Not-so-simple Salvation

Before I became a Christian at age 20, many Christians told me salvation was simply a matter of belief. They would quote John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

But it’s not quite that simple. James 2:19 says: “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” James is telling us that mere intellectual assent to certain biblical truths is not enough to save us. Here’s what Paul says in Romans 10:9-10:

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

For Paul, the first step to salvation is to sincerely believe in Christ’s resurrection, which is the cornerstone of Christianity and the ultimate proof of Jesus’ claims of divine status. When we believe in our hearts that Christ was raised from the dead, we are acknowledging him as God.

Step 2 is to act on that belief through an honest confession that Jesus is Lord—not merely a lord, mind you, but our Lord. In doing so, we surrender ourselves to Christ and submit to his Lordship over our lives.

In Luke 6:46 Jesus said, “Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” He immediately adds that “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them” (Luke 6:47, emphasis added) are like the man who builds his house on a firm foundation, whereas those who fail to act on his words are like the man who foolishly builds his house without a foundation.

Salvation requires more than mere belief that Jesus is the Christ. The demons believe that, too (in fact, they know it to be true). To be saved, we must act on that belief by submitting to Jesus as Lord. To do that, we must live like we believe it. That doesn’t mean God expects us to be perfect, or that we have to attain perfection to be saved. It just means we have to try to do what Jesus told us to do: love God above all else and love others like we love ourselves.

God will forgive our repeated mistakes and failures so long as we are sincerely making the effort, but we do have to at least try.