Trusting Scripture With Salvation
Why The Bible?
As we come off a study of other religious views of salvation, I find it vital that we recap why we believe what the Bible has to say about salvation. Why do we trust what the Bible has to teach us about soteriology and not any other religious book? What is the benefit of looking to God’s Word instead of other sources? The first and foremost answer to this question would be because of how reliable scripture is. For a deeper look into this, I would encourage you to go back to our bibliology study and look at the plethora of reasons we offered for why you can trust the Bible. For this post, however, we are simply going to break down some of the biggest reasons why what the Bible has to say alone makes it a more reliable source for salvation knowledge. As Ligonier Ministries writes, “The Word of God written is identical to God's speech. It is exactly what He intended us to have as the revelation of His will and how to please Him.” All that God has revealed to us in His Word, we can rely on and trust in just as if He was speaking to us personally. And when God’s Word tells us of salvation, we can clearly see that unlike other religions, it's not at all about work, it's all about atonement, and there’s no other option. These reasons alone separate Christianity from what a vast amount of other religions believe.
Good Works
To start, let’s look at our good works. According to a vast amount of religious beliefs today, salvation is something that is earned by simply being more good than you are bad in this life. Essentially, you better hope that when you die, God keeps a record of all the things you ever did, and by some miracle, the good better outweigh the bad. What a terrible way to live! Not that doing good is a wrong way to live by any means, but imagine the fear you would live in daily if that was the reality of you reaching heaven one day. Even if I didn’t bring up any scripture to show why this is the wrong view to have for this, wouldn’t you eventually look back on your life and realize how fallen and sinful you really are? It’s hard to imagine that any humble and genuine person could ever die thinking that their good deeds outweighed their bad ones. Paul says it best in Galatians 2:16 when he mentions, “nevertheless, knowing that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified.” I love in this passage how Paul doubles down on this. Right away we see that no one is justified by works but by Christ. But how does he close this passage? He rephrases the opening statement to make sure he got his point across. ‘No flesh will be justified’. This is his response to works in regards to salvation. Not just most people won’t be justified through good works, but literally no one on earth will be. Are you made of flesh? Congratulations! You’re literally helpless. I know this may come off in a funny tone, but this is so important to understand as Christ-followers to make sure we know how we are separate from other beliefs. No amount of good that we ever accomplish will be able to pay for our salvation. God’s Word makes it quite clear.
Atonement & Heaven
Furthermore, we have the continuation of our first point. If not all about works, that must mean it's all about something else. This is where atonement comes in. Look at what John says in 1 John 2:2 “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” The ‘He’ in this passage is John referring to Christ and His finished work on the cross. And in case you don’t know what ‘propitiation’ is, it means to appease God. In essence, Jesus’ death on the cross appeased God’s wrath for our sin. Jesus was our literal atonement in order to be in a justified state before God in heaven. This is the good news of the gospel! You no longer have to try fulfilling all 613 laws of the old covenant, Jesus did it for you. You don’t have to stress about not living a perfect life, Jesus did it for you. You don’t have to find the right amount of sacrifices to pay for sin, Jesus did if for you. This is what makes the atonement so beautiful. There is no room for you to boast. All of the honor, glory, and praise belongs to Christ because He and He alone made a way for you to inherit salvation. No other religion can claim that.
Lastly, I want to hit on one last aspect that scripture points out. That aspect of course, is that there is no other option besides heaven. Contrary to what other religions may teach, there is no purgatory, there is no planet waiting for you to rule, and there's certainly no second heaven. The only good place you can go to when you die is heaven. When we don’t understand this, two things can take place. First, we take the gospel of Christ for granted because we believe that there's another good place we can go when we die even if it's not heaven. And second, we waste our lives here on earth because we believe we don’t have to know the gospel here and now, we’ll get a second chance once we’re in purgatory or any other made up place. Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 25:46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Doesn’t sound like there's two options here. Make no mistake about it friends, when we die, we either go with Christ into eternal life, or we are separated from Christ into eternal punishment. May we repent and believe the gospel so that it may be the former. I hope and pray that as we've studied these issues from a scriptural basis, that you’ve grown more confident in your salvation and more hungry to reach the lost. No matter what we do on this earth, it is only the gospel of Jesus Christ that can truly save us. And that is some good news worth sharing.
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] God-Breathed Scripture | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org. (n.d.). Ligonier Ministries. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/god-breathed-scripture
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