Is “a Personal Relationship with God” the Best Way to describe salvation? Is it even a good one?

 If you grew up in an evangelical church, you’ve probably heard the phrase countless times: “Christianity isn’t a religion—it’s a personal relationship with God.” Or, "do you have a personal relationpship with God?" I believe the expression is meant to imply that Christianity is real, substnative, and life changing. It isn't cultural Christianity, inherited faith, church attendance without repentance or transformation. The expression means relationship with God matters and God is not distant. That corrective implication of this expression was and is still necessary.

But over time, I’ve started to wonder whether “personal relationship with God” is the clearest or most faithful way to describe what Scripture teaches. I have heard the phrase in a few sermons recently and today I decided to dig in a bit. Not because of any kind of doctrinal or moral high ground, but for the sake of curiosity.

The phrase “personal relationship with God” itself doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible. Neither do familiar expressions like “invite Jesus into your heart.” That doesn’t automatically make them wrong, but it should make us pause. Scripture gives us its own characterizations of God’s relationship to man, and when we replace biblical terminology with other ones, we often import assumptions without realizing it.

For example, in our present cultural context, a “personal relationship” refers to something individual, emotional, informal, and largely private. It could mean different things to different people. Some may add any number of qualities to a “personal relationship” which are not part of our relationship with God. One example that comes to mind is the ability to negotiate. In my marriage, my most personal relationship, we often use negotiation as a tool and it is a tool for a healthy relationship. This valuable relationship tool and many others just do not carry over into our relationship with God.

So, through this mispereptions, the concept of “personal relationship” can quietly shift the center of faith away from what God has done in Christ and toward how I experience my personal God on my terms. When assurance is tied to feeling close to God, faith becomes fragile. Seasons of dryness or doubt begin to feel like spiritual failure, or a fracture in the “personal relationship”. Scripture, however, grounds assurance somewhere much sturdier than a relationship that is based in how we experience God. It is based in Christ’s finished work.

Certainly, there is a relational aspect to knowing God. As a matter of fact, when the Bible speaks about our connection to God, it uses language that is both relational and objective. It talks about being united to Christ, reconciled to God, adopted as sons and daughters, brought into covenant. These are not cold or distant doctrines. They are God-initiated secure promise that are not based on how we feel. Jesus defines eternal life not as an emotion or an internal sense of closeness, but as knowing God through Him. That knowing is covenantal, not casual. It is both personal and corporate, and the terms of the relationship are not ours. They are his.

If the goal in using the expression “personal relationship with Christ” is to correct casual or cultural Christianity, or to stir people toward a deeper connection to God, a better way to say it might be “union with Christ by faith,” or “being reconciled to God through Christ,” or simply “knowing God through Christ.” Those phrases are rooted in scripture and preserve the relational reality without centering faith on personal feeling, private spirituality, or the whatever messed up perceptions people may have about what “personal relationship”. These phrases keep the focus where Scripture keeps it—on Christ, not on us.

That doesn’t mean we need to ban the phrase “personal relationship with God.” Most people mean something that is true when they use it. But it does mean we should be careful and precise about defining what it means using Biblical language. Christian faith is personal, but it is also covenantal, corporate, and Christ-centered. It begins not with our initiative or our emotions, but with God’s gracious action toward us