Audio Transcript

Some of the best questions you all send to us come from the tensions you see directly in Scripture as you read the Bible — like the one we have today. Do we pray for the salvation of unbelievers directly? Or do we pray for the evangelists who bring the gospel? It’s an interesting Bible question on this Friday, as we close out week number 489 on the podcast.

The question today is from a listener named Tim: “Hello, Pastor John! Can you tell me if we are commanded to pray for unbelievers? It seems like the prayers and the instruction on prayer in the New Testament are focused on praying for believers in contexts of evangelism. I’m thinking of Colossians 4:3–4 and Ephesians 6:18–20. In those places Paul is seeking prayer for his bold preaching, not prayers for unbelievers themselves. Is this instructive for us? Are we to pray for unbelievers? Or pray for evangelists? How does the Bible instruct our priority here?”

Yes, the Bible teaches us to pray for unbelievers, and particularly to pray for their salvation — but not only for their salvation, but also lots of blessings of other kinds that flow from salvation or lead to their salvation.

But the question Tim asks is not uncommon because Tim is right that, ordinarily, Paul in particular asks for prayer for his preaching more than he asks prayer for those who are hearing his preaching. Now I’ll come back at the end to why that might be the case, but that is the case, and that’s why the question arises.

I can remember maybe forty years ago at a conference at Wheaton College where a person stood up in the audience and asked J.I. Packer point-blank, “Give me one text where we’re told to pray for unbelievers.” And I’ll tell you what he said in a minute when I get there, but this is not an unusual question. Now, my reason for saying the Bible does teach that we should pray for unbelievers is that there are at least five lines of evidence pointing more or less explicitly in this direction.

David’s Prayers for Enemies

First, there’s the Old Testament example. It may be surprising to you (it was to me) that this example turns up in a psalm where righteous indignation, the righteous indignation of the psalmist, is calling on God to vindicate him against his enemies. But listen to what brought him to this point in Psalm 35:11–14:

Malicious witnesses rise up;     they ask of me things I do not know.They repay me evil for good;     my soul is bereft.But I, when they were sick —     I wore sackcloth;     I afflicted myself with fasting;I prayed with head bowed on my chest.     I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;as one who laments his mother,     I bowed down in mourning.

So, the psalmist had prayed for his enemy until, evidently, God showed him that he’s going to become an instrument of God’s judgment. That happens in the psalms. So we’ve got an Old Testament example of praying for our adversaries.

Jesus New-Covenant Commands

Second, there are Jesus’s instructions in Matthew 5:43: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Same thing in Luke 6:28: “Pray for those who abuse you” — not “pray against them.” These aren’t imprecatory prayers. This is, “Pray for them — pray for what they need.” And what they need most is faith in Christ and eternal life.

‘Bless Those Who Curse You’

I think this is what the command of Jesus to bless means as well. Jesus said in Luke 6:28, “Bless those who curse you.” Well, what does bless mean? It means we pronounce a Godward wish of well-being on someone. Blessing is the hope that things will go well with someone, and then that hope is directed to God in longing and expressed to our enemy in words. That’s the way blessings work, whether they’re to believers or unbelievers. You can see it in that famous blessing in Numbers 6:24–26: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you.”

So you’re asking the Lord to do something, but you’re speaking directly to a person. So this command to bless our enemies became a watchword in the early church. It’s amazing how frequent it is:

1 Peter 3:9: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.”
Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”
Paul set an example of this in 1 Corinthians 4:12 when he said, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure.”

Now, these blessings are prayers; they’re prayers for unbelievers — that God would cause things to go well for them, for their ultimate good, for their salvation.

‘As in Heaven’

Then there’s another instruction Jesus gave. I think it indirectly tells us to pray for unbelievers, and this is the answer that J.I. Packer gave. I remember it all these years later because I didn’t expect him to go here at all. He went to the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come,your will be done,     on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9–10)

“The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for unbelievers to believe and obey and do the will of God the way the angels do it.”

Well, when it says to pray for the kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done as in heaven, that phrase “as in heaven” means not just that God’s sovereign will would be done the way Judas did it — that’s not the way it’s done in heaven — but that it would be done the way angels do it. And the angels do it full of joy, full of faith. So, think of the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer for unbelievers to believe and obey and do the will of God the way the angels do it in heaven. I thought that was a remarkable, insightful answer.

There are a lot more direct answers. I’m not sure why he went there — maybe that was just all that came to his mind at the time — but I thought it was remarkable.

Jesus’s and Stephen’s Dying Pleas

Here’s the third line of evidence: There’s Jesus example — not just the instructions that we just saw, but his example. While he is on the cross, he prays for his enemies: “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’” (Luke 23:34).

And then Stephen continued that same dying prayer as he was being stoned in Acts 7:60: “And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” That’s amazing. He prayed for his unbelieving killers.

Paul’s Prayers for His Kinsmen

The fourth line of evidence is Paul’s example, not only of blessing, which we just saw for those who persecute him, but also of explicitly praying for the salvation of his lost Jewish kinsmen in Romans 10. I think, if somebody asked me in public, “Give me one example of the Bible teaching that we should pray for unbelievers,” I’d say Romans 10:1: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.”

So I take this to mean that this was his steady prayer as he ministered in the Lord’s name: “Lord, save my brothers in Israel, and make them my brothers in Christ.”

Paul’s Personal Requests

And now the fifth line of evidence. Tim, when he asked the question, pointed to Colossians 4 as a typical way that Paul asks for prayer — namely, for the preachers and not the hearers. And I commented that this is typical. That’s right. Paul does that most often. He said this: “Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison — that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:3–4).

We see the same thing in Ephesians 6:19, where he says, “[Pray] for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.” And we could add to this 2 Thessalonians 3:1: “Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you.”

Now, none of these texts says explicitly that we are praying for the unbelievers — none of those last three that I quoted. But when you think it through, what they’re asking for is that Paul’s word would be bold and clear and unhindered and triumphant and glorified. You can’t avoid the fact this includes, “Lord, grant converts to Paul’s preaching.”

“God has bound salvation to the news of Jesus Christ so that Christ gets glory for the faith.”

So, I think Paul is indeed asking indirectly for prayer for unbelievers. And I suspect — this is my effort to answer the question of why Paul spoke the way he did most often — that one of the reasons Paul asks for prayer this way (namely, for himself and his preaching) is that he is so keenly aware that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). He knows that it is God who raises dead people spiritually and brings them to faith. And God gives them life and faith and eyes to see the glory of Christ by causing them to hear the word of God.

Paul really wants us to keep in mind that God does not move around through the world bringing people to faith apart from the hearing of the gospel. God has bound salvation to the news of Jesus Christ so that Christ gets glory for the faith. So let’s always keep these things together — namely, prayer for the salvation of unbelievers and prayer for the word to run and be glorified through more and more faith.

Audio Transcript

The apostle Peter says of Paul’s writings, “There are some things in them that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). That’s true. But dare I say this is also true of Peter? And speaking of hard texts in Peter’s writings, we looked at 1 Peter 3:19 last time, on Friday, in APJ 1863.

Today, we are back at it to ask, Why does Peter say that we are saved through baptism? That’s his claim in 1 Peter 3:21. Why does he say it? A listener named Josh wants to know. “Pastor John, hello! My question is this. Why do we say baptism does not save, when 1 Peter 3:21 clearly says it does?” So also writes a listener named Tom. “Pastor John, hello! I sometimes meet people from church backgrounds that say water baptism is necessary for salvation, and they cite 1 Peter 3:21 to prove it. I know that we are saved by grace through faith, and not by any work of ours, including baptism. But could you help frame a response to those of us who engage with people from church traditions that believe in baptismal regeneration?”

One of the great divides between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant evangelicals is the way each understands how God’s saving grace comes to the human soul in a saving way. Protestants believe that God’s saving grace comes to the soul decisively by faith alone. In other words, the only act of the soul in the instant of new birth — or in the moment of passing from spiritual death to new life, in the moment of being counted righteous by God, being decisively adopted into his eternal family — the only act of the soul in that instant, which is decisive from the human side, is faith.

“Protestants believe that God’s saving grace comes to the soul decisively by faith alone.”

All other acts of obedience, all other acts of symbolism of what happens spiritually, all other acts of expression or demonstration or confirmation of that new birth or justification or adoption — all those other acts are the results of faith, made possible by faith. They are not part of faith, and so they are not the human instrument by which we are born again or justified or adopted.

Roman Catholic Sacramentalism

Now, Roman Catholics don’t see it that way. Rather, Roman Catholicism says that God’s saving grace comes to the soul essentially through the physical acts of sacrament administered appropriately by a human priest or his authorized substitute. The two clearest examples of how this works are baptismal regeneration (that is, born again by means of the act of baptism) and transubstantiation in the Eucharist (that is, the bread and wine actually become, get transubstantiated into, the physical body and blood of Christ). The actual bread you’re holding in your hand is the physical body of Christ; the cup that you drink is the physical blood of Jesus — that’s transubstantiation, so that this physical dimension of imparting saving grace is preserved.

So in baptism, the priest or his authorized representative applies the water to the infant. And by that ecclesiastical and sacramentally physical act, the child is saved. Here are the very words of the Roman Catholic Catechism (part 2, section 2, chapter 1, article 1, paragraph 1213):

Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: “Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.”

By Faith Alone

Now, Protestant evangelicals would protest. (That’s where we get the name: we protest.) No, we say. Baptism does not free from sin. It does not cause one to be reborn. It does not unite to Christ in a saving way. All of that happens through faith alone in the first instant of saving faith, after which all acts of obedience confirm faith, and confirm new birth, and confirm forgiveness of sins, and confirm membership in Christ.

When Josh asks this question, he puts his finger on a couple of key Bible texts that underlie this evangelical position. Josh says, “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Paul writes, “We also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16).

Now, the reason this text is so important is that the context has to do with whether circumcision in that day was effective for justification, the way you asked whether baptism was effective for justification. We know that because Paul says in Galatians 5:3–4, “Every man who accepts circumcision . . . is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law” — that is, by circumcision.

In other words, the issue was this: if the first act of true saving faith is the point at which justification happens, then you simply can’t add anything to faith to make it happen. You can’t add circumcision — and by implication, you can’t add baptism. The decisive act of justification and adoption and new birth are performed by God through that first act of saving faith. Therefore, no other acts can make those divine acts happen. They’ve already happened at that first act of saving faith.

What Is Baptism?

So how, then, are we to understand baptism? Let’s consider two passages, first a passage in Colossians and then the one in 1 Peter.

“Baptism is described as an act signifying the new birth, of burying the old self and rising from the water with the new self.”

Here’s Colossians 2:11: “In [Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11). Now, that is a picture of the new birth, described as a kind of spiritual circumcision. The old, unbelieving, blind, rebellious self is cut away, and a new person comes into being, a new creation. And he goes on now in the next verse to say, “. . . having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12). So here, baptism is described as an act signifying the new birth, of burying the old self and rising from the water with the new self.

What keeps us from misunderstanding that act as a physical cause of new birth is the phrase through faith. You were raised with Christ through faith. In other words, Paul is jealous not to picture the physical act of baptism as the decisive cause of this new birth. It’s an acted-out picture of what is happening, and the spiritual effect of what is happening is through faith. That’s a crucial phrase there in Colossians 2:12.

First Peter 3:21 should be understood in the same way. Peter has just referred to Noah’s flood and the rescue of eight people in the ark. And then he says, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you [notice how he qualifies this], not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).

In other words, the waters of baptism are like the waters of Noah’s flood. We are saved from that judgment. How? Peter clarifies and qualifies, lest we think it’s the actual physical enactment of passing through the water that saves. He says salvation happens “not [a big not] as a removal of dirt from the body,” and then he gives baptism a particular slant: “but as an appeal to God for a good conscience” (1 Peter 3:21). This appeal is an act of the heart looking away from itself and from all human instruments and calling on God, appealing to God, for grace to save.

This appeal is the heart’s cry of faith. That, Peter says, is the instrument that receives the saving grace of God. The physical act of baptism is the parable, it’s the drama, it’s the emblem, but the reality of new birth is not physical and is not received by physical acts. It’s received by faith and faith alone. Then baptism follows as a beautiful, obedient enactment of the effects of faith.

The Spirit’s Irresistible Call
What do we mean when we say that the Spirit’s work in the new birth is irresistible? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper looks at John 3:1–10 to explore the beauty of this aspect of the Spirit’s sovereign work.