An Invitation to Salvation

Tim Nichols from Full Contact Christianity has posted a new blog article titled “Don’t Give An Invitation!” and overall I think it’s pretty good. In the article Nichols questions the biblical basis of the modern-day “altar call” (also called a closing invitation) and argues that it actually confuses the gospel and encourages individuals to doubt their salvation. Nichols writes:

“To this day, many churches will close every service with an invitation to come forward and receive Christ as savior—and woe betide the minister who fails in his duty to deliver a stirring invitation. The practice poses an obvious problem: ‘Salvation is completely free. You don’t have to do anything but believe Jesus. If you’d like to do that now, get up out of your seat in front of everybody and walk down here.’ Concerned that the practice confused people by asking them to perform a work (walk the aisle) in order to receive a free gift, many churches have done away with the altar call in its common form. However, a great number of churches still close every service with an invitation.”¹

Nichols is highlighting a common (although unfortunate) practice in many of today’s churches. I’ve endured through many Billy Graham style altar calls myself, and I agree that this practice does NOT promote the clear gospel or the assurance of salvation! These invitations tend to confuse the gospel message because salvation is in effect conditioned on walking an aisle, praying a prayer, or dedicating one’s life to Christ. How contrary to the message of the Bible where the offer is simply look and live! In Numbers chapter 21 we read:

“And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.’ And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live.’ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.” (Numbers 21:6-9, NASB)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus uses this account from Numbers 21 to illustrate how to receive eternal life. Jesus declares:

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:14-17, NKJV)

Zane Hodges writes: “Jesus means to say, He Himself will be lifted up on the cross, and the one who looks to Him in faith will live. [...] So, in John 3, the issue is faith, or confidence, in Christ for eternal life. Will a man look to the Crucified One for eternal life, or will he not? The man who does, lives! By this very simplicity, the Gospel confronts and refutes all its contemporary distortions.”²

The unsaved don’t have to drag themselves down an aisle to receive eternal life, they simply have to look to “the Son of Man...lifted up” (Jn. 3:14).³ Look to Him in faith and live!

ENDNOTES:

¹ Tim Nichols, "Don't Give An Invitation!," Full Contact Christianity blog, September 18, 2011 (accessed September 28, 2011).

 

² Zane Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege (Dallas: Redencion Viva, 1992), p. 147, italics his, brackets added. Note: Unfortunately in his later years Hodges departed from his once orthodox beliefs about the gospel. For more information see my blog post titled: "The Cross Under Siege".

 

³ Also see: Jn. 12:32-33; 1 Cor. 1:17-18, 23, 2:2, 15:3; Gal. 3:13.