False Ideas About Salvation
By Pete Rose
Good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell. Not
so! Paul quotes from the Old
Testament in Romans saying, "There is
none good... All have
all sinned and fallen short of God's glory." (Romans
3:12, 23) Not
a one of us can get to heaven on our own merits. Jesus
says, "I am the way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by
me." (John 14:6)
If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, you go to heaven. A
variation of the above. This is works religion, and it won't get you to heaven.Ephesians
2:8-9 says,
"By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself" [God gives you
the faith], "not of works, lest any man should boast."
You have to keep the law of Moses (or the Ten commandments, or
some other set of rules) to
get to heaven. Nope, that won't get you there either. Paul in the book of Romans
and the book of Galatians thoroughly refutes that. "By the deeds of the law
shall no flesh
be justified in His sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).
(emphasis added) The purpose of the law is to show us we are sinners, and to
drive us to Christ. There is salvation only in Him. Paul
even goes so far as to say, "Christ has become of no effect to you, whosoever among you
would be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace." (Galatians
5:4).
You must be baptized to be saved. Uh-uh.
That won't do it either. Baptism is for people who are already saved. It
symbolizes for the believer death to the old man and rising in newness of life
in Christ Jesus. It is your testimony to the world that you are already saved.
To baptize a sinner is a meaningless ritual, all you're doing is getting him
wet. If baptism is required for salvation, how could Jesus say to the repentant
thief being crucified beside Him, who had no chance of being baptized, "This day
you will be with Me in paradise"? (Luke
23:43)
You have to measure up. I
once had someone tell me I had to do that to
be saved. Measure up to...what? Jesus said, "Except your righteousness exceeds
the righteousness of the scribes and
the Pharisees you will in no wise
enter in." If you want to "measure up" you have to measure up to the perfect
righteousness of Jesus. James says,
"If you keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, you are guilty of all." (James
2:10) Just
one little slip up, one little white lie, and you blew it. The only
righteousness God will accept is the perfect righteousness of Christ living in
you, and the only way you can obtain that is to turn
away from your sins and come to Jesus
in faith and receive Him as your Lord and Savior.
You must speak in tongues to be saved. No,
no, no! Speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and you must have the
Holy Spirit living in you before you can exercise the true gift of tongues, or
for that matter, any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And the only way you can
get the Holy Spirit in you is to come to Jesus and let Him save you. That
has to come first. Speaking in tongues is one of the benefits of salvation, not
the way of salvation.
All roads lead to heaven. No
they don't. The only Way to heaven is Jesus, by yielding yourself to Him and
allowing Him into your life. All other roads lead to hell.
I'm religious. That
won't help anything. Religion is man trying to reach God by his own efforts. The
pharisees in Jesus' day were as religious as they come, yet Jesus' strongest
rebukes were reserved for these pretenders. Jesus
has already done everything necessary for your salvation, it's already bought
and paid for by His shed blood. All you have to do is receive it by inviting
Jesus into your life, into your inner man. Religion
is Satan's detour around Jesus.
I'm a member in good standing of (name your church). If
that's all you've got to claim, you'll never make it to heaven. A
church is like a bus station, it's a convenient place to catch a bus, but you'll
never get anywhere just sitting in a bus station. You
gotta find the bus going to your destination and get on it if you want to go
anywhere. For the church (any church) only Jesus can get you to heaven.
I'm good enough that I don't need to be saved. This
is a lie of the Devil to get you to detour around Jesus. Romans
3:10-12 tells
us there is none righteous, none that seeks after God, none good, no not one. Isaiah
64:6 tells
us all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the sight of God. Trying to
present God with your righteousness for salvation is like paying your taxes with
Monopoly money. I guarantee it won't work.
I'm so bad I can't be saved. Another
lie of the devil. Hebrews
10:10 tells
us Jesus' sacrifice of Himself on the cross was "once for all," done one time
forever. Jesus' death on the cross has bought and paid for salvation for every
person on earth, no matter how evil, if only he/she will receive it by trusting
Jesus and receiving Him as Lord and Savior.
Now that I'm saved I can sin all day, do anything I want and
get by with it. No,
no, a thousand times NO! Jesus
did not save us to live in sin. If this is your attitude I seriously doubt if
you got saved in the first place. If
you choose to live this way after you're saved, you will forfeit any reward you
would have otherwise gotten, you will come under the chastisement of God (if you
don't you're not His-Hebrews 12:5-8),
you will likely lose the assurance of your salvation, live a miserable life and
probably end up going to an early grave. Plus you bring disrepute on the name of
Jesus.
If you sin after you are saved, you lose your salvation. No, we
are saved eternally (John 10:27-30) but
you can lose your reward at the judgment seat of Christ, you can lose the
assurance of your salvation and if you insist on living in sin, bring on
yourself all the things listed above. Jesus'
death on the Cross paid for every sin you have ever committed or ever will
commit, but God will not tolerate a Christian living in sin. He can make your
life very miserable if you insist on making a practice of that. If
you do sin, here is the way out. 1
John 1:9 says,
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." How much better to do this and turn away
from your sin than live in sin and get constant spankings from god!
The true way of salvation:
Ephesians 2:8-9 For
by grace are we saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; 9] not of
works, lest any man should boast.
John 3:16-18: For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17] For God sent
not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be
saved through Him. 18] He who believeth is not condemned, but he who believeth
not is condemned already because he hath not believed on the name of the only
begotten Son of God.
John 10:27-30 My sheep
hear my voice and I know them and they follow me; 28] And I give eternal life to
them and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them from My hand. My
Father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch
them from my Father's hand. (NASB)
Acts 4:10-12 Be
it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by
him doth this man stand here before you whole. 11] This is the stone which was
set at nought of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. 12] Neither
is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved. (Emphasis
added.)
Romans 10:9-13 That
if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised Him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10] For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11] For the
scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him
shall not be ashamed. 12] For there is no difference between the Jew and the
Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.
13] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
So we see from all this that salvation is
only through Jesus Christ. Not by works, not by keeping the law, not by
belonging to some church, religion or organization, nor
any other way man devises. Only
through and by faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and what He did for us can you
be saved. There is only one road, only one way that leads to God, and that is
Jesus Christ. All other roads lead to hell. Jesus said, "Enter ye in at the
strait [constricted] gate,
for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be who go
in thereat. 14] For strait
is the gate and narrow is
the way that leadeth to life and few
there be who find it." (Matthew
7:13-14).
In past articles I have been emphasizing the
shortness of the time we have left until Jesus comes to take those who are His
away from Earth to be with Him for eternity. If you are not saved when He comes,
you will be left behind to go through a horrible time
of trouble Jesus describes as being such
has never been before, nor will ever be again. All the hurricanes, all the
earthquakes, all the famines we have been seeing in recent years are only a
warmup for what is coming. The whole
earth will be ruled by Satan himself in a body of flesh, and it will be a time
of terrible persecution for both Christians and Jews. If you die without Jesus
in your life, you will go straight to hell, to suffer the torments of the damned
for ever. If you get saved after the rapture, you will probably be executed for
your faith, but better to get your head chopped off and go to heaven, than save
your life for a few years, then die
without Jesus and go to hell. You don't want to be here when all this happens.
And you won't be if you trust Jesus for your salvation now,
you will be safe with Jesusfrom hell
and the lake of fire for eternity, no matter what happens after that. Don't put
it off. "Behold, now is the accepted
time, behold now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2b).