The Problem with Having a Personal Relationship with God

Personal Relationship and Individualism

Evangelicals emphasize that being a Christian means having a personal relationship with God.  We define conversion to Christianity as “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.”  There is nothing wrong with this per se.  There is certainly a sense in which the Christian’s relationship with God is personal.  However, when this is overemphasized at the expense of other biblical truths, it can become very problematic and misleading.  This is because, taken in isolation from other equally important theological truths, the language of having a personal relationship with God implies a false, individualistic understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  

Modern Evangelicalism arose as a kind of reform movement in the modern church.  Against theological liberalism, it has stood for historic Christian orthodoxy, affirming the authority of the Bible as God’s word and the central, saving significance of the cross of Jesus Christ.  Against nominal Christianity, it has affirmed the necessity of personal conversion to be saved and the necessity of actively living out one’s faith.  Evangelicals often express these latter aspects in terms of needing to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Now, there are certainly contexts in which it may be important to emphasize the need for a personal relationship with Jesus.  Nominal Christians who think that just going to church and participating in the sacraments makes them Christians need to be told that, by itself, that is not enough.  Unless they also personally make a decision to put faith in Jesus, surrender to Him as Lord and Savior, and follow him in a life of discipleship and obedience, they are not truly Christians.  The church is not an institution that automatically makes those who participate in it Christians.  Each individual Christian must also personally make a decision to follow Jesus and be his disciple.  In the context of a church of “dead orthodoxy,” in which people go to church and say they believe, but have no personal commitment to Christian discipleship, it may be very valuable to tell people that they need to have a personal relationship with God.

However, in the highly individualistic culture of the contemporary United States, it can often be dangerous to tell people that being a Christian means having a personal relationship with Jesus.  It can be dangerous because when many people hear of a “personal” relationship, what they hear is an “individual” relationship.  The implication then is that being a Christian means one has an individual relationship with Jesus, unmediated by church, sacraments, or the authority of Scripture and church tradition.  Such a false, individualistic understanding of what being a Christian means can have disastrous consequences.

Personal Relationship and the Church

Many American Christians believe that being a Christian means having a personal, individual relationship with God through Jesus.  The purpose of the church, then, is merely to help individual Christians grow in their individual relationship with Jesus.  If a Christian does not feel like the church is necessary to help them grow their individual relationship with Jesus, they can simply give up going to church and commune with God as an individual Christian.  Such an attitude is reflected in the fact that only 62% of American Christians go to church with any regularity^[1]https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/ (And of these 62%, not all believe it is actually necessary to participate in the life of the church to be a Christian).  

This individualistic understanding of what it means to be a Christian is completely contrary to the teaching of the New Testament.  According to the New Testament, Jesus is not the savior of individuals, who then become members of the church; He is the Savior of the church, and individuals are saved because they are members of the church.  Jesus came to “save His people [Israel] from their sins” (Matt 1:21).  The good news of the Gospel is that everyone who believes in Jesus, even Gentiles, can be grafted into God’s covenant people (Rom 11:11-24), become heirs of God’s covenant promises to Israel (Gal 3:29), and share in the salvation God has accomplished for His people through Jesus (Eph 2:11-20).  God’s Spirit does dwell within each individual Christian believer, but the more fundamental reality is that God’s Spirit dwells within the church, which, as a corporate entity, is a temple for the presence of the Lord (Eph 2: 19-22).  Individual Christians have a relationship with God because they are members of the church.  

According to the New Testament, one does not become an individual Christian, and then subsequently join (or perhaps not join) the church.  Rather, as the New Testament presents it, becoming a Christian and becoming a member of the church is one single event.  Becoming a Christian means becoming part of the church, and becoming part of the church means becoming a Christian.  A “Christian” is a synonym for a “member of the church,” and the entire purpose of an individual Christian’s existence is to build up the church (Eph 4:11-16).  

A person becomes a Christian and is saved through faith and baptism (Acts 2:38).  Baptism is not merely an individual expression of faith; it is a communal event in which the church, the covenant people of God, accepts someone as a member of God’s redeemed, forgiven people, the body of Christ.  The church is not just an institution that is there to help individual Christians grow spiritually; it is a political community that stands in authority over its members.  

The church is the community of Jesus’ disciples.  That means each member of the church community must personally make a commitment to Christian discipleship in order to be part of that community.  At the same time, there is no such thing as being a disciple of Jesus Christ without becoming part of the church community.  Church membership and personal discipleship are both necessary in order to be a genuine Christian.^[2]Of course, there is the possibility that those who are not genuine disciples of Jesus will become part of the visible church (Acts 8:13, 18-23), but this does not mean it is possible to be a genuine … Continue reading  These corporate and individual aspects of Christian identity are equally important, and neither is dispensable.  

Personal Relationship and Theological Authority

Saying that each individual Christian has a personal relationship can easily be interpreted as implying that each individual Christian has an unmediated relationship with Jesus.  If Jesus lives in the heart of each individual Christian, then each individual Christian can just listen for God’s leading inside of them in order to know what to do and believe.  If a Christian is wondering what they should believe or what the right thing to do is, they can just pray about it, and then know that whatever they feel God is telling them inside is the right thing.  Careful and rigorous study of Scripture, then, is not really necessary.  If a Christian does consult Scripture, they can consult it in isolation from the tradition of the church and its authority, since the individual Christian can be content in knowing that the Holy Spirit is speaking to them through whatever Scripture seems to them to be saying.  Such a “go it alone” approach to Christian faith and life is extremely problematic, and leads to disastrous consequences.  

It sounds nice to say that, because the Holy Spirit lives within each Christian, Christians can just follow whatever they feel the Holy Spirit is telling them and be confident that they are being faithful.  However, church history shows us that many Christians have believed false and heretical things, believing (no doubt sincerely) that the Holy Spirit was telling them these things.  Many Christians have done extremely foolish and extremely wicked things, believing (no doubt sincerely) that the Holy Spirit was telling them to do these things.  A Christian may sincerely believe that the Holy Spirit is telling them something, but that does not mean that they are right.  The Holy Spirit may sometimes directly lead individual Christians to do certain things, but Scripture and church history show that is not how God typically operates.  

Jesus is a Person, and Christians have a relationship with Him.  In this sense, Christians have a personal relationship with Jesus.  However, the Christian’s relationship with Jesus is not personal in the sense of being unmediated.  Since Jesus has ascended into heaven, He is no longer physically present with us.  Instead, He is present by the power of the Holy Spirit in the church, through the word of God and the sacraments.  The Christian’s relationship with Jesus is mediated through Scripture and the church.  Individual Christians must submit their own individual, fallible feelings about what the Holy Spirit is telling them to the authority of Scripture and the tradition of the church.  The Holy Spirit primarily acts and speaks in the church community as it seeks to be faithful to Scripture, and not within the mind of the individual believer.  

Personal Relationship and Subjectivity

There is a final problem with talking about Christian identity in terms of a personal relationship.  The problem is that the word “personal” can often have the connotations of being subjective, based on feelings and opinions rather than being objectively true.  It can thus feed into the idea that, “Personally, I believe Jesus is Lord, but I won’t try to convert anyone else to this view; everyone should just have the religious beliefs that work for them personally.”  

Such a relativistic, postmodern attitude is radically contrary to the Lord Jesus Christ’s demand for Christians to boldly and joyfully proclaim the good news that Jesus is Lord to the whole world, and to make disciples of all the nations (Matt 28:18-20).  The good news of the Christian gospel is not that individuals can have a personal, subjective relationship with God, but that Jesus has objectively defeated the powers of evil, that He is reigning as Lord of all of creation, and that through Him God is making all things new.  This is a truth that has implications not only for individuals’ personal lives, but for every sphere of human life.  

It is only meaningful for someone to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior if they first accept that Jesus truly is Lord and Savior of the whole world.  For this reason, rather than saying, “Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior,” it would be better to say, “Personally accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.”  Christian faith is not primarily about having personal religious beliefs and experiences.  It is about acknowledging the fact that God is bringing salvation to the world through what Jesus has done for His covenant people, and participating in this reality by becoming part of that redeemed covenant people, the church of Jesus Christ.