I’ve already saved myself.
Boooyah, Jesus! I beat ya to it!
As others have mentioned, the phrase is not “word for word” in Scripture. It is an interpretation of the meaning of the Scripture as a whole by one particular group of Christians. We often accept things that are not stated word for word but rather implied…the first example that pops to my mind is flag burning. The U.S. constitution doesn’t specifically address that, but an interpretation of the constitution has deemed this to be covered under free speech.
The OP asked about the churches using this phrase and why they place an emphasis on the “personal” aspect. Several of us have tried to address that. The OP also asked about using “Christ” in place of “Jesus” in the phrase and no one has addressed that (I’ve never heard it that way).
I’m sorry if I seem snippy Dogface , but your post seemed to insinuate that we were avoiding the question. I just wanted to point out that the etymology of the phrase was not what was asked. I don’t know anything about that. Does anyone else?
Just a side note - I’ve been a Christian for many years, but have never regularly attended a Baptist church (though I do attend a weekly Bible study taught by a Baptist preacher). Over the years I have regularly attended, at different times, Methodist, Calvary Chapel, Foursquare, Nazarene and Free Methodist churches. I’ve heard the term “personal Savior” in all of them.
The phrase is presumably an adaptation from the very precise theological concept of ‘personal salvation’. At its simplest, ‘personal salvation’ just means your own salvation, as opposed to anyone else’s. It was mainly used by Protestant theologians in the context of discussions about the fear that one can believe completely that Jesus has saved Mankind and yet still be uncertain that you in particular are saved. This is one of the well-known side-effects of a belief in predestination, which is why some Protestants, following Calvin, argue that those who have been saved know that they have. This has fed directly into Protestant fundamentalists’ ideas about conversion experiences - the proof that you have been converted is your certainty that you have been saved. From there, the idea that Jesus is your ‘personal’ Saviour seems a simple step.
None of this means that the phrase may not now be used mainly as a cliché, as FordPrefect suggests.
Dogface while the OP does not specifically ask where in the bible is the phrase “accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior” the only questions in the OP are…
and when asked in combination like that I assumed this was a question of interpretation and as I stated I would admit when I was wrong and I have admited that I was wrong in my interpretation of the OP.
Now my interpreting the OP to ask “When did baptism become a personal matter?” then my answer is the day the first person accepted the Holy Spirit and I don’t see how this could possibly be wrong because I must accept the responsibility it is mine to bear no one else can accept salvation for me it is a personal thing.
my Methodist church is hardly evangelical but the members talk about their personal relationship with Christ. I was raised Catholic and this seems to be a difference in emphasis between Protestants and Catholics. Catholics seem to emphasize obligation, suffering, etc. while Protestants seem to emphasize salvation. Just my humble perspective. I do agree that personal means that one personally accepts Jesus, not that he is personal like a toothbrush.
As for baptism, that could be an entire thread by itself but I will note that Catholic catechism requires baptism of infants, and confirmation is a subsequent sacrement obtained around age 13. So one can say baptism is not required is the wrong term in a particular religion for an infant because its not capable of understanding, but that statement is not correct for ALL Christians. In fact, baptism of infants is common in my Methodist church.
I too suspect the emphasis on one’s personal relationship stemmed from John Wesely and other 19th century revivalists.
Thanks to everyone who has touched on the personal salvation concept - I think that pretty much covers what I was asking about originally. I freely admit that most of my conversations about the particulars of any one religion have been with non-Christians mostly, so I appreciate having aspects of Protestantism explained to me. (Not interested in picking up a new religion, though, so no one should feel the need to witness. 
)
The one question left unanswered so far is whether the alternate phrase “accepting Christ as your personal saviour” is ever used. If not, why not?
Oh, they are necessary, but the thing is, they do not totally negate individual salvation, or a personal relation with God. Conversely, in Protestantism individual salvation does not absolutely negate that the collective of the believers constitutes the mystical Body of Christ on Earth, the Church, through which in fellowship with other believers you find yourself closer to God. It’s more a question of emphasis.
(and in Catholicism, if some force majeure circumstance makes it impossible to access the sacramental rites, for instance, you can still have your sins dealt with through a so-called Act of Perfect Contrition – you really, REALLY, TRULY repent and turn to Jesus – with the proviso that if you manage to get out of it alive, you should head for a proper Church and get back into formal good standing. In dire life-or-death emergencies, any Catholic layperson may baptize someone.)
What has happened, historically and repeatedly, has been that at layman’s level things tend to degenerate into a sort of presumption that you are OK with God for the mere fact that you were born/raised as a member of the Right Church in a Right-Church-Believing society (Catholic, Orthodox, CoE, or whatever your “faith of our fathers” version of Xtianity was) and that it was just a matter of going through the proper formal rites. Protestantism has been vulnerable to this, too. This vision has to be periodically shaken up.
I did a small amount of digging.
I went to the Project Gutenberg website and found 4 books under the topic of “Christianity” that are in the public domain.
I downloaded 3 of them (skipping “To Infidelity and Back” by Henry Luce) and searched for the word, “Personal”. I did not locate the phrase “Personal Savior”, but I did come across the following quotes. I bolded the relevant parts.
“THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU”
CHRISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTIC RELIGION
BUT AS A NEW THEORY OF LIFE
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOI
BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
New York, 1894
I had anticipated that freethinking writers would look at Christ, not merely, like the Churchmen, as
the founder of a religion of personal salvation, but, to express it in their language, as a reformer who laid down new principles of life and destroyed the old, and whose reforms are not yet complete, but are still in progress even now.
Transcribed from the 1913 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email xxx
THE FAIR HAVEN
A Work in Defence of the Miraculous Element in our Lord’s Ministry upon Earth, both as against Rationalistic Impugners and certain Orthodox Defenders, by the late John Pickard Owen, with a Memoir of the Author by William Bickersteth Owen.
I regret to pass so quickly over one great field of evidence which in justice to myself I must allude to, though I cannot dwell upon it, for in the outset I declared that I would confine myself to the historical evidence, and to this only. I refer to spiritual insight; to the testimony borne by the souls of living persons, who from personal experience KNOW that their Redeemer liveth, and that though worms destroy this body, yet in their flesh shall they see God. How many thousands are there in the world at this moment, who have known Christ as a personal friend and comforter, and who can testify to the work which He has wrought upon them!
THE PROFITS OF RELIGION
An Essay in Economic Interpretation
By UPTON SINCLAIR
It is still permitted that parents should terrify their little ones with images of a personal devil and a hell of eternal brimstone and sulphur; it is permitted to found schools for the teaching of devil-doctrines; it is permitted to organize gigantic campaigns and systematically to infect whole cities full of men, women and children with hell-fire phobias.
I can find newspaper cites from about 1870 for “Jesus Christ your personal Saviour.” This seems to be when that phrase became popular. Not much before that, although I can find “personal saviour” used in scholarly religious articles.
New York Herald, 1870.
A story about various churches in NYC at that time. The quote came from a sermon at Calvary Baptist Church.
Jesus was his name, while Christ is a title - the greek equivalent of the hebrew word for “Messiah” (annointed one). Many of the same protestant denominations that use the phrase also emphasise the development of a relationship with Jesus as being key, so using his first/given name would be more appropriate than his “job title”.
Grim
It doesn’t. The most common Bible verse that I hear evangelicals cite is John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”). The idea seems to be if you really get that line, you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior.
I’m not sure when that verse was first interpreted in terms of “accepting Jesus as your personal savior.” I’ve been told that I, as a Catholic, haven’t been “saved” because I apparently haven’t had a monumental, life-changing experience in which I accepted Jesus into my heart–that phrasing reminds me of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, who credited his salvation to a “warming of the heart” that he felt in 1738.
However, the concept could very well predate Wesley.