A number of years ago I saw a movie trailer in which a young woman (It might have been Kirsten Dunst, I’m not sure.) asked, “would you want to know if you were going to die?” I remember hearing that and thinking, “what do you mean ‘if’?” I never saw the film, so I don’t know the context in which that line was spoken; it might have made perfect sense. But regardless of the movie’s question, my own question remains the same: what do you mean “if?” Do you really think you’re not going to die? Because if you do, I’ve got a news flash for you. And there’s more news. We are told in Scripture that “people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). So not only is death inevitable, judgment is as well.
A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea that they will be judged, and that’s completely understandable. The warning about judgment is not supposed to make us comfortable; it’s supposed to wake us up and make us evaluate the road we’re on while there’s still time to change it.
Judgment, of course, requires a standard, and that’s where we start running into problems with our assumptions. You see, most of us have absorbed from our culture the idea anybody who is a “good person” (whatever that means) can expect to end up in heaven after they die. Occasionally you’ll hear someone put it in more concrete terms, saying for example, that if your good deeds outweigh your sins you’ll go to heaven. More often, however, what it means to be a good person is left pretty vague. I think most people do recognize at some level that there is a problem with the idea of balancing good vs. bad. That’s not how things work when we’re alive, after all. It would be foolish of me to think, for example, that enough hours volunteering at a hospital would let me get away with robbing a liquor store. Or even get me out of a speeding ticket. Even if I were sentenced to community service for some minor crime, it would have to be done after the judgment was imposed – whatever good deeds I’ve done on my own before that point wouldn’t count.
At this point, most evangelists will tell you that your sins are a lot more serious, and your good deeds less impressive, than you probably think. And that is a good point; the Bible says be righteous (Matthew 5:20), be holy (1 Peter 1:15-16), and be perfect (Matthew 5:48). That’s a higher standard than just being generally a good person. It’s a standard so high that no one except Jesus has ever actually met it. Scripture says:
There is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10).
And:
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22-23).
So we’re all guilty to one degree or another; probably more guilty than we think we are. That’s a problem, because it also says:
For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
A lot of people at this point will object that God is being unfair. We don’t consider jaywalking and murder to be equally serious, and it doesn’t seem right for God to do so either. Surely, a few minor sins out of an entire lifetime can’t be enough to keep me out of heaven, or so the argument goes. Admittedly, most people who argue like this are not living lives that are notable for selfless service to others. But maybe somebody is. What about a person who really does devote their life to helping other people, despite not believing in Jesus? Doesn’t that person, at least, deserve heaven?
If you’ve spend much time around Christians, you’re probably expecting me to try and argue that even that very good, but non-believing, person actually deserves to go to hell instead of heaven. A lot of very smart, well educated theologians do maintain just that. But I’m going to take a different tack. Instead of talking about what anyone deserves, I want to start by looking at something Jesus said about heaven. He began his ministry by preaching:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2).
In other places we see Jesus talking about the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11, Luke 4:43, 8:1, John 3:5 and in many other places), or sometimes just the kingdom (for example, Matthew 7:21). According to Jesus, heaven is a kingdom. And the one, defining trait of a kingdom is that it has a king. So I would suggest that, instead of asking whether or not I’m a good enough person to deserve heaven, the real question is, what is my relationship with the king of heaven? The standard has never been to live a good life, but to obey the king. And most of us haven’t taken the trouble to even find out what the king requires. Nobody has been consistently obedient their whole life. Nobody except Jesus, that is. The rest of us have been living our lives, or at least part of our lives, in rebellion against the king.
But Jesus didn’t just obey; he actually gave his life so that you and I could be reconciled with the God we’ve been rebelling against. Scripture says:
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:5-6).
And:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18).
And:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1-5).
Jesus died for our sins, so that we could be reconciled with God. We can be saved, in other words, from the punishment we have earned, because Jesus died for us. How, exactly did that work? If you study theology, you’ll find there are several explanations, and I think that all of them are partly right. But we don’t need to know how it worked, all we need to know is that it worked. Jesus said:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
And we can trust that he was telling the truth because he proved it by doing something that can only be done by the power of God – he rose from the dead.
So to review; I have a king, whether I’ve acknowledged him or not. I’m going to be judged on my obedience to the king, which is a problem, because I haven’t been very obedient. I’m a sinner, to use the Biblical term. But Jesus died for my sins, so that I can be reconciled to God. So now I have a choice: I can argue with God about whether or not the penalty for my sins is too severe, or I can admit that he’s right, and accept the pardon he’s offering. You have the same choice; we all do.
So how do I accept God’s pardon? It’s very simple:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved (Romans 10:9-10).
Declare that “Jesus is Lord.” Not just empty words, but honestly acknowledging the truth that Jesus is “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16). The same Jesus who died for us has now been given “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). He, himself, is the King. Admitting that fact is non-negotiable. Jesus himself said:
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).
To declare that Jesus is Lord is to admit that I have an obligation to obey him. An obligation I have not lived up to. When I declare that Jesus is Lord, I admit that I need his forgiveness for all the ways I have sinned against him. And to believe that he rose from the dead is to trust that his forgiveness is complete. He has done it all. He has provided the pardon I need. It is finished, complete, with nothing left for me to do. Salvation from sin, and from God’s righteous anger, is by his grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). It cost Jesus his life, but for us it’s free.
Now, some of you reading this might have noticed that I haven’t mentioned anything about saying a prayer. That’s because the Bible doesn’t say anything about needing a prayer to be saved. Human beings often appreciate rituals and clear decision points, however, so you’ll frequently hear people talk about a sinner’s prayer. And it’s really not a bad idea to pray, to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, to confess that you have sinned, and to thank him for the pardon he obtained for you through his death and resurrection. But it’s not the prayer that saves you. And although faith is required, your faith doesn’t save you either. It’s Christ’s death that saves you. I like to think of it this way: If I want to drive across a bridge, I have to trust that the bridge won’t collapse while I’m crossing it. I have to have faith, in other words. But my faith doesn’t hold me up; the bridge does that. Without faith I won’t cross the bridge, but without the bridge, all the faith in the world won’t keep me from falling. The bridge does the work. Faith just lets me take advantage of a bridge that was already there.
So that’s it; simple enough for anybody. If you really want more details and more complexity, look up a branch of theology called soteriology. But only if that sort of thing interests you. All you really need is this:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
That’s enough to be saved. And it’s enough to be able to tell you family, and your friends, neighbors and coworkers how they can be saved as well.