Saved By Grace: Understanding the Path to Our Salvation

Jon

Oh hey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and a part of Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc. That's a Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language.

Jon

I'm Jon, I get to serve as a pastor. I'm here with Mitchell Leach, our producer.

Mitchell

So glad to be here.

Jon

And we are excited to answer some questions today, talking about the very basic core parts of our faith: how do you become saved? Can you lose your salvation? And some questions like that.

Mitchell

Yep. So, here's the first question. What do I have to do to be saved?

Jon

Yeah, great question. I think one of the very simple ways that Jesus talked about his mission on the earth, and I think it would be a great answer to this question: Mark 1:15, Jesus says, "Repent and believe the good news." I think that's the simplest answer to that question.

Jon

So, somebody's asking, so maybe they've heard some of the Christian teachings. How do I get this thing called salvation? How do I get eternal life, to be with God forever, to spend eternity with Jesus instead of apart from Jesus in hell? If that's the question you're asking, then let me explain those few words that I just said from Jesus in a few more words. We say that the Christian faith has some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is that all human beings have sinned. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So all of us have fallen short of God's perfect standard of living exactly the way he calls us to. And the Bible calls that sin. And a few chapters later in Romans 6:23, the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death."

So we've all done sin; none of us is perfect. We've sinned against God, and the punishment, the consequence, the wage of doing sin, is eternal death, what we call hell. So that's the bad news. But the good news of the gospel, the good news of Jesus,

comes in the New Testament and tells us that if we put our faith in Jesus, all of our sins can be taken away. That somebody must die for our sins, but actually Jesus came to die as our substitute in our place, so that we don't have to suffer hell. Jesus suffered hell on the cross.

If we call him our Lord, the King of our lives, and our Savior, and we say, "I can't save myself on my own, I admit that I've sinned, I'm sorry for my sin, and I trust Jesus to take all my sin away," then you can have eternal life.

And that's how you become saved. John 3:16 is kind of the simplest explanation of how you gain that, how you get the gift of Jesus' salvation. You get it through faith: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life."

Mitchell

So that's how we get salvation, by putting our faith in Jesus. Yeah, going off that, in Matthew 19, there's a man named the rich young ruler who asks Jesus this question, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" Which is kind of interesting. Jesus's response: he asks him if he's followed the law, the Ten Commandments, some of the Ten Commandments, and he says, you know, I have. And it's almost a trick question when we hear, what do I have to do to be saved?

Because the good news of the gospel is that Jesus has done it for us, right? When you're talking about Jesus being our substitute, we can answer the question, why am I a Christian, in the third person: that Jesus has paid for my sins.

It's not on us, whether we've been baptized or whether we grew up in a Christian home. Those are things that we could do or that are on us. The good news is that Jesus has paid for our sin. It takes a weight off of your shoulders, at least thinking about being a Christian, there's a pressure for me that's taken off of my shoulders to be a Christian.

Jon

It's, yeah.Totally, totally. One of the pictures that Christians have classically painted is of us standing in front of God the judge at the end of our lives, and how does that courtroom scene play out? Sort of like God is asking, "Why should I let you into heaven?" And if I'm standing there before God answering that question, the answer is I don't point to anything that I've done. I point over to that guy; I point to Jesus and say, yeah, actually, everything that I've done means that I shouldn't be in heaven, I shouldn't receive eternal life. But what Jesus has done, that's why I will have eternal life. Yeah, if I can quote a creed, a statement that we've believed in Christianity that helps express our faith: this is from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 29: "How are we made partakers of redemption purchased by Jesus?"

Mitchell

It says, "We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Jesus by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit." And really, what that means is what John 1:11 says: "He came to his own, to his own people, and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, to believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." It is something that is applied to us when he's called us and it's purchased by Jesus. Let's jump into the next question.

One of my biggest fears is death: death of what happens next, it happening at any time and to whoever. How do we find comfort in death for those close to you? Yeah, my short answer would be by having the faith that we just talked about. You know, as you face what's going to happen after you pass out of this life, I mean, we can tell you, the Bible tells you what's going to happen after you pass out of this life.

Jon

You're going to receive judgment for your works. And without Jesus, that judgment lands us in hell, eternal death. Whereas if you have faith in Jesus, you're going to end up in eternal life. And so I think the key to answering the question is, how do I face death with peace, or how do I face death and not fear it? I think the key to answering that question is by knowing what's on the other side. If you know what's on the other side, then you can have peace. Christians have peace because we know that we're going to be with God.

Mitchell

I love questions like this because they're questions we've been asking since humans have been around.

Jon

Every human that's ever lived has asked that question. Yeah. If I can go back to another catechism question, this is one of our core foundational things.

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

Mitchell

Yeah, the Heidelberg, this is the first question, and I love that. What is my only comfort in life and death? "That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ." What a beautiful statement that our comfort in this is that we're not our own and we don't have to fear what's next.

It's because we belong to Jesus, and when we pass away, we will be with him who is life, and so we will have life forever. That's a beautiful comfort, not just for us, but for those we know who have died and who believe. There's a great comfort in that. All right, let's jump into our next question. "Hello, hoping you can answer some questions on salvation." It looks like there's five questions here. So first, are we saved by faith alone?

Second, do works play a role in salvation? Three, can we lose our salvation once saved? Four, how do we know we're saved? Five, why do Christian denominations have different answers to these very important questions of our eternity?

Which one's right? Thank you for this opportunity. Well, you're welcome. John, let's jump into that first one: are we saved by faith alone?

Jon

Yeah, great question. And the second one was, "Are we saved by, or what role does works play?" right? So those are related: are we saved by faith alone, or are we saved by works? That's a classic question Christians have asked for a long time.

Lots of passages we could point to, but one of the key passages for each of these questions is Ephesians 2, the first 10 verses of Ephesians 2. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll jump in. Let's see here, I'm gonna jump in at some point. Here's verse 8:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast." I think those couple of verses, verses 8 and 9 there, are really clear about the nature of where our salvation comes from.

It's not by works, it's not your own doing. It's by grace through faith. So grace means it's a free gift, something you can't earn. Faith, we often say, is the instrument, it's how you receive the gift. You know, if somebody offers you a gift,

you have to receive it somehow. If they just say, hey, I'm giving you a cherry red Ferrari, but they hold out the keys and you just walk away, well, you didn't actually receive the gift of the cherry red Ferrari. In the same way, Jesus offers to us salvation through his blood, but you have to put your faith in him as your Lord and Savior in order to receive that gift. And so it's by faith, it's not by works.

We could talk about works do play an important role in the Christian life, but after you get saved. Yeah, absolutely

Mitchell

It's interesting because the Bible talks so much about being saved especially the New Testament, right? There's Romans 5 Romans 3

I mean I think even Romans 3 like in one verse for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law Like there are answers there, but let me ask this question. Why would you say or why do people believe that we must do works in order to be saved? Yeah, a couple of reasons. The first one comes to mind is because it's the most natural thing to think.

Jon

That's how all of our other relationships work. Right. If you've got a relationship with somebody in whatever capacity, I mean, what you do, what you say, those things impact how that relationship happens, that work. We are judged based on our performance. That's just how the world works that we live in.

It's by your works, it's by your performance. And so we would carry that over and think that that's the same way that we work with God, but it's not. Yeah, and it almost feels like in a world where we can't control things,

Mitchell

that's one way that we could control, right? My relationship with someone is based off of what I do. The bad news is we can't do enough good to be justified with God.

Jon

Right, for sure. I think it's a very attractive idea, at least at first glance, that I could control the situation by what I do. I mean, I think going into ancient paganism, the idea that if I do these things, then I will have a good harvest of crops. That's way more attractive than saying, well, it's up to the God of the universe whether we get rain or not rain, or whether we get hail, or a windstorm, or whatever happens, it's way more attractive to think, if I give these sacrifices and do these three things, then I will have a good harvest. That puts us in the driver's seat. We have control.

Mitchell

Yeah. I think, in some sense, maybe there's some left from pre-fall. Because before the fall, it was almost a covenant of works, is what we would call it.

Jon

It was based on, Adam could have stayed right with God if he would have obeyed.

Mitchell

But now that sin has entered the world, there's no way that we can do this. There's no way that we can be good enough to be justified in God, so that we can be right with God on our own merit. So for someone who's new to this, what would you say faith is? Yeah, good question. Usually when I'm answering this question, I try to give an illustration.

Jon

It's one that is not original to me. I heard it from somebody else but I think it's such a great picture of what faith is. I mean some of the words we could use is it's trust, it's putting your confidence or your hope in somebody else, it's a belief that's something true. I think all those things are the case. So here's one illustration that I think is excellent on what faith is. Once upon a time there was a guy who was a great tightrope walker, and he would walk back and forth on a tightrope over a waterfall, over an enormous chasm. If you fell, you would die or be seriously injured. He would go back and forth, and the crowds would applaud and be amazed by him walking back and forth on this tightrope. One time, he came to the edge and asked the crowd if they believed that he could carry a man on his back across the chasm.

And everybody raised their hands and said, oh yeah, I believe you could do that. And he said, great, who wants to get on my back? And suddenly everybody's hand came down. And I think that's, to me, that's a great picture of faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus would have been to then jump on his back. If you really believe it, if you really trust in that person and have full confidence in him, then you will get on his back. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that want to say, yeah, I think Jesus is great. I think church is great. I think Christianity could be good, but it's a different thing to say that I will no longer try to work for my salvation. I will not hedge my bet with any other religion or good works or giving of money. Not that some of those things are good things, but to try to hinge your salvation on those things. To say, I'm going to put all of my confidence, all of my faith that Jesus's death and resurrection brings me salvation.

Mitchell

To say, Jesus, you're my savior and you alone are my savior. I think that's faith in Jesus. Yeah. I think there's a difference between having full faith in what's going to save you versus having full confidence in what will save you rather than being 100% certain. Let me say it a different way.

I think there's a difference between saying, Jesus is the only thing that I'm going to trust in, but I might be struggling with some doubts.

Jon

Yeah, so I'm not saying that you can't ever have doubts. My point is to say that you're not hedging your bet by saying, well, I'm gonna go to church, I'm gonna mostly believe in Jesus, but also I'm gonna work really hard and when I get to the end I'm gonna say, well, God, I was pretty good, and Jesus died for me. You know, there can't be any "and." You know, when you stand before God, why should I get into heaven? The answer has to be just Jesus.

Mitchell

Right. Tim Keller, at the end of his book, "The Reason for God," says something like, if you're falling off of a cliff, and there's a tree branch, if you have 100% certainty that it will save you,but never grab on, you die. But if you only have partial certainty that it'll save you and you grab on to it, you live. It's not the quantity of your faith, but it's the quality of who you have faith in, right? That Jesus is who you have faith in and he's able to save, which is a beautiful thing. Rather than saying, well, it's gonna be this and this. Jesus can't be an add-on to your salvation plan. What about question number two? Do works play any role in salvation? So I think we've said no, they don't play any role in salvation.

Jon

I'm going to go back to that Ephesians 2 passage I read, because verse 10, so we read verses 8 and 9, those talk about by grace you've been saved through faith, it's not your own doing, it's the gift of God, it's not a result of works, so nobody may boast. Here's verse 10, "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

Okay, so what the text is saying is that good works are important, but they come as a result of your salvation, not in order to earn your salvation. Christians do good works, not to earn something, but out of thankfulness, out of joy, out of love for God.

Once you, you know, having faith in Jesus means that you now have a loving relationship with the Lord. You love Jesus. And if you love Jesus, you want to do what he says. Jesus says that himself, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments. Right? If you love Jesus, then you want to do what he says. And so good works flow out of a heart that's already got a relationship with Jesus.

Mitchell

Yeah, absolutely. You know, they talk about the idea of what is the root, right, versus what is the fruit? So what's the root of our salvation? It's that it's faith, right? And the fruit is the good works that comes from it versus saying, hey, you know what we must do is, you know, to be good is good works and then we can be saved.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. And yet there the Bible talks about them being really linked together and that can be confusing but it's the idea that faith without works is dead, not that we must do something in order to be saved, but that when we respond to the gospel, how we respond is by saying, I want to be so obedient that it is an actual, it is the evidence of our faith

Jon

Right. Well, so thinking about the root and the fruit analogy, I think of what James says about the relationship between faith and works. I think of what Jesus says in Matthew 7 about judging a tree by its fruit. So if a Christian does not produce the fruit of good works, then we do wonder if they are really saved. Just like when you look at a tree and you say, well, there's an apple tree, but it doesn't produce any apples. Well, then you sort of wonder, is it actually a healthy living apple tree? And the answer is no. I think a farmer would tell you that if an apple tree doesn't produce apples, it's not healthy. There's something wrong, maybe it's even dead. Yeah.

And the same thing is true of a Christian. Again, the works don't save you, but if you don't have them, then maybe you don't actually have a relationship with Jesus. Yeah, there's an analogy that a pastor named John James uses, it's this idea of imagine there's a man in a prison under a sentence of death, right?

Mitchell

He's under the death penalty, and at the same time, he's terminally ill. He's got some sort of disease

or he's, you know, really, really sick. If, you know, the government pardons him, it's not enough for him just to then be released. Like, he's going to end up dying from his illness. And at the same time, if he just gets healed, if he becomes free from his illness, well, he'll still go under the death penalty. He has to be both healed and pardoned. And there's part of that, that there is a link, almost a small link between those two. We can't just say, well, I said the sinner's prayer, and I'm going to go live my life however I want. There has to be this idea of the gospel transforming us at a fundamental, a really foundational level. Works are a sign in seeing that, man, we've fallen in love with who Jesus is, and we couldn't imagine spilling any more of his blood that was spilled for us on the cross. How about question number three?

Can we lose our salvation once we are saved?

Jon

Great question. So, there are plenty of warning passages in the Bible that make it sound sort of like we could possibly lose our salvation. And I think those warnings are a lot to what we just said, that if you're not producing fruit, if you're not living a life that looks kind of like Jesus, that's producing the works that Jesus calls us to produce, then there is that question.

Are you saved? And those passages are called the warning passages for that reason. They're meant to just sort of warn us, like, if you love Jesus, you will be walking in His ways. No, you're not going to be perfect, but you're going to be growing more and more into walking in His ways.

And so, they just warn us, have you wandered off the path? But no, ultimately we would say, no, somebody can't lose their salvation. Some of the passages that I think of right away is I think of Romans 8:30, what's sometimes been called the golden chain, those whom he predestined, he also called, those whom he called, he also justified, those whom he justified, he also glorified. So to be justified is to be declared righteous. That's how we talk about the beginning of when you get saved. To be glorified is to enter into glory, which is when you either or Jesus returns. And so it links those two things. If you become justified, you become saved, then you will ultimately be glorified. You will be with Jesus.

We'll be right back after this break.

Mitchell

Yeah, and that really lays out kind of the order of salvation. Maybe even going back to that first question, how are we saved? We see that we are elected or chosen before the foundation of the world, we are called, and then we are regenerated, we are justified, there's some sort of conversion, right? Then we are legally justified, we are adopted as sons sanctified, calling to be renewed, and then we are preserved at the end.

We are, you know, that idea that he who began a good work will carry it to completion. And then we see at the end that glorification, our eternal state, we will be with God, which is cool. And it was something that I learned as I was studying for ordination, that order is so helpful for me to think about, of like, where are we at in this thing? And it's kind of weird to think, really, the last three are the ones that we probably experience the most, and yet there's nine of them. The first five happen without us even knowing it, just showing, again, the grace that God,

He's done this before, or He's done this without us having to do anything. And then our response is just to say, we believe it and live it out. Yeah, it really shows that God's the one who's doing the work on us. Fourth question, how do we know we're saved?

Jon

Yeah, great question. I think one of the mistakes that Christians make in this is looking to ourselves instead of to our Savior. Yeah. I think a lot of people can look at themselves and say, well, I'm just not sure if I'm saved because I don't know if I have enough faith. Well, that's not really how Scripture talks about faith. It doesn't really talk about do you have enough? It talks about who is your faith in. And so the object of your faith is what is important. Yeah. So I think if you're asking like, okay, so if you've got faith in Jesus, you said, Jesus, you are my King, Jesus, I confess that I have sinned, I'm sorry for my sin, you have taken it on the cross. If you've got faith in Jesus, your Lord and Savior,

and you're still doubting your salvation, then I think the place to go is to say, is to look at passages and just say, did Jesus die for my sin? That's right, he did. The sureness that Jesus died for your sin and rose on the third day.

If that's true, then you have been saved.

Mitchell

Yeah. Is Jesus enough to pay for my sin? Right, that, you know, answer, or ask that question, is he enough? Thinking like, am I good? Even if I'm, you know, I know people who have questioned, saying, you know, I've really messed up recently. I don't even know if I'm saved. Well, it's not about what you've done. What you've done has been paid for, right? So we can't add anything to what Jesus has done.

Yeah. How about this? This is the tricky one. Question number five. Why do Christian denominations have different answers to these questions?

Which one is right?

Jon

That's an excellent question. So I heard it once that there's over 600 denominations in the U.S. That's pretty crazy. That's a wild number of different sets of beliefs and ways of doing things and stuff. So some of the denominational differences are actually very minor differences in beliefs. Some of them are more differences in tradition, in heritage, in more like practical sort of stuff.

Mitchell

Like governments, right?

Jon

Sure, yeah. Whether we vote or whether we don't.

Sure, or even, you know, I think of like Reformed and Presbyterians, it's even, a lot of it comes down to, were you Dutch or were you Scottish, where does it start? You know, there's tons of similarity there, especially in theology. So there's that. I do, I just want to be honest, that it's true that there are some churches and groupsof churches that have wandered from the truth, that have wandered from the Bible. And so, you know, when you're looking at churches and denominations, you want to find ones that are faithful to the Bible, that's what you're looking for. There are things that I think are more gray areas in scripture. And so, you know, you could, there are different, different denominations that do things differently, but both can be faithful to the Bible. So, you know, some of it is that we're not perfect as humans. Some of that is the answer. That's why there's many different denominations. Some of it is that, because we're not perfect and because there are some areas that are a little bit gray in the Bible, that's why there's some different traditions about how to do things. The Bible is very clear there's false teachers, there are those who wander from the truth, there are those who want to lead others away from the truth. So that's one reason that there's different denominations. Specifically

Mitchell

around salvation, like how we are saved, right?

Jon

Yeah. In the New Testament Paul calls out people who say you must work in order to be saved. You must do certain things in order to be saved.

So, yeah, there's good distinctions there. So I think I'm thinking of in the book of Acts when the apostle Paul is preaching to the Bereans, he calls them noble because the text says that everything that Paul preached to them, they went back to the Bible to see if that's what the Bible said. And so if you're asking the question, which denomination is right? Everybody's going to tell you it's theirs, but the real answer comes from the Bible.

So you've got to do some hard work of reading the Bible and looking at what they're saying and compare them and just say, is that what this pastor is saying lining up with the Bible? And that's our job.

Mitchell

Yeah. And being willing to be so convicted that you'd stand before our judge, our eternal judge, and say, this is what the Bible says. You know, this is what I believe you are trying to tell us.

I think in some sense, which one's right? Because of our sin, I could say, I don't think any of us are 100% right. Sure. That there are small areas where we might have it wrong, that we might have to confess one day before God to say, you know, I'm sorry that it was my sin that got in the way of understanding this perfectly.

Yet, I feel like there is enough clarity in the Bible for us to know truly what is most important, how we must be saved, and then relying on the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin and how we are supposed to interpret and understand the rest.

Jon

And one thing I do want to say is if you think that you're going to sit alone in your house with your Bible and watch somebody on a screen and try to decide if they're the right one or not. I do not do that. You need to get out, go to a church, sit under that preaching with your Bible, and think it through. And then when you have questions, you need to go to that pastor or some kind of leader in that church and say, please help me understand because I feel like what you're saying from the pulpit doesn't line up with what's in the Bible. Unfortunately, as a pastor, I've met several people, I'd say at least once a year I get this phone call or email, so-and-so has been looking for a church for the last 10 years, and they can't find any that are really faithful to the Bible. Well, sorry, I think you're making a mistake there. You can't sit alone in your basement, watch some YouTube preachers, and decide nobody's really faithful to the Bible and you're just going to continue to stay at home and watch different preachers.

You need to go get involved in a church and try to figure it out.

Mitchell

Usually when you're convinced that everyone else is wrong, it might not be everyone else.

Jon

That's a fair point.

Mitchell

Unless you're Martin Luther, you know, you're the rare ones like that. But I think that that's a once-in-maybe-church-history kind of event.

Jon

Sure. Where only one person has got it right. And even then, it wasn't just one person. But usually if you think you're right and everyone else is wrong, that might be a you thing.

I think that's a good observation. Hey, thanks so much for all of these questions. They have been really good questions about the gospel, the very core of the Christian faith, the good news of how you have life through Jesus. So hopefully this has been helpful to you. If these were your questions, if you have a friend who's asking these questions,

I would encourage you to share this episode with them. Hopefully it's a helpful tool for them to think this through, or maybe you can even take some of the information you learned here, talk with them about the faith so that they can cross that line and have faith in Jesus and have life forever. Hope this is a really helpful resource to you. You can always ask more questions at peacechurch.cc/questions.

Hope everybody has a great week.

You can find That's A Good Question at resoundmedia.cc or wherever you listen to podcasts.