ANNOUNCER: Why do so many churches present a confusing salvation message, even a false salvation message? What is a clear salvation message? Let’s talk about this topic today here on Grace in Focus. Glad you joined us for it. This is Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. Lots to learn about us there, including our events page, which shows a regional conference if you live up in the northwest, in Idaho, July 19th through the 23rd. Check it out on our website, faithalone.org. 

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

SAM: Alright Bob, we’ve got a question from Ronnie about evangelism, and real quick I’ve got a little gripe with Ronnie, because he starts his email off by saying my question is this, and then a question mark does not appear in the email. He makes a lot of statements, and we’re going to piece it together, but in general, it’s helpful when posing a question, to use a question. 

BOB: And it helps if they’re short and simple, so please send them to radio@faithalone.org and let us know what your question is, and you’re more likely to be answered, if it’s short and clear. 

SAM: Alright, so what he’s saying is, he is attending this church, and they have this statement about becoming a Christian, and it’s three bullet points: one, believing in Jesus.

BOB: Good, we like that first point.

SAM: Okay, two, repenting and confessing sins, three, surrendering your life to Jesus. There’s a lot of problems here. The first would be like he said, one, you could stop there, technically all three of these are good things, but you need to clarify that you’re now a Christian after step one, and in step two and three are, here’s what you should do as a Christian, but I’m assuming this church kind of lumped these all together, like the ABCs admit, believe, confess. 

But so then let’s get into what his question really is. He’s been listening to the radio for a while, and he understands that it’s faith alone and believing in Jesus for everlasting life. Great. And so then he’s saying, I’m not sure if the church I attend really goes far enough in their call to salvation. And what I think he means by that is, he’s not saying there should be four, five or six steps. He’s saying that first step, I don’t think goes far enough. I assume that’s what you mean, Ronnie, is just saying, believing in Jesus, is that far enough of an evangelistic message? 

BOB: Yeah, that’s a good point. And he might mean to that when you tell people to turn from their sins and submit to Christ and to follow Christ and to obey Christ, you’re really giving a false message. And so in a sense, you could say, that’s not going far enough, because to go far enough is to go where Jesus goes. So if Jesus says the condition is to believe in Him, the giver, for the gift of God, which is everlasting life, John 4:10-14, well, then we need to believe what Jesus says we need to believe, not do what somebody else says we need to do. 

SAM: Right. The issue is complete message, not the length of a message. And this is something I was talking with Dan about in the office recently. I think a problem we as Christians have sometimes and I’ve done it and everybody’s done it, but we like to have a long list of verses that support what we’re saying. So we’ll make a point and then say, like, boom, this verse, this verse, this verse, this verse, 10 books, you know, the thousand passages, but that’s not helpful, especially not in evangelism. That’s good for a paper, but if I’m talking to someone, especially an unbeliever, and like, look, you know, 10 times in the Gospel of John and Paul says it and Peter says it. And this guy’s like, I don’t know who those people are. I don’t know, like, I’ve never read the Bible, I don’t care what those things are. 

So the point isn’t having a long list of verses, it’s not having a lot of passages. It’s about having a complete message that you’re sharing with somebody and the only place we find a complete message with all three elements of it, we would identify, believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life, would be the Gospel of John. 

BOB: Absolutely. And the first point for this church was what, believe in Jesus? See, the problem with that, and if that’s what Ronnie’s alluding to, of not going far enough, they don’t mention for everlasting life. In 1 Timothy 1:16, Paul says, I’m an example of those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. And in the Gospel of John, you see that over and over and over again, that what we’re believing Jesus for is the gift of God. John 4:10, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” And He went on to explain that the gift of God is everlasting life, 4:14, and He went on to explain that the one who’s speaking to her is the Messiah, that’s John 4:25-26. And she believes it, she drinks the living water, she knows she has everlasting life. 

So yeah, I don’t think they go far enough when they say believe in Jesus. It should be believe in Jesus for everlasting life or you could use some similar language like believe in Jesus for the new birth or believe in Jesus to become a child of God or believe in Jesus to be saved once and for all, to have everlasting salvation. But if what you say is simply believe in Jesus, it’s confusing. 

I’ve read a number of things by some of the people from what are called the “flexible free grace” camp. They will say there’s a whole lot of different things you can believe about Jesus to be born again. Sometimes they will say, you need to believe in the person of Jesus. I believe Jesus is the Son of God. Okay, then you get it whether you believe you have anything or not. But some of the same people would say, but it’s acceptable to believe that Jesus was sent from God. And if they believe that God sent Jesus, then that’s enough to believe. Or they would say, if you believe in the provision of Christ, you believe He died on the cross for our sins and rose again, then you have eternal life, whether you believe it or not. 

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BOB: The problem with this is, this “believe in Jesus” is very vague.

SAM: Right. And the bigger problem, if I was evangelizing and I was going to use these three points and I say, look, you just believe in Jesus, repent, confess your sins and surrender your life to Him, then they’re going to focus on the second two because there’s more involved there. Believing? Sure, that’s easy. But now you’re telling me I have to repent and I have to confess, I don’t even know what repent means. And I have a lot of sins. Do I have to confess all of them and surrender my life? What does that mean? I have to, I’ve got to give up everything, do I have to quit my job? So it’s like, what does believe mean? Who is Jesus? What am I believing Him for? Like those are the important things. Either way, you’re going to get into specific instructions. It’s about whether you put those on the belief part or what comes after. 

BOB: Yeah. And saying that the believing is easy. You know, John MacArthur wrote a book called Hard to Believe and actually I agree with the title. I don’t agree with what he says in the book, but I do agree it’s hard to believe that simply by faith in Jesus, a person has everlasting life and will never lose it. This very message, this three point message, makes believing impossible, essentially, unless you reject points two and three. Because if you think I have to turn from my sins and I have to submit and follow and obey, then you don’t think it’s simply by faith in Jesus. You think that’s part of it. 

And the other thing, you know, a lot of people, as you mentioned, they don’t even know what believing means. They would, of course, if they just went with what does the word believe mean, but because they’ve heard pastors and theologians say, Oh, no, “saving faith is a special kind of faith.” It’s not like believing in a doctor or believing that George Washington was the first president. It’s “a special kind of faith that includes turning from your sins and submitting your life to Christ and following Christ and persevering.” Once you say that, you’ve now created what Paul calls in Galatians 1:6-9, a false gospel. It’s a message that’s no longer a faith alone message. 

And so I would agree with Ronnie, the call to salvation is the call to believe in Jesus for everlasting life. And by the way, when I mentioned that believing in Jesus is too vague, a lot of people would say, well, wait a minute, doesn’t John 3:16, say “Whoever believes in Him,” isn’t that vague? Well, no, because John 3:16 doesn’t end there. He says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but Has everlasting life,” that’s the guarantee. So the guarantee is, if I believe in Him, I’m believing in Him for something, which is never perishing, having everlasting life. And you see that all through John’s Gospel. 

You mentioned earlier, we talked about the three elements—believing, Jesus, everlasting life. 

SAM: Right. Belief, the person, the promise, those all should be present in a good evangelistic message, because that’s what needs to be believed. 

BOB: And if someone says, okay, what does it mean to believe? You say, well, it means to be convinced, to be persuaded. And they say, but that sounds like intellectual assent, you’d go, right. That’s what it is. 

SAM: If it’s not, then what these people are saying in two and three are now qualifiers of one. Believe is only belief if it’s accompanied by repentance, confession, and surrendering. And what that does, is lead someone, okay, I believe, but did I really repent? Did I really confess? Have I really surrendered my life to Christ? Those kinds of vague instructions are now qualifiers on something that should be very clear and easy to understand. And that is what leads to people never knowing if they’re really saved or not. 

BOB: And it makes them false professors. You have a lot of people who’ve never believed that simply by faith in Jesus, they’re secure forever, right? They have everlasting life. And yet they go to a church, they say they believe in Jesus, they follow Jesus, they’re turning from their sins, they’re committing their life to Christ, but they’ve been a legalist from the beginning. That means that unless there’s been some point in their life where they got it, that it was simply by faith in Jesus they had everlasting life, they were saved forever, they’ve not yet been born again. So a church like this, Ronnie, I would encourage you to find a different church. This church is confusing. If you can’t find one, start a church, meet in your home. 

SAM: You have to clarify, if it was one: believe in Jesus for everlasting life, and then start a new line, one, two, then that’d be fine because you should repent and confess and you should surrender your life to Jesus. But it’s when you make those things extra requirements on the belief, that it’s not the message. 

BOB: Absolutely. It’s not belief plus. It’s simply belief and it’s to believe in the right person, the Lord Jesus Christ, for the right thing, the gift of God, everlasting life. 

Well, thanks so much, and Sam, let’s keep grace in focus. 

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And our next episode: are all who believe on Jesus as Savior born again? Please come back and join us again, and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.