Suppose you found yourself in a life-threatening situation and one of your terrified companions earnestly asked, “What must I do to be saved?”
With time running out and the stakes so high, what would you tell your panicked friend?
Keep in mind, there is no opportunity to go to church, study scripture, be baptized, “clean up his act,” meet with a pastor, etc.
It turns out that such things, while perhaps helpful under ordinary circumstances, are not necessary for salvation anyway.
The Gospel Exalted
So, “what must I do to be saved?” Let’s consult the Apostle Paul for the answer from Romans 1:1-4;16,17:
“Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son … For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes … For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”
The simple answer to your companion’s question is that he must hear and believe “the Gospel.”
Paul confines the matter of salvation to the Gospel, which he describes as, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
In Acts 4:12, the Apostle Peter asserts that “… there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
Of course, this calls for abandoning all other grounds for “salvation” and to seek eternal life in Christ alone, Jesus made this abundantly clear when He declared in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
So, as I approach God on His terms, what are the “inconvenient truths” that I need to come to grips with about myself and God?
I Am a Sinner
Do you see yourself as a sinner? Have you ever lied, stolen something, been angry, lusted, etc.?
Although individual sins routinely violate divinely established religious or moral principles, their very existence points to a deeper cause rooted in the “fallen” (fatally flawed) nature of man.
Do you believe people who break the law should be punished? Do YOU deserve it? Have you ever felt spiritually lost?
Jesus stated, “for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” for a reason. Only those who realize and accept their sinner-hood will have any interest in being saved in the first place.
To claim that you are not a sinner is to call God a liar, as written in Romans 3:23, “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …”
Consequences
In Romans 6:23 we’re told, “For the wages of sin is death …” That’s the bad news.
But it goes on to promise, “but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s the good news. Very good indeed.
More on that later.
In the working world, we receive our wages for working a certain period of time. Similarly, the scripture explains that we have worked at sin all our lives, and absent divine intervention, we will eventually be “paid” our “wages” in the only currency available — judgment and death — both physical and spiritual death.
The widespread idea that when we die, we automatically enter Heaven amid an angelic chorus just because we lived a “pretty good” life is a fantasy with no scriptural support.
Unless we are “saved” we will perish. Scripture couldn’t be clearer on this pivotal matter, John 3:16-18:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
How About You?
Until I learned I had cancer, I paid no attention to news items regarding cancer treatments. “That doesn’t concern me,” I thought.
Well, boy, did my interest pick up when my doctor showed me my lab results one dark day. Sin is “soul cancer” and we are all born with it.
God has a cure, but we must listen to His “lab results” first. Two thousand years ago, in the face of a dire prognosis for mankind, Christ undertook His divine mission of providing a sure-fire cure for the disease of sin.
In His death, burial and resurrection was found the “miracle cure” for sin, IF only people will stop, listen and believe.
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Click here for a fascinating AI-generated video overview of this essay“the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”