What Must I do to be Saved?

1 John 5:11-21, Keep yourselves from idols (06/11/21)

John is writing so that those who believe in Jesus may know that they already have eternal life.

And by the way, does my faithful prayer make it possible for somebody else to gain eternal life? This seems slightly out of sync with what we Protestants learned in Sunday School, which seems to be a little more every-man-for-himself. However, let's look at what John actually says. He's definitely talking about "eternal life" in vss. 11, 13, and 20; in vs. 11 he even clarifies, "God has given us eternal life, and this life is given through union with His Son." So I'm fairly confident that when he says "life" in vs. 16, he's still talking about eternal life, granted to the brother for whom I'm praying, in accordance with the will of God in vss. 14-15, which we saw way back in this study is that God wants to save everyone! Of course, some people would rather not be saved, and that's their privilege, as we also saw. Now, there seem to be different ideas about what the "sin leading to death" is. John Wesley says it's total apostasy; others say it's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; other people have made other suggestions. I say we don't know for sure, so we should err on the side of praying for any sinner, just in case. Starting with ourselves, of course, and working out from there.

Matthew 5:21-48, Exceed the requirements of the Law. (06/14/21)

God wants to save you and will take you no matter what you're like. Even though we are mercifully saved by grace with no work necessary on our part, however, there are some requirements after that. As near as I can tell, these requirements are not optional. Failure to do them won't (usually) get you unsaved, but it will require some embarrassing explanations on Judgment Day. Jesus reiterates the importance of the Law of Moses, but he also says that these are the minimum standards for his followers. God wants us to be like him.

John 14:15-26, Keep the commandments of Jesus. (06/15/21)

Jesus expects his disciples, including us, to observe his teachings. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

James 1:1-21, "Be slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to hear." (06/28/21)

Those of you who know me personally will be surprised: today I had the opportunity to make a smart-alecky remark, and I didn't. Do you suppose I am finally coming into line with James's advice to be quick to hear and slow to speak? Probably not, but maybe there's hope. James says that we should be be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Then we'll be in a proper spirit to welcome the message that is able to save our souls.

James 2:14-26, "Faith divorced from deeds is barren." (06/29/21)

If you really want to know what James is saying, read The Epistle of James: Proven Character Through Testing, by Zane C. Hodges. Meantime, here's an interesting tidbit. Most English translations of James 2:14 have something very like, "Can that faith save him?" In the first place, the Greek just says "faith," not "that faith." In the second place, the form of the question in Greek implies a negative answer. James actually says, "Faith can't save him, can it?" Well! A lot of people have a lot of trouble with that idea, as you well know, so they change the question. Hodges says you have to go back to the theme of James 1:21 to understand what's happening: "So strip yourselves of everything impure and all the evils prevailing around you, and in humble spirit welcome the message which when rooted in your hearts is able to save your souls." Hodges says, "This theme is the truth that obedience to God's Word can 'save' the life from the deadly outcome of sin .... Faith alone cannot do this. Works of obedience are completely indispensable." And just in case you think that James and Hodges are both mistaken, remember that Jesus said almost exactly the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount and in John 14.

Luke 18:1-14, Pray; Confess and seek forgiveness for your sins. (06/16/21)

Here are two parables from Jesus, both telling us what he expects from his followers. Pray for justice; but confess and ask for mercy. Don't forget fellow-reader Daryl's explanation of the difference: justice is when you get what you deserve, mercy is when you don't get what you deserve, and grace is when you get what you don't deserve. In these parables, the widow and the Pharisee both get justice – in exactly opposite ways! – and the tax-collector gets mercy.

Matthew 18:23-35, 6:12-15, Forgive the sins of others against you. (06/17/21)

Wikipedia says that Josephus says that the talent in use in Judea was the "heavy common talent." Apparently a talent was a unit of weight, not money, and could be either silver or gold (or, presumably, cheese). The talent came in royal and common versions, and each of those came in heavy and light forms. Since the price of gold and silver varies daily in our time, and since everybody has an opinion about which talent Jesus was talking about and how much it weighed, I'm having trouble figuring out the value of ten thousand talents. I am able to tell you this: it is a fabulous amount of money – much more than $10 million (closer to $10 billion) and with great emphasis on the fable in fabulous. It would have been impossible for the man who owed money to the king to ever pay it back! It's almost impossible to imagine how he could have run up such a debt. But this is a parable, and the point of the parable is that we owed an unimaginable debt to God, which we couldn't possibly pay back. We were mercifully forgiven by God's grace, and we must remember that when people who have wronged us ask for our forgiveness.

John 8:1-11 , "Go and sin no more." (06/18/21)

My dad used to say, "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times." One of the chief requirements for saved people is to quit sinning. And to quit again. And to quit again. Today we read about one of the times that Jesus said to a person he had saved from death, "Quit sinning."

John 5:1-15, "Sin no more." (06/21/21)

Here's another time that Jesus told someone, "Stop sinning," and another time that some translations omit a verse. In vs. 14, Jesus isn't saying, "Sin led to your paralysis"; he's saying, "The consequences of sin are much worse than paralysis." Verse 4, "For an angel occasionally descended into the pool and stirred the waters; and whoever got in first after the waters moved was cured of whatever disease he had," occurs in the later manuscripts. Presumably it was added as an explanation for readers who weren't familiar with the tradition about the pool of Bethesda.

Titus 1:1-4, 2:1-15, Sin is forbidden; good works are required. (06/22/21)

Paul connects our hope for eternal life to an absence of sin and the presence of good behavior in our lives. He gives a couple of reasons for this: first, we want to demonstrate that the critics of Christianity are mistaken, and second, we want to adorn the teaching of God our savior with good works. People are watching us all the time, brothers and sisters. Will they be attracted to the faith by our example?

Titus 3:1-15, Sin is forbidden; good works are required. (06/23/21)

A fellow-reader wrote to say about Titus 2:4-5, 9-10, "Guess the message has changed or we have mis-interpreted it."

Well, the question is, what is Paul's message? Some readers would take those verses, not to mention vss. 3:1, 10-11, quite literally, and they would conclude that wives should be subordinate, slavery is okay, and trouble-makers should be cast out. I don't think that is Paul's message, however. I think he's saying, as we see today, that God saved us "not for upright deeds that we had done, but in accordance with His mercy ... through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that we ... become heirs of eternal life in accordance with our hope. It is a message to be trusted, and I want you to be emphatic about these things, so that those who believe in God may be careful to take the lead in doing good ... Our people too must set examples of doing good, so as to meet the necessary demands and not to live unfruitful lives." (Bold italics added.)

Doing good is required at all times in all places. Paul is giving some specific examples to specific people, but "Examples of doing good" are situational, and our situation is different from theirs. Always read for the message as well as the words.

1 Timothy 6:1-21, Flee evil; pursue good. (06/24/21)

Keep your hold on eternal life by fleeing from temptations, snares, and foolish desires and constantly striving for uprightness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. Particularly avoid the problems that comes with being rich (and never forget that if you have access to a computer, you probably are rich). Love of money is a real problem. I see that Warren Buffett, 90, plans to donate 99% of his fortune. Since he has roughly $145 billion, he probably makes money faster than he can give it away, but I still think he qualifies as "open-handed and generous hearted." The rest of us should think about how we can also "continue doing good and being rich in good deeds," which includes careful stewardship of, and generosity with, our money.

Jude 1:1-25, Sin is forbidden. (06/25/21)

Jude introduces himself as "a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James," and in James 1:1, James introduces himself as "a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ." Both writers are brothers of Jesus (Galatians 1:19, Mark 6:3), but how humble they are! We should follow their example in this, in addition to following Jude's directions to not to sin while waiting for the mercy of Lord Jesus Christ to bring us to eternal life.

We studied this before in more detail.

James 4:1-17, Not doing good when you know how is a sin. (06/30/21)

This final subsection of our study on salvation is about the requirements for saved persons, and one requirement is doing what you know to be right. Knowing what is right and not doing it is a sin.

I've been in a long email discussion with a fellow-reader who is concerned that I'm falling into works righteousness in this section; another reader was concerned about that a few weeks ago. Mostly I'm just reporting what the Bible says; if you read very carefully and thoughtfully and then decide that I'm all wet, that's fine. But if you decide that I'm all wet because what I report that the Bible says doesn't agree with what you learned as a child in Sunday School, that's less okay. You have to read the Bible for yourself, but you also have to read the Bible for yourself.

I think we all agree that if you are saved, you will do good works: definitely not in order to be saved, but I also think not entirely because of being saved, but rather as part of being saved. We ignore vs. 2:26 at our peril: "just as" – i.e., in exactly the same way as – the body is dead without the spirit in it, faith is dead without good works in it. James says this also in vs. 20: faith apart from works is barren/worthless/useless/dead, depending on your translation. Faith and works are a package deal, and dead faith does not save.

1 John 2:1-17, Break with sin. (07/01/21)

John is writing to Christians, so presumably they have done whatever they had to do to be saved and inherit eternal life. We might expect that they have a lock on salvation and eternal life already, right? Well, John says that there's a couple of things they have to keep doing. First, they have to obey God's commandments in general. Second, they have to love one another and God, which is the specific, old and new, commandment. "Whoever perseveres in doing God's will lives on forever."

Luke 24:36-53, Proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus. (07/02/21)

Remember that this subsection is about what saved people ought to be doing, and one thing we ought to be doing is proclaiming the Gospel. What's that? You aren't a preacher or a missionary? Then think of some other things you might do. Can you be seen reading your Bible in public? Can you say, "I'm sorry, I can't be there on Sunday morning, because I go to church"? Can you wear a St. John's tee shirt while you're volunteering somewhere? One time when I was getting off of a plane, a gentleman offered to take my luggage, and of course I let him. He carried my luggage all the way to my next gate, where he handed me a card and went back in the direction we had come from. The card said, "This service has been performed for you in the name of Jesus Christ." Proclaim the Gospel.

John 13:12-17, 31-35, 14:15-21, "Love one another as I have loved you." (07/05/21)

So that's it, brothers and sisters. We've spent much of the past two years examining the question: "What must I do to be saved?" We learned that our ancestors in the faith have been asking that question for a few thousand years. We learned that God wants to save everybody – in families, tribes, and nations as well as individually. Sadly, we learned that we can reject God's offer of salvation, as many people have done before us. We learned that God's plan for salvation, and indeed the word "salvation," has aspects we don't normally think about – like physical well-being and abundant life – in addition to the eternal life we are so focused on. Most recently, we looked at how scripture directly answers this question and another almost identical to it, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Well, that's a lot of learning, and the details are hazy by now, so we'll finish up with just two simple things to remember: Love God; love your neighbor. Love God by keeping the commandments; love your neighbors by serving them.

John 15:1-17, "This is my commandment to you: love one another." (07/06/21)

Remain in union with Jesus Christ, and love one another as he has loved you and has commanded you to do. (As an aside, not remaining in Jesus leads to death; see vss. 5-6.)

1 Peter 4:8-19, "Keep your love for one another at full strength." (07/07/21)

I like John Wesley's comment on vs. 8:

He that loves another, covers his faults, how many soever they be. He turns away his own eyes from them; and, as far as is possible, hides them from others. And he continually prays that all the sinner's iniquities may be forgiven and his sins covered. Meantime the God of love measures to him with the same measure into his bosom. Just for this week, instead of complaining about each other's faults, maybe we should ignore them in the hope they they will ignore ours! And just for this week, maybe we should pray for each other's sins in the hope that they will pray for ours and God will forgive us. Then next week each of us can use the spiritual talent we have received in serving one another. These are all part of what it means to love one another.

2 John 1:1-13, "Let us love one another." (07/08/21)

John the Elder is either the same as or not the same as the apostle John and the John who wrote Revelation; your opinion is as good as anybody's. I tend to think they are all the same person, based on the emphasis on love and truth and (as far as my Greek is any good) the similarity of the Greek style. The chosen lady and her chosen sister are either the churches John is writing to and from or they are actual ladies; I think they're churches. Thus the children are either the members of these churches or actual children. Good news: the actual message of the letter (which we are reading in its entirety) is not in question. Walk in the truth. Love one another.

1 John 4:7-21, "God is love. He who loves God must also love his brother." (07/09/21)

Love God, love your neighbor, and have perfect confidence about the day of judgment.

More of What Must I do to be Saved

Point 1: God Wants to Save Everybody

Introduction

God Wants to Save Everybody - Corporately

God Wants to Save Everybody - Individually

Sometimes It's Hard to Separate Corporate and Individual Salvation

Point 2: You Can Reject God's Plan for Your Salvation (Not Recommended)

Examples in Scripture

More Examples in Scripture

Point 3: God’s Plan for Your Salvation is Broader than You Think

God Wants to Save Your Physical Life and Health

God Wants to Save Your Physical Life and Health (continued)

God Wants to Give You Abundant Life

God Wants You to Have Eternal Life

Point 4: How the Bible Answers the Question

Love God and Your Neighbor

Sin No More, Do Good, Love One Another

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