“Accept Jesus into your heart (i.e., to be saved),” is one of the most used sentences in modern Evangeli-cal circles. This humanistic concept is unbiblical. It puts man in control of his salvation; nevertheless, from start to finish, salvation is entirely the work of God. Salvation is not a decision originating in man; it is the lov-ing choice of the Father before the foundation of the world.12 The biblical concept of salvation is that by grace alone the believer is accepted in Christ.
The whole theme of the first two chapters of Ephesians is summarized by the Apostle’s words, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Be-loved.”13 The terminology, “accept Jesus into your heart” is backwards and deceptive. The spiritually dead and ungodly person can be made acceptable to God only as he is “in Christ,” as all the teachings of the Apostles Paul, John, and Peter testify. Revelation 3:20 is often wrongly used to evangelize, “behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” These words were spoken to Laodicean Christians, not to unbelievers.14 The misuse of this sanctifi-cation verse to teach the Gospel is inexcusable. Sanctification differs from justification.
Sanctification is gradual and mutable whereas justification is instantaneous and immutable. The abuse of this verse is most serious because Catholics in particular are so susceptible to being deceived upon this vital matter.15 They still remain in the Roman Catholic Church believing themselves now to have done the “Evangelical thing” to add to their many rituals in Catholicism. Likewise vast numbers of church-going Evangelicals are still unsaved having gone through this same Evangelical “easy-believism” plan of salvation. It is unspeakably serious to give a deceiving salvation message.
There are other similar manmade messages that are used in Evangelical churches. For example, to be saved people are told to “give Jesus control of your life”, or “give your life to Jesus.” In fact there is nothing any person can do in exchange for his salvation. In the words of the Apostle, “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us…”16 Christ Jesus was the only sacrifice for sin acceptable to Holy God, and that sin offering was accomplished completely at the cross. The sacrifice for sin is finished.
A person is made right with God by grace alone through faith alone in Christ Jesus alone, not by commitment or controlled behavior. In fact, the exact opposite of that is true.17 These are some of the human-istic ways in which modern Evangelicals give a so-called evangelistic gospel. The examples given here are to illustrate the departure from the true Gospel, which is taking place in the modern world, and to alert the Lord’s people to give the true message.
http://www.bereanbeacon.org/articles//Reaching_Catholics_with_the_Lords_Love.pdf
