ?

There are a number of calls to ‘ask Jesus to …’ that have been commonly used in evangelical churches and evangelistic campaigns, yet it is impossible to find any evidence that such responses were called for in Biblical times. Among these called for responses are – ‘I must ask Jesus to come into my heart or life’ and ‘I must ask Jesus to be my Saviour’.

These evangelistic challenges have the sound of being Biblical. The surprising thing is that if we search the New Testament verse by verse from Matthew to Revelation, we will not find them there. Nowhere is anyone told or encouraged to ‘ask Jesus to be their Saviour’ or ‘come into their heart’. Nor is there any record of anyone doing so. In fact, no ‘appeals’ as such were made.

The absence of this kind of appeal or challenge surprises us because in our familiarity with them we have assumed them to be Biblical. They are so entrenched in evangelical tradition that this has the potential to make us feel threatened and confused by the thought that they are not Biblical concepts. Nevertheless, we need to honestly face the question: if the Bible does not tell us to ask Jesus to be our Saviour, or to ask him to come into our hearts, what does it tell us to do?

The answer is simple. It can be worded in three equally simple ways, all of which command us to do something, rather than us asking Jesus to do something:

The Bible commands us to repent and believe – Mark 1:15.
The Bible tells us that to be ‘saved’ we have to believe in the Lord Jesus– Acts 16:31.
The Bible requires us to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord – Romans 10:9.

Each of these essentially means the same thing – that we are commanded to change our minds about who Jesus is, acknowledging him as Lord (that is, the King, the Lord, God). The overwhelming evidence of the New Testament indicates that the central question on which our eternal salvation stands or falls is our acknowledgement that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be – the Lord, the Son of God, one with God the Father. (See these studies titled Who Is Jesus? ). He himself stated it precisely:

‘If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins’ John 8:24.

Paul put it this way:

‘If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord.” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’ Romans 10:9.

In all of the verses identifying belief as necessary for salvation, the focus of that belief is always the person of Christ, that is, who he is, not the cross of Christ, that is, what he did. It is only to those who receive him, to those who believe in his name (John 1:10-13), that he promises the multiple salvation benefits accomplished by his death. His death is absolutely essential for our salvation, but this salvation is given only to those who believe in him (John 3:14-18; 20:31).

Some might ask ‘But what about Revelation 3:20?’

The context of Revelation 3:20 is that of the exalted Lord Jesus, who has identified himself as ‘the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation’ (3:14); he is speaking to the ‘church’ (14,22), to those he loves (19). He has rebuked them for their lukewarmness (15,16), for their dependence on themselves rather than on him (17,18); he is speaking to them in terms of rebuke and discipline (19), and commands them to repent, that is, to change their minds (19). In verse 20 Jesus is not asking those who have never known him to let him come into their lives, but commanding those who are already his, but are living half-hearted, wishy-washy lives in spiritual poverty because of their focus on themselves (17), to refocus on him, to let him come in, with all the richness of his salvation and his revelation of God (18). When he is once again the focus of their lives there will be that satisfaction and contentment and completeness that the gospel promised (3:20b; John 6:35; Colossians 2:10).

(The fact that this verse has been used with good effect in numerous conversions does not validate its use. What it does affirm is that God in his grace and sovereign power brings to himself those whom he will, despite our weakness and misunderstanding. His Spirit is not limited by the imperfections of our proclamation.)

If we put aside Revelation 3:20 as a valid source of this common ‘gospel’ call to ‘let Jesus come into our hearts’, we are left without any Biblical basis for it. If we do use this verse, the onus is upon us to fill it with its biblical meaning: to identify precisely both who Jesus is and what it means to ‘ask him to come into our hearts’: That if we do not admit him into our lives (acknowledge him) as Lord/God, then he can never be our Saviour. The Bible never teaches that salvation is given to those who believe in salvation; rather, salvation is given to those who believe in him – Jesus of Nazareth, God incarnate. Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord God Almighty (John 12:41; Isaiah 6:1 – 4).