Faith

Just How Hard Is It to Be Saved?

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About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
—Acts 16:25-34 ESV

…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
—Romans 10:9-11 ESV

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
—John 6:44 ESV

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
—1 Corinthians 12:3 ESV

I like to follow trends in the Church and in the Christian blogosphere. One trend that is gaining power attempts to tell who’s in and who’s out by questioning if some people who think they’re saved really aren’t. Jesus Saves barnAny consistent readers of Cerulean Sanctum will know that on more than one occasion I’ve quoted Leonard Ravenhill asking if only 2% of professed Christians are truly born again. So even here there’s been some of that same rhetoric.

John Piper has a new book out called God Is the Gospel and it’s stirring up controversy about this very topic of how one is saved. Over at Old Truth, there was a post about decisional regeneration that adds fuel to the fire.

The debates about who’s in and who’s out rage, but I have to wonder if we are making it too hard. Look at the four verses posted above, for instance.

In the case of the jailer, look how simple his conversion was. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ll be saved. Did the Lord draw him? Yes, in the middle of despair, the Holy Spirit was drawing him. Did Paul ask anything of him other than to believe? Not that’s listed here. Nor does Luke list anything different said by Paul than what the apostle himself outlines in the Romans passage above.

We can try to second-guess God on this, piling up other requirements, but isn’t that adding to the Gospel? If someone confesses with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, why is there reason to believe that God has not drawn that person?

My confession is that I’m a Lordship salvation person. Have been for a long time. But that puts me in the company of others who make coming to Jesus a real trial.

Perhaps the problem here is one of theological systems.

The Calvinist position is hard to hold because persistence of the saints becomes a problem. What do you do with people who profess Christ then seemingly fall away. The out for Calvinists is saying that those people never really were drawn by God in the first place and therefore never made a true profession of faith. But do the Scriptures above, when taken together, paint that picture? It sure doesn’t seem so. It certainly appears that someone can be drawn of God, confess Christ with their lips and believe in their heart and still have the possibility there for falling away. Saying they were never a Christian in the first place seems like a lazy out.

Those against decisional regeneration are confronted with the fact that the jailer responded not because he was confronted with the full measure of the Gospel, but because he was in despair. He was ready to be saved without hearing a full Gospel presentation. He didn’t say to Paul, “I’m a sinner under full conviction of the Spirit as He’s brought me to the foot of the cross!” His rationale was that his boss was going to kill him OR he was astonished at the miracle earthquake that made it possible for the apostles to leave. I know plenty of people who became Christians at a remarkably low point in their lives or because they were confronted with a miracle. Is their salvation null and void? Can God not use situations to draw people? Do the passages above say that?

A Lordship salvation person, like me, struggles for a couple reasons. One is that I’m forced into an Arminian position, even though I don’t want to ascribe to it, simply because I have to struggle with the same issue as the Calvinists: what to do with people who fall away. The other is that the verses above do not say anything about the actual living out of the Lordship of Christ in one’s life. It’s assumed, obviously, but the question must be asked then if the process of Lordship begins at conversion and progresses, or is completely in place at conversion. The former makes salvation progressive while the latter makes it instantaneous. A quandary, obviously.

I could go into great deal about how all the other views on this struggle, but that doesn’t provide a solution to the original question: are we adding too many qualifiers to a person’s coming to Christ?

I would truly like to hear what other people think about this. Just how hard is it to be saved?

Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?

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White cross on a hillRob Wilkerson of Miscellanies on the Gospel (latest winner of a Warnie Award, I might add) burns up the Internet with the question of why Christians aren’t satisfied with Christ and have to go to other sources for their spiritual fulfillment:

In closing, might I add a more practical way that we can lurch backwards into the simplicity of the gospel message of Christ and Him crucified? It involves a ‘put off’ and a ‘put on.’ First, let’s put off Hollywood. It offers nothing but a mirage. Too many Christians, including myself, watch movies in order to gain some redemptive element which we can use as common ground to share the gospel with others. That works sometimes. But I’m beginning to think that when that is used as common ground, generally their perception of Christianity, priests, and preachers is just what Hollywood has told them it is. So if we start with Hollywood, we’re already starting with a broken tool…a severely broken tool. I say let’s ditch the whole thing. Ironically, it’s filled with nothing but emptiness. There’s no gospel in Hollywood, so let’s stop allowing it to seep into our minds, hearts, and homes.

Second, let’s put on the Lord Jesus Christ as He’s already revealed Himself in the Bible. He hasn’t revealed anything of Himself in Hollywood. If we read our Bibles as much as we watched Hollywood’s products, or better yet, if we read our Bible as much as we watched Hollywood’s products and instead of Hollywood’s products, what kind of Christians do you think we would be?

Amen, Rob.

A few years ago, I came to the stunning revelation that nothing ultimately satisfies but Jesus. I stopped giving my time and effort to things that accomplished nothing but satisfying my own craving to be entertained. So much of Christianity has turned into entertainment! Seymour over at The Light Is Sweet posted this perfect commentary from one of my personal faves, Leonard Ravenhill:

Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for Joy; the less joy of the Lord you have, the more entertainment you need.

How eerily true.

Too many want to justify their entertainment fixation by saying that one can find truth in films. My answer? You can pan for flecks of gold in vast fields of manure, but why do it when Christ can fill you up with an infinitely more satisfying treasure: Himself.

Anyway, my journey into the revelation that only Jesus is needed came about because of a passage that has always been one of my favorites, but which I did not fully understand until two years ago:

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
—John 6:66-69 ESV

Lord Jesus Christ, to whom shall we go? There is no truth apart from You. There is nothing that satisfies forever like You do. There is nothing worth possessing more than You. There is no one worth knowing more than You.

And yet how easily so many go careening from one cheap, throwaway thrill to the next. Even people who call themselves by Christ’s name. How desperately sad.

That’s not me anymore. I hope it’s not you, either.

The Always Answer

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…in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
—1 Peter 3:15-16 ESV

Peter writes that the answer we must always have ready is our reason for our hope in Christ.

I emphasize that point because too often I see that our defense comes down to answering more than we should. We open our mouths and wax poetic over any and all subjects as if the world’s wisdom rested solely between our ears.Stumped by the Question? For some, it is a life’s calling squeezing an infinite God into a diminutive box that can be attached to a keychain and whipped out when the need to go somewhere important calls.

In November, I will be 43. I’ve been a Christian for 29 years. On most doctrinal issues I’ve crafted a bullet-proof answer for anyone who asks. But I have less of them than I once did. What I desire to have instead of an answer for everything is the reason for my hope in Christ. I need to ensure that answer is always buffed and ready for the asking.

I think too many Christians suffer from a need to have not just their reason ready for their hope in Christ, but their reason for all that is, both seen and unseen. Ensuring that no one ever finds a chink in the spiritual edifice they’ve constructed drives them. They must possess an answer to everything.

But even the Bible leaves some questions unanswered. We don’t know exactly what heaven looks like, for instance. We know that Enoch and Elijah were taken up into heaven without dying, but how exactly does that work? And are they really the two witnesses returned to earth as described in Revelation? What are all the things that Jesus did that aren’t written down in the Bible, as the last verse in the Gospel of John says at its end? And those are only a few mysteries; I’m sure you could come up with plenty more.

When did “I don’t know” become the hardest thing for Christians to say? Why do some Christians feel compelled to answer life’s every question? Some of the men through whom God spoke, men who wrote the very words of the Bible, weren’t so bold as to provide a running discourse on every subject imaginable. Some had the nerve to say

Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin.
—Proverbs 30:18-19 ESV

The writer of Proverbs here didn’t try to erect an entire epistemology to explain these wonderful things. Why do so many Christians today think they can do better? Has God left us no enigmas at all?

I think it comes down to pride and fear. Pride in our ability to answer. Fear that if we cannot, the chink in our doctrinal armor will have been exposed. If only more Christians left enigmas alone rather than answer the way they do.

The one answer we should always be ready to give is based off the question, “Why do you hope in Jesus?” Our answer ultimately matters more than all others. Go back to the Bible and reason from it, but don’t forget that the answer always contains an element of the personal. Something of you has to be in there, something that no one else on the planet shares in common. Your story of faith in Christ matters. It is my hope that you know it well enough for it to be your “always answer.”