All Christian traditions share certain common beliefs, but there is tremendous disagreement regarding the most important issue: What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ?
There are many different ways various traditions understand what whoever believes in Him means. But they mostly come down to faith in Christ being some type of good works or a commitment to do good works.
Most traditions say that believing in Christ is not simple persuasion concerning what He promises the believer, but is instead moral reformation, including some or all of the following:
- Turning from your sins
- Surrendering to Christ
- Committing your life to Christ
- Beginning to follow Christ
- Being baptized.
In his book Faith Works, Dr. John MacArthur defines saving faith in this way:
The gospel…does not call for a mere decision of the mind, but [also] a surrender of the heart, mind, and will—the whole person—to Christ…All sinners…need to be confronted with God’s demand that they turn from their sin to embrace Christ as Lord and Savior (pp. 194-95).
Notice that for MacArthur, there is something to believe. But it is more than that. Saving faith for him is primarily total surrender, turning from sins, and embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Curtis Crenshaw wrote a book entitled Lordship Salvation: The Only Kind There Is! In that book, he wrote:
One who claims to know Christ as Savior but does not bow to Him as Lord is deceiving himself. He has the kind of faith James says the demons have (2:14ff.), which is a knowledge of Him without obedience. Such professors—and that is all they are—deceive themselves into hell. Genuine faith necessarily manifests itself by obedience; otherwise it is a veneer, only skin deep, a façade. The sinner trusts in the whole Christ with his whole soul, mind, will, and affections (p. 59).
If someone does not correctly understand what it means to believe in Jesus, then he can’t be sure he has everlasting life. John 3:16 is a mystery if what it means to believe in Jesus is a mystery.
Many people in Christianity actually want that outcome. They believe that certainty of one’s salvation promotes loose living. As one of the theologians said in the documentary, Once Saved, Always Saved?, insecurity keeps people “on the straight and narrow.”
Understanding what it means to believe in Jesus is vital to our salvation and sanctification.
You can’t be born again without believing in Jesus, and you can’t believe in Jesus unless you know what that means.
You can’t be a mature believer unless you are certain of your salvation, and you can’t be certain unless you know what it means to believe in Jesus.
The concept of believing in Jesus is what Paul (1 Cor 3:1-3) and the author of Hebrews (Heb 5:12-14) call the milk of the Word, one of the simple truths of Scripture. Yet believing in Jesus has become a difficult, complex subject for most professing believers today. That is a tragedy. John 3:16 is reduced to being incomprehensible.
We need to know what it means to believe in Jesus, and then we need to share that message with all who will listen. Understanding what it means to believe in Jesus is vital to our salvation and sanctification.
