Transcript

ANNOUNCER: This is Grace in Focus from the Grace Evangelical Society. We are a Free Grace organization, and today we’re answering a question about our saving message. What do we say is the condition and where do we find support for what we believe about eternal salvation from the Bible? Our website is www.faithalone.org. There you can find out about our upcoming annual national conference, 2026. The dates are May 18th through 21st. Please plan to be with us, take advantage of the early bird registration, and we will look forward to having you. The place to go is our website, www.faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we’ve got a question from Chris, and this is a question that’s pretty central to, I mean, really everything GES does. So I know that you’ve talked about it a lot, but I think it’s always good for first-time listeners to go over some of these things. Chris asks, what exactly are we asking people to believe about Jesus? He says that he listens to the radio almost every day, and so he has heard a lot of what you and Ken have had to say about these things, but he wants to know from the Gospel of John, where do we get—like we say things like “believe in Him for everlasting life.” And so he’s wondering, where do we, or would you cite that definition of belief based on the Gospel of John? 

BOB: Yeah, and Chris goes on to say he doesn’t think there’s any place in John where it specifically says “believe in Him for everlasting life,” or where it says that everlasting life is the bullseye or isn’t that part of his question? 

SAM: He seems a little bit more open than that, but yeah, he’s saying there’s no verse that explicitly says, “believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life.” 

BOB: Okay. So there are a couple of things. In John’s Gospel, we have scores of verses where the Lord gives us three elements. He’s always central, right? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him has everlasting life.” All three elements are there. We believe in Jesus, we’re guaranteed we will not perish, but we have everlasting life. 

Now you may say, and some people do say, well, the “not perishing” and the “everlasting life” are the result of believing in Him, but it doesn’t tell us what it means to believe in Him. So we have to go to other verses; or some people say all you have to do is believe in His identity that He’s the one sent by the Father. And so some people would say, if you believe Jesus was sent by the Father, which, as far as I can tell, every Muslim believes because they believe He’s a prophet of God, then you’d be born again. 

But there are others that say no—to believe in Him is, and then they might say, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, believing He died on the cross for our sins and that He was buried, and then He rose from the dead on the third day, and He appeared to many people. Other people would say, you need to believe in His deity as well. So you need to—not just that he’s the Son of God, which a lot of people believe, but that he’s literally Theos. He’s literally God. He’s Yahweh. And you need to be Trinitarian in order to believe that. Well, none of that’s found in the Gospel of John. What you find in the Gospel of John repeatedly are those three elements—believing—in Jesus—for everlasting life. 

Let me give you a couple other examples. In John 11:25-27, if you have it there, turn there Sam, and we can take a look at it. The purpose statement of John’s Gospel contains the phrase, “the Christ, the Son of God,” and that by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you would “have life in His name.” Well, John 11:25-27, verse 27 uses that exact expression, but Jesus doesn’t ask her, “Do you believe I’m the Christ, the Son of God?” So could you read 25 and 26? 

SAM: Yeah. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me, shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him—” 

BOB: Well, stop there for now. She did say, “Yes, Lord.” But notice the expression, “believe in me,” occurs twice, right? So when we say something like, “Do you believe in President Biden?” “Do you believe in President Trump?” “Do you believe in President Carter, or do you believe in whatever?” To believe in a person is to believe what they are promising. So if you’re believing in a president, you’re believing in their promise to bring prosperity to our country, to bring safety to our country, to do whatever they’re saying they’re going to do with our borders, either to secure them or to open them up or whatever. But to believe in them is to believe they will be faithful to their promises. 

In the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, to “believe in Him” is to be faithful to the two promises He makes here. And do you notice the two promises? He says—this is one of these seven I am statements in John and it’s a compound statement—He says, “I am the resurrection, I am the life.” I used to think the next two lines were explaining how He is the resurrection life. But I didn’t realize those are two things because the next line says what?

SAM: That He shall never die. 

BOB: Well, before that. 

SAM: “Although he may die, he shall live.” 

BOB: Yeah, so that’s the promise of resurrection. “The one who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” And so that’s, I used to think that was just saying live spiritually. But what he’s saying is live physically. He’s saying, “I’m going to resurrect him.” Now, of course, everybody’s going to be resurrected. So He’s not just talking about general resurrection. He’s talking about the specific resurrection of the just or the righteous. Those who are justified by faith. And He’s saying, “He who believes in Me, though he may die physically, yet he shall live physically. And he who lives and believes in Me, shall never die.” Right. So that’s a statement of “the life.” “I am the life.” What Jesus is called everlasting life in 1 John 1, 1 John 5 and many other texts. In fact, Jesus calls Himself “the life” here and He’s saying everlasting life. Same thing in 14:6. And so as “the life,” the one who believes in it is never going to die. That’s a promise. 

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote the Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the Biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content.

BOB: And then He asked her, “Do you believe this?” So what’s “this”? 

SAM: “This” would be “Whoever lives and believes in Me, shall never die. And he who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” 

BOB: Right. Now do you notice something that’s contained in both of those statements? Do you notice the expression, “believe in me?” I’ve heard people say that’s a tautology.¹ “You’re saying we need to believe in belief.” And the answer is yes. We need to believe that everyone who believes in Him is never going to die spiritually. We need to believe that He is faithful to this promise. And then notice her answer: verse 27. 

SAM: “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is come into the world.” 

BOB: Now she wasn’t asked that. She was asked, “do you believe?” “Though you may die, you’re going to live and whoever lives and believes in Me, shall never die.” And she explains why she believes that, because she knows He’s the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world. Those are both messianic expressions. She knows He’s the Messiah. 

Well, turn also to John 4:10. There’s another verse that shows it. In John 4:10, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well. And they said there are two elements she needed to understand before she would ask him. So read 4:10. 

SAM: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you the living water. ‘ “ 

BOB: Okay, so notice you’ve got the gift and the giver. And then you’ve got the living water. What does verse 14 say, John 4:14? 

SAM: “But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” 

BOB: So notice the living water is not everlasting life. A lot of people think drinking the living water means I’m drinking everlasting life. No, the living water is the message that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It’s the message that He is the guarantor of resurrection and everlasting life to all who believe in Him. So there’s two elements in John 4:10: the gift of God, which He explains in verse 14 is everlasting life, and the giver of the gift, which he explains in verses 25 and 26, read 25 and 26 if you would. 

SAM: “The woman said to him, ‘I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’ “ 

BOB: And at that point she leaves her water pot. Now she came to get water, right? He’s got a different kind of water. She leaves the old water behind which some commentators say she’s leaving the works salvation religion behind. She goes to the villagers and she brings them the living water and says, “Could this be the Messiah? Could this be the Christ?” Here’s the key: to believe in Jesus, the Messiah, for the gift of God. It’s interesting, by the way, the gift of God also occurs in Ephesians 2:8-9. Remember that one? “For by grace you have been saved through faith? It is—”

SAM: A gift. 

BOB: “The gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” There’s one other verse that we ought to look at. It confirms what we’ve seen in John: 1 Timothy 1:16. This is where Paul is giving a little mini-testimony, how he came to faith. I love 1 Timothy 1:16, because it says exactly what Chris says, we’re not seeing word for word in John’s Gospel, although the concept is clearly in John’s Gospel. What does 1 Timothy 1:16 saying? 

SAM: “However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.” 

BOB: Yeah, believe on Him or believe in Him for everlasting life. You see, if we believe in Him for temporary life, then we don’t believe John 3:16 is true. We don’t believe John 11:25-26 is true, or John 4:10 and following is true. Remember, she, the woman at the well, she says, “Give me this water. And then I don’t have to come here and draw anymore.” And He said, “No, no, you don’t understand. I’m not talking about physical water. I’m using a figure of speech. I’m talking about something which is going to give you everlasting life, which will never go away.” Nicodemus was also confused when He talked to him about the new birth. He was thinking in physical terms also. 

So the key is we believe in Jesus for everlasting life. And that’s found in Paul’s writings, in 1 Timothy 1:16. You’ve got it in Ephesians 2:8-9 and Galatians 2:16. You’ve got it in Acts 16:31 and all through the Gospel of John. I would challenge all of you to carefully read the Gospel of John and see if those three elements aren’t there every time Jesus evangelizes: “believing,” “in Him,” and “for everlasting life” or sometimes the negative is stated, never hunger, never thirst, never die, never perish, never be cast out, never be plucked out of My hand. In the meantime, let’s all keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Be our guest and subscribe to our 48-page magazine, 6 issues per year also called Grace in Focus. It’s free by emailing your name and snail mail address to GES@faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org. And when you do, please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible. That would be a great big help.

And on our next episode: a question about the new covenant. Is it for today? Please join us for that. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.

¹ Tautology: needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word.