What Must I Do to Be Saved?

THE THEOLOGY OF ‘GHOST’

Podcasts are the best.

I especially like listening to The Rewatchables, which is a podcast where a group of 2-4 people discuss their favorite “rewatchable” movies.

During the last episode I listened to they were talking about Ghost. (A movie I haven’t seen before… I know, I know, I should make it a point to watch it.) Since the movie is about someone’s loved one being killed and then returning as a ghost it didn’t take long for the conversation to come to a discussion about the afterlife. Specifically, the discussion was on what type of people “go to heaven” and what type of people “go to hell.” The consensus between the hosts on that episode was that if you at least live a decent life—and don’t murder anyone—you’ll go to heaven.

If you know me at all, I can’t let that go.

GOOD PEOPLE GO TO HEAVEN, BAD PEOPLE GO TO HELL?

In all fairness to the hosts who (by their own admission) are not beholden to any sort of biblical theology, they badly misunderstand the way in which the New Testament authors speak to us about the reality of the afterlife, and the means by which those realities will be experienced. Again, in all fairness to them, they have done little more than grab on to what we might call the pop theology of our day, which runs something like this: Good people go to heaven because they’re good and bad people go to hell because they’re bad. What or who determines whether a person is good or bad is largely up for debate but, in the end, it’s our deeds here that determine our destiny there.

To come back to where that previous paragraph began… that sort of belief may be widely held today (even among many Christians) but it is in no way friends with the testimony of the New Testament texts—one in particular that will be our focus for this article.

AN EXERCISED WOMAN

Shortly (and I use that word in a relative sense) after the conversion of Paul, he, Luke, Silas, and some others were traveling around telling people about the good news of Jesus Christ—they were preaching about the kingdom of God. One day they ran into this woman who had a spirit which allowed her to predict the future. As you can imagine, she made bank because everyone wants to know their future. For some reason she followed Paul and his friends shouting, “These men are servants of the most high God, who are telling you the way to be saved!” She was relentless. Her shouting lasted for days. At some point Paul had enough of it and commanded that the spirit in her come out, which it did.

Good for the woman, right? Sort of.

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

She was no longer being tormented by this “future-telling spirit,” and she was no longer making money for the people who owned her—she was a slave—and they didn’t like that one bit. Her owners were so upset that they dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace so something could be done with them. A crowd gathered and they joined in on the attack and the authorities decided that they were to be stripped, beaten with rods, and thrown into prison. So, to prison they went.

Paul and Silas, being who they were, were praying and singing hymns to God in prison and all the other prisoners were listening to them. All of a sudden, in the middle of their praying and signing, a violent earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, and all the doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer—who was the one put in charge of making sure none of the prisoners escaped—woke up, saw that the doors were open and that their chains were off, and thought it best to kill himself rather than face the fury of his Roman bosses. Before he could do so, Paul shouted to him, “Don’t harm yourself! We’re all here!” At this the jailer fell trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas and asked them, “What must I do to be saved?”

What would you have said to the jailer?

Well, if you want to be saved, you must live a good life, so you need to take stock of your life immediately. You need to find out whether or not you’ve lived a life worthy of heaven. If you haven’t you need to make a change immediately, because you know it’s only the good who get through heaven’s doors.

Of course, you wouldn’t say that… I hope you wouldn’t say that.

Live a good life and you’ll get to heaven is a recipe for disaster. Live a good life according to whom—according to what? Your standard? My standard? God’s standard? Do we each get to decide for ourselves what “good enough” is? What if I think I’ve lived a pretty good life, but you think I’ve messed up in big way in a few areas? Who decides between us?

Thank God for what Paul and Silas said.

BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household” (Acts 16:31, NIV). There it is. How was the jailer going to be saved? By believing in the Lord Jesus. How were his household—his parents, wife, and children—going to be saved? By be believing in the Lord Jesus. And how are you and I going to be saved? Well, you see, we think we have a better understanding than Paul and Silas who lived in a much more primitive time. In order to be saved you need to be a good person. No! The answer remains the same: Believe in the Lord Jesus.

Believe.
Trust.
Give your allegiance not to an idea, not a pie in the sky hope, not a modern day invention of how we measure good and bad. Not even for a second.

If you want to be saved, place your faith in the only person who is able, and not only able, but the only person who made salvation possible. Place your faith in the only person who made salvation a reality. Place your faith in the only person who, after all the rejection he experienced by a world he came to save, held out his arms and said if you come to me, I will have you.

That’s the message Paul and Silas had for a 1st-Century jailer, and it’s the same message we have for a 21st-Century world. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. Sure, we can talk about how belief ought to come with a change in how we live our lives, but that is a different discussion. Not an unimportant discussion—just a different discussion.

We must have an answer for the one who asks what they need to do to be saved, and our answer does not have to be any more complicated than believe in the Lord Jesus.

Believing Unbelievable Things

I ran across YouTube video the other day showing a visit to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.

The person on the video describes the Ark Encounter as a “recreation of a fictional Bible story”. So, you know his perspective right from the jump.

He is next shown interviewing a couple asking them to confirm what he is reading on the sign in front of him stating that Noah was 600-years old when he built it.

His question is simple: “How was Noah able to live that long when we’re barely able to live to 100 nowadays?” An honest answer is given by a woman standing by, but his feigned fascination continues as he says, “It really is a truly unbelievable story, that should not be believed.”

And that’s the point of the video. Don’t believe the biblical story about Noah and his ark, because it’s unbelievable.

The interesting thing about the video is that it’s set up as if it’s coming from a very reasonable person who just wants the best for others. And, honestly, that could very well be the truth. I don’t know this guy. His motivation could be that pure.

So, being that that may be the case, my intention with this short article is not to poke holes in his motivation for the video; instead, I’d like to push back against the idea he sets forth about believing unbelievable things.

Christians are in a peculiar spot here. In one sense, the guy in the video is not that far off from what we actually think. It does seem unbelievable that 1) Noah lived hundreds of years, and 2) he built an ark that held his family, countless animals, and survived a worldwide flood. The amazing this is—and, here, this might be news to the gentleman in the YouTube video—this isn’t the most unbelievable thing we believe.

You see, Christians all over the world believe a person born in the first-century went around teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God. This person ate with the outcasts, argued with religious experts and zealots, got his hands dirty helping the poor, and healed many, many people—driving out demons, giving sight to the blind, and once bringing a friend back from the dead.

On one occasion he went to a wedding and, after they had run out of wine, he even turned something like 150-gallons of water into wine. Then some time later, as he was traveling around, a large group of people (probably somewhere around 10,000 to 12,000) were following him. Because they had been with him so long, he couldn’t just send them home, because they were hungry—they wouldn’t make it. So, he fed all of them with food that wouldn’t have been enough to feed 10 people. And, more than that, he did it again—but, this time feeding closer to 8,000 or 10,000 folks.

Christians also believe this person was so locked in to the storyline of the Hebrew Scriptures (where that pesky Noah’s ark story is found) that he was claiming to be the fulfillment of everything it was pointing to. He even climbed up a small mountain to explain to those who were following him how he was offering a fresh and life-giving interpretation of the Old Covenant. Not stopping there, he actually claimed to be ushering in the New Covenant—that same New Covenant written about in Jeremiah 31.

This person invited people to follow him and he called them his disciples. Specifically, he picked 12 and did this intentionally to show those around him that something new was happening that took its cues from the Israelite tribes of old. These 12 disciples were then tasked with following their teacher so that they could do what he did. In fact, he told them that they would do even greater things than he did.

Not only that, but Christians for over 2,000-years have believed that this first-century, itinerant, miracle working, preacher was crucified by the Roman government under trumped up charges brought about by the religious leaders of his day. They believe that he was nailed to a cross and died as a lot of his followers abandoned him.

Lastly, and most unbelievably of all, Christians believe that this person who had died and was placed in a tomb for several days, was not found one early morning because he had risen from the dead. They don’t believe his body was stolen; they believe that he was once dead and then he was alive again, never to die—forever. We actually go so far as to believe that this dying and rising from the dead is the foundation for everything else we believe. If this didn’t happen, if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead, if he isn’t really alive right now, then our faith is in vain and we are, of all people, most to be pitied.

Christians have spent their lives believing unbelievable things.

And, to be honest, a 600-year-old Noah building an ark, doesn’t even come close to being one of the more unbelievable things we believe.

What is Faith?

I was watching a movie the other day and, in it, there was a scene with a Catholic priest preaching about knowledge and faith. While preaching he mentioned the internet as a place where all knowledge is available. His point, however, was that faith is different from knowledge. It’s one thing to have knowledge of something (or have access to that knowledge through the internet) and quite another to have faith.

Now, I’m not on some crusade to point out weak theology in sermons—especially when it shows up in a movie—but this did get me thinking about how faith is generally understood. It’s often talked about as if faith is some abstract trust in the unknowable. As it stands in that popular understanding, you put your faith in something or someone you don’t or even can’t really know or understand.

There’s is probably some truth in that statement and, if you pressed me, I might be able to dig some of it out. However, just because it has some truth, doesn’t mean it’s a helpful description of what faith actually is. For that, as with all aspects of theology, let’s turn to Scripture.

In Hebrews 11:1 we read, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Notice the underlined words: confidence and assurance. These two words are important for an accurate understanding of what faith actually is.

When you read Hebrews 11:1, does it sound like faith is trusting in the unknowable? To me, it certainly does not. And I would submit that, for the writer of Hebrews, it doesn’t to him either.

Faith in Hebrews 11:1 is not trusting in the unknown; it’s trusting (having confidence and assurance) in what we hope for but do not see. And there in lies the distinction. There’s a world of difference between saying I am trusting in that which I cannot know and saying I am trusting in that in which I cannot see.

Later in Hebrews 11 the writer is going to list a bunch of people from the Old Testament who showed great faith. Able, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Rehab to name only a few. All of these people showed faith as they had confidence in what they hoped for and their assurance about what they did not see. Again, that is not even close to the same thing as trusting in the unknowable. Moses, for instance, trusted what God had made known to him—leading the Israelites to the promised land—even though he did not and would not see it.

So, is there a difference between having knowledge of something and having faith in something? Certainly. I know some things that have no relation to my life whatsoever (how far away the Sun is, what year my first car was made, that I like the color blue more than the color green, etc.). And yet, I put zero trust in any of those things.

On the other hand, I know that Jesus died and rose again. I know that God loves me. I know that the Bible is God’s word. I know that if I believe in Jesus I will live forever with him. These things I know for certain—I have confidence and assurance of their reality—yet I cannot see all of them right now.

And, still, I trust—I have faith.

I don’t have faith in what cannot be known. On the contrary, I have faith in that which God has made known to me.

This, according to Scripture, is faith: trusting in what God has made known to you.

"Even as he spoke, many believed."

In the Gospel of John there comes a point in the story where Jesus is in the middle of a debate (as often happened with Jesus) about what he’s saying and who he is.

The Pharisees have a problem with Jesus giving testimony about himself. They say, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid” (8:13). Jesus, in turn, explains to them that they don’t know what they’re talking about. He says, “I am the one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father who sent me” (8:18).

This does not seem to satisfy the Pharisees, so Jesus continues, but this time the conversation turns to the Jews listening in on it. They ask him, “Who are you” (8:25a). Jesus tells them that he is who he has been saying he is (8:25b-26). They still do not understand, so Jesus tells them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (8:29).

Then comes what, at least for me, hits the hardest. John, commenting on what has just taken place says, “Even as he spoke, many believed in him” (8:30).

This is the miracle of what happens to some people when they hear Jesus speak—they believe. Isn’t it amazing that listening to Jesus talk is enough to bring about faith in a person?

I pray that this truth would guide and propel you forward not just to read what Jesus has said and continues to say, but to speak the words of Jesus on behalf of Jesus, so that belief may come to some.

When God Makes Us Wander

The Israelites were not hungry as they wandered in the desert as a result of poor food rationing. Their entire life depended on God and God established their hunger and lack of food and wandering to make that truth clear. Does this make God some bully who seems to enjoy messing around with his creation even up to the point of some of the Israelites dying in the desert? It actually means just the opposite. The same God who brought the Israelites out of 400 years of slavery is the God who is, in effect, wandering with them in the desert. The Israelites were not abandoned to the desert. They were made to wander with God.

In the middle of their rebellion and grumbling and hatred towards the God that miraculously brought them out of slavery, God did not turn his back on them. God did not give into their pleading to be led back into Egypt and slavery because of their lack of food. God did not relent and raise up another to take the place of Moses when the great multitude began to malign him and call for another leader. God did not abandon His people when, in their hearts, that is what they wanted. God knew better and still knows better.

God did not abandon the Israelites; instead, He made them wander for forty years. He brought them to a place of discouragement and opposition within themselves in order to grow them and to show them who their God was. The wandering and discomfort of seemingly traveling nowhere is exactly the means that God used to show them who He was. The mistake, which is often arrived at, is to assume that because Israelite people suffered God was nowhere to be found. That assumption forces one to join suffering and the reality of God’s existence as if they are somehow related to one another. Suffering does not destroy the existence of God and the absence of suffering does not prove the existence of God. The Bible teaches that it is in the midst of the Israelites wandering and suffering that God was present and active among them. He dwelt with them.

The same reality is to be applied to our lives as we attempt to reconcile two realities: 1) we may feel as though we have been wandering or are currently wandering, which leads us to believe that God has left us, and 2) God declares that He will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Could it be that in your season of wandering God is showing you a greater picture of himself than you have ever seen before? Is it possible that the times in which we have felt most alone have been graciously and mercifully granted to us by God so that we may come to see Him as all satisfying? Dare we thank God for the periods in our lives when He has so provided a space for us to come to him in a way that we would not have been able to do without His orchestration? I humbly and whole-heartedly announce YES!

When God makes us wander we know that it is for His glory and for our good (Romans 8:28). And, when God makes us wander, we know that He who began a good work in us will surely bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). This means that if you love Christ and yet are feeling like you are alone in the desert, you are not alone. The God of all creation is with you. In the words of Douglas Wilson, “The winter is breaking. This is not just a thaw but promises to be a real spring.”