1. Salvation

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“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” –John 3:16

Someone has called this verse the “heart of the Bible.” Others refer to it as “The Golden Text of the Bible.” I think of it as the gospel in miniature. It is probably the best-known and most-often-quoted single verse from the New Testament. It is so simple a child can understand it; yet its distillation of theological truth about salvation challenges the most brilliant minds of any age. As we begin a series of thirty studies of “Great Themes of the Bible,” I could not imagine a better place to begin.

“The Greatest”

Do you know why John 3:16 is called the “heart of the Bible”? Do you have any idea why it is such a beloved verse to Christians around the world and across the centuries? I suspect it is because this verse offers the single best summary of everything that is most critical to faith. This verse is “The Greatest” at telling you what matters most for your life.

For someone who is a Christian, this verse is a title deed to everything he or she deems ultimately valuable. For someone who is curious about Christianity, it is a summary declaration of all he or she must know to understand its meaning. For someone who is lost, it is the way home to God.

I would like for you to think of this verse in terms of three cardinal truths. Maybe you’d even like to circle the three words in this verse that I have circled on the page of my own Bible at John 3:16. Each word is a thunderbolt to the heart that explains an essential element of the Christian faith. The words I have circled in my Bible are these: “loved,” “gave,” and “believes.”

There are many things we know about God from nature and reason. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psa. 19:1).

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20).

There are many more things about God that cannot be discovered through our reflection and reason that are revealed to us in Holy Scripture. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

But the most wonderful thing about God is not that he is powerful and creative, that he is majestic and worthy of worship, or even that he is mysterious and beyond our ability to comprehend. The most wonderful thing about God is that loves us! No matter how far you are from him, no matter what you’ve done that betrayed him, no matter how unworthy and guilty you feel before him, God loves you.

A sociologist was writing a book about the special challenges of growing up in a large family. Among the families he studied was one with thirteen children. As he interviewed the mother of those children, he asked, “Do you think all children deserve the full, impartial love and attention of a mother?” Her answer was a simple and near-terse, “Of course.” Then, perhaps thinking he would catch her in a contradiction, he asked his next question of her: “Well, which of your children do you love the most?”

The mother gave this brilliant reply of love to her interviewer: “The one who is sick until he gets well, and the one who is away until he gets home.”

Her reply makes me think of three stories Jesus told one day, right after the other.

Now let us apply this aspect of the expression to John 3:16 and earlier by going back to verse 14:

14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so [in the same way]¹⁶⁸ must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For this is the way God loved the world: he gave his one and only Son that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him (emphasis mine).

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be reborn from above. Nicodemus is surprised and confused by what Jesus has said (3:4, 9). Jesus gently rebukes Nicodemus, a prominent teacher of the Old Testament law, because he finds our Lord’s words so new and so difficult (3:10).

And so in verse 14, Jesus turns to the Old Testament to clarify what He has told Nicodemus. In this incident, Moses lifted up a bronze serpent in the desert, so that all who (by faith) looked up to it were saved. In the same way that Moses lifted up the serpent, the Son of man must be “lifted up.” The Son of man is to be “lifted up” so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.

This salvation in the wilderness by means of the bronze serpent was a prototype of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. “In the same way” that the bronze serpent was lifted up on a pole for all to see, the “Son of man” must be “lifted up,” so that all who look to Him by faith may have eternal life.

God’s love for the world was demonstrated in Jesus, the One whom Pharisaism rejected, whose testimony (along with John’s) they did not believe. The Jews wrongly assumed that God loved them because they were Jews. Now they are informed that God loves them only through Christ. If they reject Christ, they also reject the love which the Father manifested toward them in Christ.

In verse 16, Nicodemus has yet another shock in store for him. This verse declares that God’s love extends to the world, and that God has purposed to save Gentiles as well as Jews. This was literally beyond the comprehension of many Jews, including believing Jews. The Prophet Jonah, for example, could not conceive of the Ninevites (Gentiles) being saved, and thus he did everything in his power to see that this city would be destroyed. John and his brother James wanted to call down fire from heaven and “torch” a Samaritan village (Luke 9:52-56). When Peter went to the home of Cornelius and preached the gospel to the Gentiles who had gathered there, the church leaders in Jerusalem called him to account for his going to the Gentiles with the gospel (Acts 11:1-3). After Peter convinced them that this was of God, and they confessed that God must be saving men from among the Gentiles, Jewish believers continued to go out, “speaking the message to no one but Jews” (Acts 11:19). When Paul addressed a hostile Jewish audience, they listened to him patiently—until he mentioned that God had called him to take the gospel to the Gentiles—and then they were enraged (Acts 22:1-24, note especially verses 21-22). For Jesus (or John) to say that God loved the world was revolutionary, shocking, and very distressing for a strict Jew.

I would like to highlight another lesson to be learned from John 3:16. The word “loved” is in the past tense. The Greek verb is in the aorist tense, indicating a specific act at a particular point in time. This verse does not say, “God loves (present tense) the world.” I believe the reason for this is because we are to understand that God has manifested His love for the world in a particular way. He “loved” the world through His Son, Jesus Christ. He “loved” the world by sending His son into the world, so that He might be “lifted up” as a sin-bearer.

This brings us to a new element in John’s Gospel, introduced in verse 16, which surely must have caused Nicodemus and his colleagues a great deal of difficulty. That “new” element is the concept of hell, or eternal judgment, introduced by the term “perish.” Our Lord’s earlier reference to the bronze serpent raised this issue in a more subtle way. The people who were “saved” by looking up to the bronze serpent were those who were dying. They were “perishing” because God was judging them on account of their sin, and they knew it. If they did not quickly look up to the serpent in faith, they would perish. Jesus first shocked Nicodemus by telling him that he would not even see the kingdom of God unless he was reborn from above. Jesus’ words in verses 14-21 are even more disturbing. Nicodemus is not only unable to see the kingdom of God in his present state, he is destined to perish.

Nicodemus must surely be in a state of shock by now. He is no longer even speaking. In fact, he may already have left, and it may be John who now fills in these details, writing these words after the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of our Lord. The man who thinks he has arrived is told he isn’t even on his way to heaven; he is on his way to eternal torment. He is a condemned man. Spiritually speaking, Nicodemus is on death row.

God’s purpose in sending Jesus into the world was not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

The ultimate proof of God’s love came wrapped up in a gift box of human flesh, vulnerability, and redemptive care in Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. With all the evidence Christians can point to of God’s existence, power, and concern for his human creatures, unbelievers answer back with a case against the existence of a loving God by reminding us how much pain, poverty, and perversity there is in the world.

God didn’t respond to the dismal mess we humans have made of our world by framing an argument but by coming down here and subjecting himself to everything we have to experience. From birth to death — in his case, a whispered-about birth and a tragic-beyond-imagination death. From friendship to betrayal. From popularity to rejection.

(Galatians 4:1-6 NIV) What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a lave, although he owns the whole estate. {2} He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. {3} So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. {4} But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woma

n, born under law, {5} to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. {6} Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father."

Oklahoma newspaper column: a letter to the editor or "the people speak" sort of column which says in part, "Jesus is the world's most popular fictional character. There is no valid historical evidence to support him as a historical personage. Accounts of his career and times were written many years after the supposed events took place. We are not sure of the authors of the four gospels and many other books in the Old and New Testaments. // The laws of nature cannot be contravened; it is impossible for the dead to return to life, so we know the account of the Resurrection is fiction. We live and die in a natural environment. Any idea of a supernatural being or realm is just an idea, a fantasy with no basis in fact."

Jesus experienced the same things we have to face. “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:17-18).

The final step in Jesus’ self-giving love is not simply his identification with us in human frailty or even his temptations and vulnerability. The final step was the act by which he was able to “make atonement for the sins of the people” he loved. And that took him to Calvary.

One of the seven astronauts who lost their lives in the tragic explosion of the spece shuttle Challenger was Christa McAuliffe. She was to have been the first school teacher in space. One teacher said, “When Christa stepped onto that shuttle, we stepped on with her. And when she died, a part of us died too.” Maybe that is why her name is the best remembered by the larger public from that awful day.

That is why Christians remember the name of Jesus Christ. We believe we stepped onto Skull Hill with him that day. We believe something of us died with him that day. We believe that his triumph over the tomb means that we can have his own new life as our hope, joy, and confidence against an uncertain future. We say, “When he was lifted up on that cross, we were there. When he died, we died. Because he lives, we have eternal life as his free gift to us!”

In general, Scripture teaches us that God created the world and all that is in it for His own glory and because He desired to share His life with others. The creation of all these things demonstrates His glory, His love, grace, mercy, wisdom, power, goodness, etc. Compare Psalm 19:1f; 8:1; 50:6; 89:5.

(Psalms 8:1 NIV) For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

(Psalms 19:1-10 NIV) For the director of music. A psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. {2} Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. {3} There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. {4} Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, {5} which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. {6} It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat. {7} The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. {8} The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. {9} The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. {10} They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

(Psalms 50:6 NIV) And the heavens proclaim his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Selah

(Psalms 89:5 NIV) The heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.

As a summary of some of the issues, the Bible teaches us God created both the angels and man with volition, or the freedom of choice. He created both as holy and without sin that they might not only serve Him as the Creator, but bring Him glory.

In particular, man, being created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26f), was created to have fellowship with God through the exercise of that image. Man was created to glorify God through the exercise of his personality—mind, heart, and will. With his mind he was to know God, with his heart he was to love God, and with his will, in response to his understanding and love of God, he was to choose for God in obedience.

But God did not create robots. That would have brought very little glory to God. Because His creatures were not robots, there was the risk of a negative choice. But God, by His sovereign will, purpose, and foreknowledge, determined to allow this, indeed, He ordained it by His own eternal wisdom without Himself being the cause.

Many struggle with this, but in the process of all that has occurred, God’s glory is supremely revealed in all His Holy attributes—His holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, grace, and love, veracity, truth, etc. God did not cause the creature to sin. If the creature was to really have the freedom to know, love, and choose for God and respond in worship and obedience as a free and independent agent, he had to have true freedom of choice.

Thus, compare the temptation of Eve by the devil. He attacked her knowledge and understanding of God to get her to doubt God’s love, etc. The race fell because of Adam and Eve’s negative response to the grace of God. But in the process, God’s character and glory is revealed in a more total or complete way.

So, through the cross, man’s sin, like diamonds reflecting the light against the backdrop of black velvet, reflects God’s love, mercy, grace, holiness and justice in infinite ways.

Finally, the Bible clearly shows us that God has perfectly provided for us so that we can be reconciled to Him, walk with Him and even overcome sin’s power through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the many blessing we have in Him.

In this regard, there are three aspects or phases to the salvation God offers us in Christ:

2. The present—we are being delivered from the power of sin (if we will walk by faith and in fellowship in Him)

3. The future—saved once and for all from the presence of sin with the return of Christ. So we can’t blame God. He has made more than sufficient provision for us and our sin problem even to the point of giving us His Son.

This text is rich in truth and applications. Let me conclude by pointing out some important principles.

First, being religious is not the same as being a Christian. Some time ago a book was published, based on the Book of Romans, and entitled “How To Be Christian Without Being Religious.” It attempted to show that one can become a Christian without having to act “religious.”

I believe one could very well write a book entitled, “How To Be Religious Without Being a Christian.” This would apply not only to Nicodemus, but to many “religious” people today. One could not get much more religious than Nicodemus, but our Lord’s words make it clear that as “religious” as he is, Nicodemus is not yet a Christian. He must be reborn from above.

I must ask you, my friend, “Are you a Christian, or are you just religious?” If you take the words of our Lord seriously, there is a great difference between those who are religious and those who are reborn from above. Nicodemus was as lost as the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Hell will be populated by many people who are “religious,” who have trusted in their religion to save them, rather than trusting in Christ alone.

There will be many in hell who trusted in their works to get them to heaven, rather than in His work—the work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the cross of Calvary. He came down from heaven, and He was lifted up on a cross to bear the penalty of your sins and mine. He was raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God. He offers to us His righteousness and His life. If you trust in Him, rather than in yourself, you will be reborn from above, and thus you can be assured that you will see the kingdom of God.

Second, God’s love for the world has been manifested through the coming and the cross of Jesus Christ. This is the way God “loved” the world. It is the only way anyone can enjoy the love of God for now and eternity. To reject Jesus Christ as God’s provision for our salvation is to reject God’s love, and to be under divine condemnation, awaiting the day of God’s eternal judgment. Many today seek to find comfort by assuring themselves that God loves them. God “loved” them in Jesus Christ.

To reject Him is to reject His love. It is both foolish and dangerous to believe in a “God of love” without submitting to the Son of His love, Jesus Christ. How often I hear it said, “Well, I believe in a God of love …” They go on to say that such a God would never condemn anyone to hell. Our text tells us just the opposite.

The God of love who sent Jesus Christ to save the world from sin is the God who will send Him a second time to judge the world for sin. Those who have “looked up” to Him for salvation, now “look up,” waiting for His return. Those who have rejected Him fail to grasp that when He returns He will come as their judge. What a terrifying thought! What a blessed salvation!

It is my hope and prayer that God will give you no rest or peace until you have experienced the love of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

But it must be pointed out that God’s love and gift are never forced on anyone. It must be accepted. So there is a response to be made to the cross: “Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

While Tennessee’s Andrew Jackson was President of the United States, a man was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die. President Jackson wrote a pardon document for that man, but the condemned felon refused the pardon. Prison authorities, the Attorney General of the United States, and his family all tried to persuade the man to accept the pardon. Why, it would be an insult to the president to refuse it! The man stubbornly refused.

Finally the matter went to the Supreme Court. The question was put to that body: Is pardon a unilateral matter? Or does a condemned felon have to accept pardon when it is offered? Or, put another way still, can the legal system force a man to receive a pardon against his own will.

The court ruled that the pardon was merely a printed document until accepted by the person to whom it is offered. If he rejects the pardon, it is nothing more than words on paper.

The pardon God offers condemned sinners is not unilateral. Oh, it is — like all pardon — by grace. Grace alone! But it is not really a pardon until that grace is received by faith. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).

Faith is essentially a matter that combines intellect, will, and behavior. You must know and believe what God has done for you through Christ, choose to accept and trust that as your hope for eternal life, and begin a life of obedience and surrender to him.

You must decide that God’s love means more than your foolish pride, God’s gift is more valuable than the fool’s gold of this world, and your life henceforth will be lived for his glory and pleasure.

Turning away from your sin, you turn to Christ for his pardon. And he affirms that pardon to you in baptism. Baptism “washes away your sin” — not, of course, because of the water but by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ alone (Acts 22:16).

Being saved, after all, is “not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God” (1 Pet. 3:21).

Baptism is a grace-gift that is accepted in a faith-action; it is not a works-display with saving merit.

Your next faith-act is to commit yourself to a community of believers where you will find support, encouragement, and practical help in coming to terms with a mind, heart, and life that have been surrendered to God.

Your faith may require you to alter your lifestyle radically. It may need propping up from more mature believers who’ve already made some of the same life changes you’ll need to make. So a church becomes important as a teaching place, a worshiping place, a mentoring place, a safe place.

One by one, God will show you the steps of faith and obedience that will be necessary to conform you to the image of his Son and to bring you to fulness in Jesus Christ. And it will be all right for you to be patient with that transformation process, for he will be incredibly patient with you as it proceeds.

Bob Benson, in his Come Share the Being, tells of sending a son off to college. The school was 700 miles away from the family home. He and his wife knew it would be difficult, but they thought they were prepared for the event. So their hearts were filled with pride as the boy drove off.

He writes: “Oh, our hearts were filled with pride at a fine young man and our minds were filled with memories from tricycles to commencements, but deep down inside somewhere we just ached with loneliness and pain. Somebody said you still have three at home — three fine kids and there is still plenty of noise, plenty of ball games to go to, plenty of responsibilities, plenty of laughter, plenty of everything . . . EXCEPT MIKE. And in parental math five minus one just doesn’t equal plenty.”

Here is what Benson wrote next: “And I was thinking about God. He sure has plenty of children — plenty of artists, plenty of singers, and carpenters, and candlestick makers, and preachers, plenty of everybody . . . EXCEPT YOU and all of them together can never take your place. And there will always be an empty spot in his heart — and a vacant chair at his table when you’re not home. And if once in a while it seems he’s crowding you a bit — try to forgive him. It may be one of those nights when he misses you so much he can hardly stand it.”

Are you feeling his loneliness for you today? If so, this would be a good time to come home. God is waiting there to save you.

After Jesus rose from the dead, He spent another forty days on earth before ascending back to the right hand of the Father in heaven. During this time He appeared eleven times to several people, including one large gathering of about five hundred (1 Corinthians 15:6). On one of these occasions He came to the eleven apostles “and them that were with them” while they sat at meat behind locked doors late on the first day of the week (Luke 24:33–43; Mark 16:14; John 20:19–23).

It was on this occasion that He gave them the Great Commission recorded by Mark: . . . and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned (Mark 16:14–16).

The commission Jesus gave on this occasion included the terms of salvation for the lost. The “whole creation” of people were obligated to hear and believe the message of the gospel and be baptized to be saved. But the terrible alternative to salvation also is given: “ . . . but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned”!

Much of the emphasis in preaching on this passage of Scripture in ages past has been upon the necessity of preaching to the whole creation, and upon the conditions of salvation stated by the Lord, hearing and believing the gospel and being baptized. But it is also imperative that all of us understand the terrible alternative to the salvation offered by the Lord: condemnation because of disbelief. Jesus taught in John 3:19 that unbelievers are under a state of condemnation already, but in the statement in Mark 16:16, it is shown to rest especially upon those who hear the gospel but disbelieve it.

Condemnation rests upon them now and, eventually, will rest upon them eternally. The only escape from this condemnation now and hereafter is for the unbeliever to become a believer. Disbelief in God’s revelation has been the reason for the downfall of many through the ages. It was the besetting sin of the Israelites in the wilderness: For who, when they heard, did provoke? Nay, did not all they that came out of Egypt by Moses? And with whom was he displeased forty years? Was it not with them that sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient? And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:16–19).

Please note the words sinned and disobedient. They tell us why God was provoked with Israel.

And both sinned and disobedient are summed up by the term unbelief. The inspired writer penned

these words to warn all of us of the awful danger posed by unbelief. Unbelief poses a threat to any generation. It is so often “the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Hebrews 12:1). The varied ways in which unbelief manifests itself to us indicates that it is the besetting sin of this century, because the gross admixture of transgressions in people’s lives are provoked by unbelief.

Unbelief wears many kinds of robes. There are atheists, skeptics, infidels, secularists, rationalists, liberals, etc. But regardless of what they call themselves, they all have one characteristic in common: disbelief. Religious modernism is a well-known term that is used to describe many unbelievers today.

“Modernism” is simply an outgrowth of the old German rationalism which originated in Germany during the last century, eventually crossed the English channel into England, and from thence came to America. Modernism is a system of unbelief that elevates human reason or experience as the standard rather than the Bible.

Most of the exponents of this system who claim to believe in God and Christianity actually only partly believe. By this I mean that they accept only those parts of the Bible that do not conflict with their “modern” ideas. They claim to believe only that which is reasonable to them. The virgin birth of Jesus is unreasonable to them, so they reject it. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is unreasonable to them, so they reject it. The miracles of the Bible are not reasonable to them, so they reject them all. They attempt to give a rationalistic explanation for the miracles of Jesus.

The modernists deny the authenticity and credibility of much of the Bible. They refuse to accept the inspiration of the Scriptures, and by word and action reject the authority of God’s Word. One characteristic of religious modernism is its claim to superior biblical scholarship. Many excellent scholars among my brethren have asked them repeatedly, “What do you have that enhances your knowledge of biblical matters that we do not have?”

The truth is that we have access to the same materials that relate to the Bible that they do. Modernists accept the suave claims of so-called “Higher Criticism,” which is simply a high-sounding term that describes unbelievers whose design seems to be to destroy faith in the Scriptures. These so-called modernists have only a rationalistic explanation of Jesus’ mission in the world. They reject the doctrines of heaven, hell, and the sacrificial atonement of Jesus on Calvary’s cross. Some of them even reject the fact that Jesus was a real person who lived and died and has a true place in history.

Most forms of unbelief, especially religious modernism, are bound up body and soul with the theory of evolution, including theistic evolution. Their “Christianity” is a concept that concerns only the here and now. It does not extend to life after death. Their concept of heaven is making life on earth happy and enjoyable by eliminating disease, pain and suffering, wars, hunger, etc. Their concept of hell is the terrible conditions that men create on earth by greed, wars, etc. This peculiar form of infidelity poses under the guise of Christianity. Therefore, it is one of the most pernicious and dangerous forms of unbelief in the world.

Another form of unbelief most of its adherents would vehemently deny is unbelief. That is the attitude seen in many religious groups today toward the authority of the Word of God. The New Testament teaches, for example, that “there is one body,” but those who have this form of unbelief that I am talking about contradict it by affirming there are many bodies. They say that one is as good as another and that people may simply choose the one they like best and become associated with it.

Paul said there is “one faith,” but those with the form of unbelief I am describing declare that there are many and that one may “follow the faith of his choice.” This attitude is seen in those who declare, “It does not matter which way you believe, just so you are honest and sincere, because we are all going to the same place and are just taking different roads to get there.” They reject Jesus’ statement, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Jesus also said, Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it (Matthew 7:13, 14).

The kind of unbelief I am talking about is the utter rejection of the platform of unity the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul in Ephesians 4:4–6, There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.

True believers in Jesus are those who have been convinced through the power of the gospel that He truly is the anointed of God whom the prophets foretold would come as Savior and Deliverer. The gospel message presents Jesus as the Son of God, and, thus, identifies Him as deity. Evidence that Jesus truly is the Messiah, God’s anointed, and Savior, who paid the supreme price for our redemption, is presented nowhere else except in the message of the gospel.

Paul wrote, Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1–3).

For example, when the sin-laden people on Pentecost heard the gospel “they were pricked in their hearts” and cried out, asking what they must do. The message they heard was the power that produced conviction in their hearts that Jesus was the Christ, and that they had crucified Him. Paul told the Romans that belief comes by hearing the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). John also wrote that his gospel record was written to produce belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and that believers might have life in His name (John 20:30, 31).

But consider the degree of belief that results in salvation. It is more than mere conviction that Jesus is the Son of God anointed to be the Savior of the world; it includes confident trust in Him and reliance upon Him to fulfill every promise. An essential element of the faith that saves is implicit trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Where trust is absent faith is dead, because “ . . . he that cometh unto God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Without this confident trust in Jesus as Lord there is no real motivation to dedicate our lives to Him. (See Philippians 2:9–11; Acts 2:36; Romans 14:8, 9.) Mere conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is not enough. We must believe in Him strongly enough to rely on Him and commit our lives to Him in obedience to His will. Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Note again: “ . . . though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been made perfect, He became unto all them that obey Him the author of eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5:8, 9).

The heart-pricked believers on the Day of Pentecost were not saved until their belief in Jesus was demonstrated in trusting obedience. When Peter answered their anguish cry, “Brethren, what shall we do?” by telling them to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins, Luke records, “They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41).

One of the glaring characteristics of this generation is the lack of fear of condemnation. Even some who profess to be ministers rebel at the idea of eternal punishment. One minister, who seems to be representative of many, voiced his objection to the doctrine of eternal punishment of the wicked, saying that a loving God could not do such a thing. Although God has spoken clearly on the subject, this so-called minister presumed to speak for God in a manner that contradicted

what God has revealed. Unbelievers like this show their disbelief in what Jesus taught by rejecting His warnings and those of His apostles concerning eternal punishment.

The certainty of final, irrevocable judgment, and the horrors of eternal perdition for unbelievers is shown in numerous passages in the Spirit inspired revelation of Christ’s will: Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels . . .and these shall go away into eternal punishment (Matthew 25:41–46).

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his works: to them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life:

but unto them that are factuous, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil . . . for there is no respect of persons with God (Romans 2:5–11)

. . . . for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God. For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God (Romans 14:10–12).

. . . if so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and

to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when he shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day (2 Thessalonians 1:6–10).

But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7).

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire . . . and to these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him (Jude 7, 14, 15).

The pitiful pleas of the demand for mercy in the day of judgment will not avail. Jesus said, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Matthew 7:22, 23).

What unbelievers want after death will be radically different from what they want before death! One thing that is clearly taught in God’s Word: The condemned one’s estate cannot be changed after death. Adding to the pathos is the fact that one who lives in sin and disbelief almost certainly will influence others to be lost. The story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16) illustrates the tragedy of living in such a way as to influence others to be lost, and of the impossibility of escaping from the region of the damned after death.

One of the greatest privileges on earth is to hear the gospel of Jesus and learn of God’s love and mercy given to the world through His Son. To learn from the gospel message about our awful plight as transgressors, and what Christ did to reconcile us to God by His death on the cross is equivalent to being offered the greatest and richest of all treasures. Salvation from sin and citizenship in the Lord’s kingdom is indeed the pearl of great price. But rejection of “the word of his grace” by disbelieving it carries with it the most terrible consequence—condemnation.

“He that disbelieveth shall be condemned.” Judging from what my eyes have seen and what my ears have heard, I fear that many who have been privileged to hear the “gospel of the grace of God” and claim to believe actually disbelieve. The miniscule degree of faith they have is equivalent to no faith at all, because it is completely barren and dead.

James said, Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself . . . . But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren? . . . For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from the works is dead (James 2:17, 20, 26).

No one can be justified by faith that is dead. The faith that avails is the faith that works through love (Galatians 5:6). The type of works both James and Paul spoke of in these verses is the type that springs from faith. The fate of the disbeliever is final, irrevocable, and eternal condemnation. But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death (Revelation 21:8).

And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14, 15).

But “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

He “would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

God’s amazing grace and mercy continues to be extended to all. Even the disbelievers can become believers and escape the condemnation of the judge to come. Salvation is available to all. His salvation is free, but we must trust and obey to receive it.

(Plantation is a suburb of Fort Lauderdale...just 10 minutes north of Miami-Dade County, in the heart of college and pro sports country, and 20 minutes from the Atlantic Ocean). Last modified: April 18, 2006

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