Website owner:  James Miller

  THE CONDITION FOR SALVATION                    8/76
    

   Is a person saved by virtue of a decision or commitment he has 
   made at some point in his past life or by virtue of a current 
   "right heart toward God"?  (Note that in the Old Testament the 
   latter criterion was the one used).  If you ask a Baptist if he 
   is saved (or if he is a "Christian") he will automatically ask 
   himself if he has ever, in the past, "accepted the Lord" (i.e. 
   "accepted Christ as Savior", "given his heart to Christ", etc.) 
   and his answer will be yes or no based on whether he has or has 
   not performed that past action.  He feels that when he performs 
   this action something mystical happens to him in which he 
   suddenly, miraculously and mystically, "becomes a new creature 
   in Christ Jesus --- old things are passed away and all things 
   become new".  He may not feel any different but he claims that 
   it is indeed so because, he says, the Bible says it will happen 
   and the Bible cannot lie.  Thus he claims it on the basis of 
   the promise of the Bible.  It is perhaps the most central part 
   of Baptist doctrine.