When asked about salvation, or the gospel, teachers, preachers, and seminary scholars will immediately refer to any number of scripture passages and then tell you what they think it means. And, I might add, they do it for good reason. The Bible is filled with teaching about this topic and if you read the Bible much they are hard to miss. Many people will select John 3 to make their case for salvation. It is a great chapter. I can’t get past John 1. That’s where I drive my stake in the ground.

The Gospel of John, the latest of the gospels, was written some 40 years after Jesus lived on earth and ascended to the Father. Most scholars agree the writer was John the disciple of Jesus from the great city of Ephesus. What a book! It begins with teaching about the divinity of Jesus, his eternal attributes, and ends with the resurrection. John covers only a few of the great miracles (Signs) of Jesus the God man and ends with these words in the 20th chapter.

“30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” This is the heart of the good news about Jesus and God’s work through Him for the sake of ungodly sinners. Being saved by believing doesn’t fit some denominational particulars and others will insist that there is much more. Before someone’s eyes bleed will you stay with me for a while?

Before we get wrapped up into a fury let’s take a deep breath and go back to a passage of scripture in John 1.

“¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

This is the way God saves sinners. It was true 40 or so years after Jesus left earth and went back to the side of the Father. It was true on the day of his resurrection, it was true on the day of Pentecost, and it is true today. He doesn’t have any other way to make a sinner fit for heaven. So…let’s take a look at what is said here.

“His own people” , the Jews largely rejected Him. Why? He didn’t fit their religious mold. Their merit based religious acts meant nothing to Him. When questioned by a member of the Jews’ highest court Jesus insisted that Nicodemus and everyone else needed to be born again. And how were they to do that? Not by another birth like the one he had already had but by simply believing, John 3:14–16

[14] And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, [15] that whoever believes in him may have eternal life

[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

How many times does God need to say it? You must grapple with this question. Is Jesus enough? Of course he is, but by thousands and millions of people, even religious people, just can’t accept that Jesus is enough. Many, many people, well meaning people, think Jesus needs some help. So they go through rites and rituals, they chant some words to impress upon God how faithful they are, they baptize, they adhere strictly to their group’s rules, they keep holy days, they stick to dietary rules, they give money, all in a failed effort to get God to like them more than he already might. And, listen carefully, it’s all a waste of time and proves to God that you don’t think what God accomplished in the doing and dying of Jesus is quite enough. So you reject his offer of believing in Jesus.

“All” who receive Him, “All” who believe have the God given right to become children of God. Not by the will of the “flesh”, not of the will of “man” but of God.

If you have not already, will you become the “Who” of John 1:12,13

The “who” received Him are the “who” that believed in Him are the “who” that become children of God and have been born again so they also have new life, eternal life, through the one who alone could say “I am the life”.

In Jesus,

Royce Ogle