The reason
the gospel of Jesus Christ is innocent of any charge of discrimination is that
it presents the one and the same gospel for all sinners. Anything the Bible
says is sin is offered the good news of salvation. Anyone caught in any sin can
receive this gospel in the same way as every other sinner is brought to new
life in Jesus Christ.
What we have
considered so far in our look at this gospel is:
1. The Inherent
Deadliness of Sin
2. The Unstoppable
Power of the Gospel[1]
The next
thing I wanted to focus on was this qualification of, “to everyone who believes.”[2]The
unstoppable nature of the gospel, the power of God expressed for our salvation,
is applied to a distinct collection of people. Those who respond in the way
that is described belong in the assembly of the saved, while those who do not
respond in this way are not saved. The deadly power of sin continues to hold
them under the condemnation of sin.
What Paul
testified was, “For I am not ashamed of
the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”[3]
So, let us
look more closely at this characteristic of those who experience the wonderful
power of the gospel “for salvation.”
3. The Application
of the Gospel to Everyone Who Believes
When Paul
wrote that the “power of God for
salvation” is “to everyone who
believes,”[4]he
meant just that. When he clarified that this was “to the Jew first and also to the Greek,” he simply clarified that
this “everyone” followed the pattern
of what was prophesied in Scripture. The Messiah was sent to the Jewish people
first, and through the Jewish people this good news would become a light to the
Gentiles, or to the non-Jewish people.[5]
In this sentence, Paul summarized the Gentiles as “the Greek,” but it was still a connection between the beginning of
the gospel, that God fulfilled all his promises to the Jewish people in sending
his Son into the world, and the end of the gospel, that Jesus came to shine his
light to all nations.[6]
With this in
mind, that the “everyone” Paul speaks
about is covered by reference to Jew and Greek, or Jew and Gentile, and that
this means everyone who responds the way described, let us consider the
distinctive of responding to the gospel that brings us into the power of God
for our salvation.
The response
that brings any of us to experience “the
power of God for salvation” is, “everyone
who believes.” It does not matter whether the early audiences to the gospel
were of Jewish or Greek heritage; there was no way to experience this power of
God for salvation except to believe.
A. Everyone who
believes excludes everyone who does not believe
When Paul
tells us that the power of the gospel applies “to everyone who believes,” he also means that the power of the
gospel never saves anyone who does not believe. It does not matter if people
look to their Jewish heritage, their Greek or Roman mythologies, or any other
of the Gentile religions. The qualification for experiencing the power of the
gospel for salvation is that we must believe, and anyone who does not believe in
real belief, does not experience the power of God saving them from the deadly
curse of sin.
One of the
most famous verses from the Bible is John 3:16. People paint this reference on
posters, and hold it up at sports events and rallies. Others print the
reference on advertising materials hoping their business will create an
opportunity to invite people to hear what God offers to those who believe.
This verse
from God’s book tells us, “For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish but have eternal life.”[7]
In this one sentence, God says he did something out of his love for the world.
The thing he did is, “he gave his only
Son.” What God did in giving us his Son created an option to place
alongside the inherent deadliness of sin. Instead of people perishing, the only
thing that could happen to us if God left us in our sins, there is now the
option of having “eternal life”
instead.
Once again,
the clarification of who could have eternal life instead of perishing is
described as, “whoever believes in him.”
The expression “whoever believes” is
synonymous with “everyone who believes.”
The issue is belief. Whoever has belief has eternal life, while everyone who
does not believe has perishing.
What many
people do not realize is that, the context of this most amazing nutshell of
God’s thoughts goes on to clarify the contrast between those who perish and
those who experience eternal life.
First we are
told, “For God did not send his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him.”[8]
Since God’s intention was to give sinful people the option of eternal life, and
this was to save people from perishing, the mission of Jesus Christ was not to
condemn the world. Jesus did not come the first time to judge the world for its
sin. Rather, Jesus came the first time to give an option. He came so that
people from throughout the whole world “might
be saved through him.”
As we go one
sentence further, we get this added clarification, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe
is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son
of God.”[9]
What this tells us very clearly is that, when Jesus came in the way that God
gave him to the world, it resulted in an option of eternal life standing beside
the exclusivity of the deadly condemnation for sin.
Notice that,
if people do not believe in Jesus, they are “condemned
already.” When God adds, “because he
has not believed in the name of the only Son of God,” it does not mean that
a fresh dose of condemnation is added when people do not believe. Rather, it
means that they are “already” under
condemnation through the deadly curse of sin, and, when they refuse this new
option of eternal life through believing in the only Son of God, they remain
where they already are, under the just condemnation for their sin.
At the end of
this conversation, this is summarized in another obvious revelation of the
contrast between believing and not believing. God’s book reveals, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God
remains on him.”[10]
Here again we
see that there is eternal life for those who believe “in the Son,” and there is “the
wrath of God” for “whoever does not
obey the Son.” Obeying the Son means believing in him, since Jesus’ command
was, “I am the bread of life; whoever
comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”[11]
When people believe in Jesus, they are obeying his call to faith.
Jesus also
said that, “This is the work of God, that
you believe in him whom he has sent,”[12]
he meant that the work God was doing was to bring people to believe in his Son.
When people believe in Jesus, they are responding to this work, or obeying
God’s call to believe.
Obeying Jesus
does mean we are saved through acts of obedience, but that we must obey the
call to believe in Jesus, which means we are saved on the basis of our faith,
not our obedience. Those who obey the call of the gospel and believe in Jesus
are saved; those who disobey the call of the gospel and do not believe in Jesus
are not saved.
B. Everyone who
believes excludes everyone who works
Not only do
the Jews and Greeks represent everyone in relation to God’s promise regarding
the Messiah, but it also represents all the ways that people rely on good works
to approach God. The Jews had a way of coming to God that was initially
prescribed by God, and so was, during that time, the only legitimate means of relationship
with him. Throughout history, the rest of mankind came up with all kinds of
man-centered, works-based, religions of their own, deciding for themselves who
their gods would be, and how they would be served.
At the time
of Paul’s proclamation of the gospel, the Jews and Greeks, or Jews and
Gentiles, represented everyone. The Jews had one way of approaching God, a
corrupted expression of what was originally given by God, and something no
longer in effect since it had been fulfilled and replaced by the sacrificial
work of Jesus Christ. The Greeks, or the Gentiles, had all kinds of ways of
approaching their gods. Both Greek and Roman mythologies presented their own
versions of gods, along with the requirements for appeasing them. The history
of the two millennia since that time shows many other religions coming and
going, all with the same emphasis on doing something in order to be right with
God.
The
characteristic of every religion is that it relies on some kind of good works
performed by the people in order to get a response from God. The power of God
expressed in the gospel is as opposite to this as can be. Instead of every kind
of good works man can imagine, the power of the gospel is in God. All the work
to save us is done by God. We do not even get credit for adding our faith,
since even this faith is a gift of God.
Picture it
like paramedics arriving at an accident scene where people have died as the
result of their injuries. If any of these people will live again, one hundred
percent of the work must be done by the paramedics. The corpses of the people
cannot add even a desire to be alive since the desire to live is a quality of
life, not death.
Whenever
paramedics apply life-saving actions to dead people, as soon as the heart, and
lungs, and brain, once again connect in the way that is life, the people are
suddenly quite willing to be alive. Their bodies once again fight for life.
They gasp for the life that is given back to them. They plead for even more
help to make sure they survive. They feel fear that their slight grasp on the
thread of life will lose its grip. They want to live.
In the same
way, when we are called to believe in Jesus Christ in order to be saved, that
is all we are called to do to receive this gift. There are no good works we add
to salvatioin. The power of the gospel is in the work of God, not in the works
of man.
One of God’s
messengers explained it this way, “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.”[13]
Since the gospel is, “the power of God
for salvation to everyone who believes,”[14]we
must understand that it is completely the power of God, completely by the grace
of God, experienced only “through faith.”
This means
that it “is not your own doing,” no
matter how much any of us think we participated in receiving the grace of God.
It is one hundred percent “the gift of
God,” with no additional contribution from us to lower God’s percentage of
the work. It is “not the result of
works,” no matter how much we seemed to be working to believe what we were
hearing. The reason “that no one may
boast,” is that all of us are equals before God, adding nothing whatsoever
to the gift of salvation, no matter whether we are Jew or Gentile in receiving
the gift.
This means
that, the distinctive kind of belief that opens our hearts to the power of God
in salvation is not any kind of belief combined with good works. As soon as
people add any measure of good works to their standing with God, they are
talking about something different from the gospel.
C. Belief in Jesus
is different from belief about Jesus
Another
clarification we must make is that there is a big difference between believing
in someone, and believing things about them. Religion can believe things about
Jesus without experiencing the power of God that saves sinners. Only those who
believe in Jesus come to know God’s gift of eternal life.
Prior to
getting married, my initial relationship with my soon-to-be-wife began with
learning about each other. Our dates involved sharing stories of life
experiences, things we believe, family history, building a sense of who we were
as people. We believed each other’s stories long before we believed in each
other enough to get married.
Through the
sharing of our stories, and learning about each other in our mutual experiences
of life, we came to the realization that we both believed in each other to the
extent that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together in marriage. Our
initial belief about each other turned to a strong belief in each other.
It is
significant that the gospel message speaks distinctly of believing in Jesus. We
are first given the facts about him that prove him as the only Savior from sin.
We come to believe those facts are true, and are vastly superior to anything
else we have ever been taught about life. As we see these truths about Jesus
speak to everything in our lives, where we came from, why we are here, what’s
wrong with us, what happens to us when we die, and how can we know that the
afterlife will be better than the present existence, we find that the supremacy
of Jesus Christ over all other options makes us believe in him. We don’t want
to live without him any more than a young couple can stand the thought of
living without each other.
This
believing “in” Jesus is expressed all
throughout the gospel message. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry we read this
description, “Now after John was arrested,
Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time
is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the
gospel.’”[15]
Jesus called us to believe “in” the
gospel, not just to believe things about the gospel. The gospel was presented
as the power of God for salvation from the very beginning. People were called
to believe in this power of God for salvation by embracing it as their own.
Jesus later
clarified what God was working to bring about in people’s lives. He said, “This is the work of God, that you believe
in him whom he has sent.”[16]
We know that God so loved the world that he sent us his Son.[17]
When Jesus came, he announced that the work God was doing was to bring people
to “believe in” the Son whom he has
sent. Believing about Jesus is the beginning of the work of God, but the
fullness of his work is to bring us to believe in his Son for our salvation.
One of Jesus’
followers wrote a wonderful section of God’s book as an encouragement to our
confidence that we are saved through the power of God expressed in the gospel.
At the end of his book, he reminded his readers, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God
that you may know that you have eternal life.”[18]
God wants us to “know that you have
eternal life.” To do this he must lead us to see that it is we “who believe in” Jesus who are saved.
Each of us
must examine our hearts to see if we are believing what is true about Jesus,
but in order to settle that we have responded to the truth of the gospel by
believing in Jesus.
Let’s take
this one thought further.
D. Belief in Jesus
means faith in Jesus
The reason we
sometimes read about belief in Jesus, and other times about faith in Jesus, is that
they are synonyms emphasizing the comprehensiveness of true beliefs combined
with experiential faith. What we believe about Jesus must be true, and for
these beliefs to save us, they must expressed a faith that trusts Jesus with
our lives.
We must see
belief as a transfer of trust. When we trust in ourselves, we get the wages of
our sin, which is death.[19]
When we trust in ourselves as the natural people we are, we cannot possibly
understand the gospel. “The natural
person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to
him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually
discerned.”[20]
This means
that nobody is saved by understanding pieces of information about Jesus. As
long as they remain the natural person they are in their sins, they are unable
to please God through any kind of good works. This also explains why there are
so many beliefs about Jesus that are not true since they are neither consistent
with what God himself tells us about his Son, nor do they bring people into the
experience of the power of God that saves them.
When people
present their frustration that they seem to be caught in a sin they were born
with, that has such a hold on them they can’t believe God could deliver them,
they are dealing with wrong beliefs and a lack of faith. Their wrong beliefs
give them no reason to trust God, and their lack of faith keeps them from
receiving the power of God that would save them.
When God’s
book tells us that, “For by grace you
have been saved through faith,”[21]it
is the same as telling us, “Believe in
the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”[22]
Belief and faith are two sides of the same coin, if you will.
When we
combine this unified picture of belief and faith, we have a response to the
gospel in which people both believe that what they hear is true, and they put
their trust in Jesus because these things are true. God’s book shows this
connection between right belief and the real experience of faith when it
declares, “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.”[23]
With this
expression, we have a partnership between what people “believe in your heart,” and what they, “confess with your mouth.” The “believe
in your heart” part covers the reality of truth, that we believe everything
summarized in the expression that God raised Jesus from the dead. This means we
believe the whole gospel. As God’s book clarifies, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”[24]
Believing that God raised Jesus from the dead is synonymous with believing he
died for our sins,[25]
was buried,[26]
was raised from the dead,[27]
appeared to hundreds of people,[28]
ascended into heaven,[29]
is making a new home for his brothers,[30]
and will one day return to take all those who believe into this new home.[31]
The “confess with your mouth” part covers
the reality of faith. People believe in Jesus with such a faith that they
confess him as Lord. He is not someone they believe about, but someone they
believe in. There are many people I believe things about because of the news I
hear about them (without believing everything I hear, of course). However, even
though I may believe a piece of information about a person is true, that does
not mean I would trust them with anything to do with my life. I can believe
that a celebrity actor really did play a role in a movie in which he saved the
world from annihilation. That doesn’t mean I would trust him to do anything
good for me in real life.
In a similar
way, many people want to say it is good enough to believe some of the facts
about Jesus (no one can believe all the facts about Jesus without also putting
faith in him). They want a view of Jesus they control, a Jesus they create in
their image, a Jesus who is limited to their comforts and opinions. Of course,
when the “power” behind what we believe is ourselves, there is no power to save
us. We are sinners. “In their case the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of
God.”[32]
Anyone who is an unbeliever is unable to even see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” let alone believe
with any kind of genuine faith.
It is only
when people come to confess Jesus Christ as Lord, to acknowledge him as the
Lord he is, to submit to his Lordship, to surrender to his gospel as their own
means of salvation, that they experience the faith that saves them. When people
believe all that is true about Jesus, and transfer their faith from themselves
to Jesus Christ, they have already experienced the power of God that saves dead
sinners from their sins,[33]
rescues them from the judgment against their sin,[34]
and delivers them into the salvation that makes them right with God forever.[35]
E. True faith in
Jesus always saves everyone who has this faith
As we began
this focus with the phrase, “everyone who
believes,”[36]
we not only emphasize that this means to believe in Jesus with experiential
faith that truly trusts in him, but also that the “everyone” means “everyone”.
In other
words, while there is no exception that the power of God is fulfilled only in
those who believe in genuine faith, there is also no exception that the power
of God truly does save everyone who does believe. There is no one who comes to
God on the basis of faith, and faith alone, who somehow loses out on this
salvation because they are not good enough. Being good enough implies works,
and God has already done all the work, so anyone and everyone who has faith in
the Son is saved, and saved completely.
The beautiful
gospel message we looked at in John 3:16 has this beautiful word, “whoever”. This is synonymous with “everyone”. It tells us that, “whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life.” If we are among the “whoever” who believes in Jesus, we have the eternal life Jesus came
to give us. No one misses out if they believe in Jesus.
Jesus said
something very similar in these words, “I
am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet
shall he live.”[37]
Once again, it is “whoever” believes
in Jesus. “Everyone” who believes in Jesus
experiences the power of God in salvation. If we believe, we are among the
whoevers and everyones who are saved, no exceptions, no extra requirements, no
I’m-so-bad-God-can’t-save-me denials. If we believe in Jesus, both what is true
about him, and trusting him because of what is true, we experience the power of
God for our salvation.
By now, I
trust that all of us realize we must take a heartfelt look at Jesus until we
know whether he is as believable as God’s book claims, and that we feel the
confidence to turn from trusting ourselves to trusting him. The four gospel
accounts of Jesus’ life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, are given
to us by God so we can believe what is true about Jesus, so much so that we
believe in him for eternal life.[38]
One of the
gospel-recorders concluded his gospel account in this way: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which
are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have
life in his name.”[39]
The reason
the gospel writers wrote down what they did was that we may believe that Jesus truly
is the Christ promised to the Jewish people first, and sent out as the Light to
the Gentile people as well. We must believe that Jesus is the very Son of God,
the expression of the love of God, the Savior who delivers from perishing and
into eternal life. By the kind of believing that believes in Jesus, trusts in
him, experiences faith in him, “whoever”
and “everyone” who believes in Jesus has
“life in his name.”
Since I have
set out to apply this wonderful gospel to everyone, even to those who believe
that sin has such a crushing grip on their souls that God could never change
them, all that I have shared so far is true for everyone, no matter what sin
consumes them. If the Bible calls it sin, confirming that all have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God,[40]
and sealing such sinners under the condemnation that sin deserves,[41]
the good news of the gospel is the same for them as for anyone else. If they
want to be part of the “whoever” believes
in Jesus, the “everyone” who believes
in Jesus, they will experience the power of God saving them out of their sin as
much as anyone else.
And, to
clarify, the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through
him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”[42]
Anyone who will “draw near to God through
him” (meaning through faith in Jesus), will be saved “to the uttermost.” No exceptions. No sin is too difficult for God.
Even at this
point in my sharing, there is enough presented of the good news of the gospel
that everyone can accept this, that any sin mentioned in the Bible can be
brought to God through faith in Jesus Christ and the sin will be forgiven, the
sinner cleansed of the sin, and the newness of life applied to them for their
growth into the likeness of Jesus Christ, “from
one degree of glory to another.”[43]We
just need to believe in the one who offers the gift.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[2]
Romans 1:16
[3]
Romans 1:16
[4]
Romans 1:16
[5]
Luke 2:32; Acts 13:47; 26:23
[6]
Isaiah 9:2; Matthew 4:16; John 1:4-5, 9-13; I Peter 2:9
[7]
John 3:16
[8]
John 3:17
[9]
John 3:18
[10]
John 3:36
[11]
John 6:35
[12]
John 6:29
[13]
Ephesians 2:8-9
[14]
Romans 1:16
[15]
Mark 1:14-15
[16]
John 6:29
[17]
John 3:16
[18]
I John 5:13
[19]
Romans 6:23
[20]
I Corinthians 2:14
[21]
Ephesians 2:8-9
[22]
Acts 16:31
[23]
Romans 10:9-10
[24]
I Corinthians 15:3-5
[25]
Isaiah 53:8; Romans 5:8; all four gospel accounts testify to the death of Jesus
Christ on our behalf.
[26]
Isaiah 53:9; all four gospel accounts also testify to the burial of Christ.
[27]
Isaiah 53:10; Romans 6:4,9
[28]
I Corinthians 15:6-8, along with various passages in the gospels describing who
witnessed Jesus’ resurrection.
[29]
Luke 24:50-52; Acts 1:6-11
[30]
John 14:1-3
[31]
Acts 1:11
[32]
II Corinthians 4:4
[33]
Ephesians 2:4-9
[34]
Romans 5:9
[35]
Colossians 1:13-14
[36]
Romans 1:16
[37]
John 11:25
[38]
The gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, can be read online at
sites like: https://www.biblegateway.com.
Be sure to use a reliable translation like the English Standard Version (ESV).
[39]
John 20:30-31
[40]
Romans 3:23
[41]
Romans 6:23
[42]
Hebrews 7:25
[43]
II Corinthians 3:18
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