Salvation

For every believer, for every Christian the most important issue is salvation. Jesus said „for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it” and “not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven”. God, in these words, warns us that it is easy to stray from the right way, unless the one seeking God listens to His advice.

What road leads to salvation? Jesus is such a road, for he has said himself that “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”. Just how does following that path look like? What did Jesus say about that? The Gospels describe two situations when Jesus was directly asked about salvation. In the first situation, a rich young man asked: “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”, and Jesus replied: „keep the commandments” (Mt 19:16). The second situation was depicted in the Gospel of Luke: “a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”. This time, Jesus replied with a question: „What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”. That was a way of testing the lawyer’s knowledge. He wanted to put Jesus to a test, but ended up being put to a test of his knowledge. He said: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself”, and Jesus replied: „ You have answered rightly; do this and you will live” (Luk 10:25). Of course, there are many dicta by Jesus in the Gospels regarding how our life is meant to look like, what must we do and what we must avoid, and what should we beware of. In the Sermon on the Mount, He said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” and “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God” (Mt 5:3,8). The Jesus’ answers gave to the questions of both the young rich man and the lawyer suggest that the most important thing is abiding the God’s commandments.

Right now most people will probably say that it is impossible, because men are not capable of living according to the rules of the Decalogue. Apostle Paul has said that “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), and the punishment for sin is death, thus no one can be redeemed by compliance with God’s law. That is just a seeming contradiction. Living according to God’s law is not about obeying it throughout our entire life, from birth to death, but about obeying it from the moment of our spiritual birth, from the moment of accepting God into our life. Jesus, through his death, gave to every man the act of grace, on the basis of which sins that have been committed earlier are erased. All it takes is for us to accept that gift from God, and then living according to God’s law. Is it really that simple?

Interesting information on that subject is provided by the description of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus (Jn 3:11-21): „There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him’. Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.’”.

During that conversation, or actually at its beginning, Jesus answers a question which was not asked! Nicodemus probably came to Jesus to find out what determines whether a man is redeemed or not. Very quickly, he learned that in order to receive salvation, he must be born anew. Jesus has said: „Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (Jn 3:5). Nicodemus was a Pharisee and he knew the Old Testament very well, so all Jesus had to do was to show him the Mosaic Law in an adequate way. He pointed him towards the necessity of sacrificing ourselves and its adoption by men, through faith in Him. It is the faith in Christ, coupled with God’s mercy, that grants us the possibility of salvation, and Nicodemus understood that perfectly. Abiding the commandments is not a way to redeem oneself; it is a confirmation of choosing the right way. The prerequisite of gaining salvation is being born anew, both from the water and from the Spirit.

The conversation with Nicodemus took place in the early stage of Christ’s activity. For the next three years, He went for walks with his disciples, teaching and healing people, preaching the gospel.
During those three years he frequently talked about the question of salvation, for example during the Sermon on the Mount, but just before the Last Supper he explained it in detail to his disciples, the future apostles. The Gospel of John contains a detailed description of that lecture. It begins in the 14^th chapter. Similarly to the conversation with Nicodemus, which he started by categorically stating that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”, also here he clearly points to the right way that leading to salvation: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”. In the next verse, he declares to his disciples that they do not know Him, and thus they do not know God: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also”. Three and a half years of walking with Jesus, listening to his teaching and witnessing miracles, has proved to be too short a period of time. The Apostles believed in Jesus, believed that he was the Son of God. Paul has admitted that by saying “ You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Jn 6:68-69). But they have not known him and have not understood all of his teachings. Their problem was similar to that of some Jews who, despite believing in Jesus, have not believed the things that He said to them: “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him ... And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?” (Jn 8:31,46). It turns out then that you can believe in Jesus, but not listen to Him and not believe the things He has said. Accepting the Word is, however, necessary for salvation, for Jesus has said: „Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death” (Jn 8:51).

In the following statement Jesus mentions of the signs of true faith in Him: „ Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also… If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. If you love Me, keep My commandments” (Jn 14:12,14-15). Thus, He stated that only through faith in Him can the sick be healed, demons can be driven out, and moreover faith gives the ability to request from God. Again, he points to the importance of obeying the commandments, but this time, he related them with the love towards Him. Next, Jesus has promised his disciples the sending of the Holy Spirit, and informing when it can be accepted – in order to accept the Holy Spirit, it needs to be seen and experienced. It’s derived from this sentence „the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him”. Can the Holy Spirit be seen and experienced?

Apostle Paul answers that question with an example: “ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom 1:20).  It appears that it can be seen and experienced, and the mind that God has given us is capable of doing that. The experiencing itself is not enough to accept the Spirit, or rather for the Spirit to come to a man.
 A love towards Jesus is needed, and that love can appear after the experiencing. It’s similar to the relations between people – when a man meet a woman, a love can emerge after some time has passed.
A love towards God is an invitation to the Holy Spirit. Jesus explains that in John’s 14:21 - „He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him”. Again, obeying God’s law was showed as a sign of love towards God. The second part of that sentence is a bit of a mystery. Jesus has said that man has to love God first and only then will God reciprocate that feeling and love man. Jesus explains that it is a special kind of love, a particular kind of relation between God and man. „If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (Jn 14:23). When the fruit of love towards God is a change in the way of living, consisting of repentance of sin, when the love towards God is causing reluctance to committing sin (for how can one hurt someone he loves?), that is when God, through the Holy Spirit, can come and live in the man, and that is what being born anew is about, that is what John the Baptist called “baptism in the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus also said: „But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (Jn 14:26).

In the 15th chapter, with the help of the vine and branches parable, Jesus pictures the continuation of man’s relation with God by saying that only abiding in Him allows to stay in the state of justice: „ He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). He also warns that accepting the Holy Spirit does not guarantee salvation, for “ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned” (Jn 15:6). Apostle Paul writes about that very clearly: „For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2 Pt 2:20-21). The comparison to the vine and branches is very good; obviously, everyone knows what happens to a branch separated from the vine. The restoration of that previous connection, that peculiar bond with the vine is almost impossible, and a branch that’s left without a constant access to life-giving juices, although for a short period of time capable of functioning on its own, will dry out and be burned. That comparison also proves that, just as that branch draws juices only from the vine that it is connected to, man, in a tight bond with God, can only feed on God’s nourishment. The Holy Spirit filters what reaches the man, and all the man has to do is keep a permanent connection with God.

At the end, one more quote: “the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations” (2 Pt 2:9). Being born anew does not cause temptations to no longer reach the man. I actually think that there are significantly more of them following it, but the presence of the Holy Spirit and Its power present inside a man are a sufficient protection against them.

(translated by Jakub Kujawa)