Everlasting Life--The Believer of John 3:16

Who has everlasting life?  Is it the man Jesus spoke of in John 3:16 when he said, "whoever believes in him (speaking of himself--DS) should not perish but have everlasting life" (NKJV) or is it the man he spoke of in John 5:24 when he said, "I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life" (NKJV)?  Jesus says in the former passage believe in him for everlasting life while later in the latter passage he says hear my words and believe in him who sent me (God the Father).

Many cling to John 3:16 with the idea being that all Jesus requires of man for salvation is a belief in Jesus without ever giving any real serious thought as to how Jesus would define a believer in himself, one whose faith is sufficient to save.  They merely assume they know so every man becomes a law unto himself, declares himself a believer, and is in his mind (and often in his family and friend's minds) saved without ever offering any real concern about God's commands or any serious obedience to them.  Many have made no real attempt in years to worship God or read his word let alone put him first in their life yet they are saved, they say, because they say they believe in Jesus.

Jesus never taught even once what such men have assumed.  John 5:24 offers a commentary on John 3:16, as do many other passages throughout the New Testament, concerning who the believer of John 3:16 is.  When Jesus says in John 5:24, "he who hears my word" (and, of course, believes in God the Father) will have everlasting life he is not adding to what is required of man for salvation for hearing the word of God has been required of man every since Adam and Eve.  But, who is the believer in Jesus who will be saved?  Who is that man?  It is the man who hears Jesus' word.  A man cannot hear Jesus' word, disregard it or consider it unimportant, even unnecessary, and at the same time in truthfulness say he believes in Jesus.

It goes without saying when Jesus spoke of hearing his word he was not speaking of hearing with the physical ear only but of heeding the words, of obeying those words.  The next verse, verse 25, makes this clear.  "Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live." (John 5:25 NKJV)  The dead spoken of here are not the physically dead but the spiritually dead and the meaning is not that just by hearing Jesus speak one would be saved but rather if you hear what he says and you believe it enough to act on it (obey it) you will live.  No man has truly heard Jesus who does not believe what he says enough to take him at his word and obey him.  Those who crucified Jesus heard him speak through the physical ear but never heard Jesus in the sense of which Jesus spoke of hearing for salvation.

Further proof is provided in John 5:38 (a verse in the same chapter) where Jesus speaking of himself tells those he was speaking to, "Him you do not believe."  (NKJV)  They heard him okay with the physical ear but they had not heard him in the sense Jesus spoke of in John 5:24.  They were not heeding the message he was delivering.

Jesus closes this conversation in verses 46 and 47 where he says, "For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:46-47 NKJV)  You see it is not enough to just believe in Jesus that he is the Son of God.  (See John 12:42-43 as an example of those who believed that but were nevertheless lost.)  You must, as Jesus put it, "believe my words" and that is where the rub comes in with so many people.  They are glad to believe in Jesus as being God's son, to believe in Jesus as being the Savior, but they are not glad to believe other words he spoke and indeed reject many of them.

Belief cannot be a smorgasbord of Jesus' sayings where we get to go down the line and say I will take this, and I will take that, but I will have none of that.  How can we do that sort of thing and say we believe in Jesus?  Do we really believe him if that is what we do?  If we don't "believe him" how can we say we "believe in him?"

Most people do not believe Jesus when he said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mark 16:16 NKJV) but rather believe "He who believes and is baptized, or not (either way), will be saved" (Mark 16:16--man's version not God's).  In the Great Commission, as found in Matt. 28, Jesus commanded that disciples be baptized (Matt. 28:19) but man while he says he believes in Jesus says it does not matter whether a disciple is baptized on not.  He can be saved without it, says man.  Yet, this very man declares his faith in Christ, faith in the very being whose word he questions.  Believe in Jesus but just don't believe everything Jesus says seems to be the idea.  You will then be saved by faith in Jesus.  That is the claim even though none would dare put it so bluntly.

The world may believe this kind of perversion but I am not among their number.  It all comes down to the question of "what is belief in Jesus?"  Of what does that faith consist?  We are worlds apart on that.  To believe in Jesus is to believe what the Son of Man, the Son of God, said.  If you can't believe or won't believe what the Son of man--the Son of God--said you are not a believer in him.  If I can't believe a man's word out in the everyday world it is quite a stretch to say I believe in him.  It is no different in the Bible as one considers Jesus and his word.

When Jesus declares a man has everlasting life based on a certain condition then that condition becomes mandatory and is not a matter of personal preference as to whether it is required for salvation or not.  The same holds true if he phrases it some other way--for instance, uses the term "eternal life," or the phrase "is saved," or the words "will see the kingdom of heaven."  Whatever Jesus states as necessary to salvation under any and all such descriptive terms is required of man, man's thoughts to the contrary notwithstanding.  To fail to believe Jesus (fail to believe what he says) is to fail to believe in him.

A good example of what I am talking about is found in Matt. 7:21 where Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father in heaven." (Matt. 7:21 NKJV)  If you really believe in Jesus you must believe what he said here and thus understand that salvation is dependent on keeping the commands of God.  You will either believe that or else you will not believe Jesus and thus do not believe in him in any sense of having a faith that will save you.

If you say doing the will of God, keeping his commands is salvation by works, not by grace, I say in response it is salvation by believing in Jesus, believing what he says.

We must always remember that while we are saved by faith it is only a certain type of faith, a faith that is inclusive of trust and obedience.  James makes light of a non-obedient faith, "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can faith save him?" (James 2:14 NKJV)  "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:26 NKJV)

In closing, I ask who is the believer of John 3:16 who has everlasting life?  I answer by saying he is not the man most of the world thinks he is.  He is a man who has the faith of Abraham of whom the Bible says, "By faith Abraham obeyed." (Heb. 11:8 NKJV)  To what extent did Abraham obey?  To the extent he was in the very act of offering Isaac as a burnt offering to God because God had commanded it before God stopped him.  This is the Abraham whom the Bible says is "the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also." (Rom. 4:11 NKJV)

The believer who is blessed by God, the believer in Jesus of John 3:16, is the believer who does not question Jesus or declare some of his commands as unnecessary but obeys them all to the best of his ability because in believing in Jesus it necessarily follows that he believes Jesus.  He is the true believer of whom it can be said he has everlasting life.

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Jesus and Tolerance--The Narrow Gate

Jesus’ teaching on the narrow gate is a part of the Sermon on the Mount as found in Matt. 7:13-14.  The question being raised here is whether or not Jesus was being narrow-minded as he spoke of only one gate, of only one way, that would lead to eternal life.  That is a pertinent question in the time in which we live, a time in which many are questioning Christianity making accusations that it is exclusive and intolerant.  Here is what Jesus said:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (NKJV) 

As human beings, we sometimes believe and act upon wrong premises that can do us much harm.  To use myself as an example I once believed and acted on the premise that if a person exercised faithfully and intensely he could eat anything he wanted and not have to worry about diabetes.  I found out differently when I developed insulin resistance but until the truth hit me squarely in the face that was what I believed and the way I lived my life. 

In America today we have begun to think that the ultimate good is tolerance and we are acting on that premise.  We are so convinced that this is the case that we are closing our minds to other possibilities much like I had closed my own mind to the possibility of a man like me getting diabetes.  Let me ask a question.  Is tolerance of greater value than truth?  Are we better off with a tolerant Jesus or a truthful Jesus?  If we could have only one or the other which would we be better off with? 

A wholly tolerant Jesus would mean the end of justice, of righteousness.  Would one want to live in a society that was totally devoid of justice, could one live peacefully in such a society?  How does one call heaven a place of joy if tolerance allows in the willfully lawless and rebellious, the evildoers and the vile, the unrepentant?  God is indeed longsuffering but he is not tolerant without end nor would justice allow it.   

If we believe Jesus was God’s son, spoke by inspiration, and never sinned then he spoke the truth about the gates between which men must choose.  There are only two and we all must choose one or the other and thus the corresponding path we will take to death’s door and eternity.  One must either accept what Jesus said as truth or else deem him a liar and no saint at all let alone God and Savior.  If Jesus is a liar then you can forget about heaven and eternal life.

Jesus and Christianity are being challenged in America today by postmodernism, secularism, relativism, multiculturalism, feminism, humanism, Darwinism, atheism, nihilism, hedonism, by just about every “ism” you can think of.  Our culture has changed so much in the last fifty years that today Jesus is no longer seen necessarily as good, as was the case in the days of my youth, but rather as one who is somewhat arrogant, self-serving, and intolerant.  How dare he give us only an either/or alternative—his way or the highway.

The very fact he has given us an alternative to the wide gate and broad way that leads to destruction is no longer seen as grace but rather as a threat of violence if we do not choose it.  Instead of being thankful that we have an option not just of escaping from destruction but of partaking in a glorious, joyful eternal life many of us end up murmuring and complaining.  

It reminds me of what Paul said when he wrote to the Galatians.  “Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16 NKJV)  Has Jesus become our enemy because he told us the truth about the two gates?  A man tells us the truth and we resent it.  Many among us have decided to reject what Jesus has said as truth; we will deny it, refuse to accept it.  We reject the New Testament.

Our problem is we want a third gate, one that is not difficult to enter and upon entering is easy to travel and leads to eternal bliss.  Narrow gates, when posted on roads, lead to narrow roads which are anathema in a society that prides itself on tolerance of everything man’s imagination can devise.   

We want broadmindedness in religion and morality but if we had it would we not think it to be somewhat of an anomaly?  Broadmindedness does not work in math, chemistry, medicine, banking, or any other field of endeavor I can think of.  We all want exactness in those things and if we are to have orderly lives rather than chaos we must have it that way. 

Narrowness is not equivalent to persecution as so many think but is rather a prescription for success, success for the reason that truth itself is narrow.  Deviate from narrowness in obedience to traffic lights as you drive in the city and you endanger not only your own life but the lives of others as well and it will be just a matter of time until disaster strikes.  Tolerance says let a man do it.  Truth says your tolerance will get someone killed.

It has always amazed me that man tries to make himself out to be God and make the rules that govern life when he cannot make one hair white or black (Matt. 5:36) and is totally helpless when death’s door opens.  He thinks he can play God, make the rules, and knows better than what God has said, and then has the audacity to accuse God of arrogance.  Perhaps a mirror would be helpful.

I have often asked myself the question why men do not believe or make an effort to live faithful lives.  What is the answer?  Is it unbelief based on the intellect, on the study of the evidence about Christ where the New Testament is found to be wanting and based on myth, fairy tales, and fantasy?  Well, the apostles knew whether or not Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them after the resurrection and if he did not what was to be gained by becoming martyrs?  None of them became rich televangelists.  There was nothing to be gained if it was all a lie, based on falsehood.

People do not reject Christianity based on evidence.  It is rejected, and no attempt is made to live the life, because the human will finds the broadway more appealing.  The gate to that road is broad and easy to enter, the road is wide and easy to travel, everyone is accepted, there are no restrictions, no speed limits, no policing of it so that any lifestyle is accepted, sin does not exist on it for sin is not in the vocabulary of those who travel it, at least not in their own lives.  The Bible defines sin as “the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4 KJV), the law of God.  Take God out of the picture and there is no sin.  Men may come up with moral standards but if history teaches anything it is that there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to man making moral law.

It is a world without God, without foundation, without any hope other than that God may accept you in the afterlife despite the fact you rejected him your entire earthly life and did so of your own free will.  He told us about this other gate and other way but we said we would have none of it and now at the end of the way we do not like where the road ends.  All roads do eventually end; the road reaches its destination.

“The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and my people love to have it so, but what will you do in the end?” (Jer. 5:31 NKJV)

What happens, in the end, is easy enough to explain.  “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” (Gal. 6:7-8 NKJV)

Two gates, two ways of life, two destinations, life’s choices.  Was Jesus being narrow?  Jesus was being truthful; Jesus was giving grace.  Jesus was as tolerant as truth would allow and showed truth to be the greater value.  Grace, which one could argue is a godly form of tolerance, was shown in giving us the knowledge of the facts and in providing the way of salvation.  All that remains is human choice, man’s free will to choose.  The human heart is revealed in the choice that is made.

One final word, there is no such thing as not choosing a gate.  An “I will decide later” approach is in reality a failure to choose the narrow gate and the difficult way that leads to life and thus puts you in the wide gate and broad way that the many are traveling.  It is not hard to enter a wide gate thus no real effort is required.  A narrow gate is another matter.  You only get in that gate if you want in and make an effort.  The choice is ours but Jesus has already told us which road the many will choose.  We can go with the crowd or take the road less traveled.

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Is Today Yesterday—America and Corinth

Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccl. 1:9 NKJV)  When it comes to human behavior it is hard to argue that anything has changed since Solomon’s day well over 2,000 years ago.  Human pride and arrogance just seem to roll on from one generation to the next endlessly.  I was reminded of that today (4/6/2015) when I was reading from 1 Cor. 5, Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth.

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!  And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.”  (1 Cor. 5:1-2 NKJV)

While America is certainly not a church it seems it has much the same attitude toward sin that the church at Corinth was displaying.  There is no mourning in America today over adultery, homosexuality, fornication, lying, deception, malice, drunkenness, you name it.  In fact, for some politicians their sins make them more popular with the public.  Bill Clinton was one notorious example of that.  Bill Bennett’s book, The Death of Outrage, was written as a direct response to the public’s reaction to that sordid episode.

Being caught in a lie no longer disqualifies one from holding even the highest office in the land.  We have lied so much and for so long people no longer think much about it and it no longer seems to taint your character in the eyes of the public at large with but few exceptions.  Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, just admitted lying about Mitt Romney not paying any taxes for 10 years but where is the public outrage?  There is very little of it.

There is little difference with other sins.  The quickest way for an actress to gain fame and fortune seems to be to take her clothes off and display herself publicly, maybe even get into pornography, and as for drunkenness why everyone does it do they not?  There is no shame in America anymore.  If you are on your fifth live-in arrangement so what?  Who really cares? We will tolerate anything in America.  Sounds like Corinth to me.  We will in the name of toleration tolerate the very things that will lead to our personal and national destruction. 

What outrage we do see today is against Christianity, not against sin and evil doing.  We are experiencing the evolution of morals in America where we now call evil good and good evil.  It is a destructive evolution for God has said, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” (Isa. 5:20 NKJV)

But why have we become this way?  I think the following remark from Bill Bennett’s book, The Death of Outrage, is on the mark:

“Why have we been drawn toward a culture of permissiveness?  My former philosophy professor John Silber was correct when he spoke of an ‘invitation to mutual corruption.’  We are hesitant to impose upon ourselves a common moral code because we want our own exemptions.” (Page 120)

We in America like to blame our leaders for our problems as a nation but the problem lies within us, each of us.  We have become proud, puffed up much like the Corinthians.  Add to that we enjoy our own personal sins and do not want to give them up.  Living righteously no longer matters to us and we no longer demand it of our elected officials, the invitation to mutual corruption, and then we wonder what has happened to our country.

The answer to our problems lies within each of us.  While it is true “there is none righteous” (Rom. 3:10 NKJV), we are not righteous on our own, don’t you think we might all be better off and our nation be better off if we made an attempt to live righteously?  The desire to do so has been lost but God has given us free will.  We can change if we will just will to do so.  With God’s help, it is not impossible for men and women to live godly righteous lives.  If there is not a change, a sort of national repentance, we are doomed and on a personal level Jesus put it bluntly, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3 NKJV)    

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The Real Motive Behind the Indiana RFRA Protests

The state of Indiana has been in the national news spotlight in recent days over the protests of Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act.   The protest began in earnest this past Saturday, March 28, 2015, with a march in Indianapolis and has since spread nationwide with businesses threatening to pull out of Indiana and/or boycott the state.

The law attempts to provide some degree of protection to Christians, in particular Christians who run businesses, who due to religious beliefs do not want to be forced by law into taking part in things that would violate their conscience, things like gay marriage.  The protestors claim the law gives a license to discriminate against gays by refusing them services that a business would provide to others.

The truth is no Christian who reads the New Testament and actually believes what it says (there is some who no longer believe) is going to be willing to aid and assist anyone determined to commit sin when he realizes that is what is happening.  The sin does not matter.  It could be homosexuality, adultery, theft, deception, whatever the sin might be.

If the homosexual is discriminated against because the Christian will not help him sin, if that is your definition of discrimination, then by the same standard of reasoning the adulterer, the thief, the deceiver, and all others are likewise discriminated against by the Christian who lives his faith.  The Christian faith does not allow facilitating sin.

A Christian who aids and abets one determined to sin is little better than Balaam who Jesus said, “Taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.” (Rev. 2:14 NKJV)  Balaam was going to help Israel commit sin via Balak. 

The agenda, the real motive behind the protests, is to drive Christian faith into silence and out of the public sphere, to marginalize it and make it as insignificant a part of American life as possible.  There have already been a few instances nationwide where small Christian businesses have been sued successfully for their failure to provide services for those gay couples planning weddings.  When court costs, fines, etc. are figured into the equation such suits essentially destroy the tiny family-owned business and threaten even the financial survival of the family that owns it.  

This is really a matter of vengeance against those of faith.  How hard is it to get a wedding cake made or a photographer in to have pictures taken?  Would not the loving thing be to just take the wrong and go on?  It would if they were Christians which they are obviously not.  “Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong?” (1 Cor. 6:7 NKJV)  Of course, this is not to say the one who refuses to bake the cake for a gay wedding ceremony is in the wrong but only that the Christian thing to do is to refrain from suing.  But, there is no Christianity in gay marriage. 

Those who oppose this Indiana law on the basis that they think it discriminates against gays feel that such discrimination would be wrong—in their eyes sinful, evil.  That is strange, almost inexplicable, coming as it does from those who have rejected God’s word on the subject of sin.  How do they define sin if they are not going to use the Bible to do it?  How do I know what is sinful and what is not apart from God’s word?

If it had not been for the Bible the word sin would never have been in man’s vocabulary.  The word “sin” is first used in Gen. 4:7 where God is speaking to Cain although sin itself was first committed by Adam and Eve.  John the apostle defined sin as “the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4 KJV), the law being the law of God.    

The gay lobbyists have rejected Rom. 1:24-27, 1 Cor. 6:9-10, 1 Tim. 1:9-10, and Jude 6-7 so I am sure they are not willing to take the Bible’s word for what constitutes sin nor are they willing to let God define love.  “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” (1 John 5:3 NKJV)  If they do not like what a passage teaches they just put it into a category like foot washing, confine it to the first century, or make it figurative.  They cannot endure a literal interpretation of the word.

It is not that hard to reject God’s word, if you are so inclined, and still claim Christianity which is the very thing many of the non-atheists among them do.  Of course, many among them are outright atheists and none will accept the word of God as is.  You will hear much about love from them but be aware and be certain they will get to define it, not God.

It is a smorgasbord man-made religion that supports these protests but the kind of religion a secular world desires if they must endure religion at all.  If this group believed God meant what he said and believed it was applicable today they would have no part of Christianity, declare God the sinner, and become God-haters.  Their Bible has been made flexible so it’s meaning changes with the changing cultural seasons of society.  They alone will decide what is sin?

So what is the standard that man uses to determine right from wrong, righteousness from unrighteousness, when one has rejected literal New Testament texts on sin?  If the word of Christ is not reliable, where is the text that is reliable, that provides a standard for judging right from wrong?  Without a standard who dares make himself God and declare for all men what is righteous?  The answer is the gay lobbyists, at least on this and related subjects.

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