Even after 2000 years, Christians cannot agree on many of the teachings in the Bible. One major sticking point is the concept of heaven, and eternal life, and the question of whether or not faith alone in Jesus Christ offers a believer eternal life, and thus a ‘ticket’ to heaven. So, what’s the answer?
Can you get to heaven by faith alone? Yes, the Bible repeats many times that a believer in Jesus Christ can get to heaven by faith alone, and according to well-known pastor Dr. Charles Stanley, “There’s not a single verse in all of God’s Bible from Genesis to Revelation that even implies that you can get to Heaven apart from a saving faith in Jesus Christ.”
Charles Stanley, in his book, The Gift of Heaven, states that, eternal life is a gift from God. “It isn’t something we work for, something we pay for, something we worship for, it is a gift of God from God.”
Stanley continues. “All human beings are like God in one significant way. When you and I were born, we were born to live forever. Unlike God, we have a beginning, but like God, once our life starts, it is not going to have an ending. Eternal life is everlasting. It has no ending. It cannot be stopped.”
What Is Saving Faith?
According to Dr. Steven Waterhouse in his book on Bible doctrine, Not By Bread Alone, “Many scriptural texts present the only condition for salvation as being belief (synonyms:
trust and faith). In fact, there are over 150 New Testament passages where salvation is
conditioned upon believing alone.”
So what is salvation? According to Charles Ryrie in his book, Basic Theology, defines salvation as “saving from eternal death and endowing a person with everlasting life. The Lord Jesus Christ is the sole basis for that salvation.”
Saving faith is more than intellectual adherence to certain facts and is more than an emotional attraction to Jesus believing He can be of assistance in temporal trials. Yet having said this, it must be stressed that genuine saving faith involves activity on the part of all three main components of the human soul: intellect, emotions, and will.
According to Waterhouse, certain facts must be believed intellectually in order to trust Christ.
“A sinner must believe ‘that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.’ A sinner must believe ‘that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,’ This involves accepting Him as Lord in the sense of acknowledging His deity. A sinner must believe that Jesus Christ was sent from God and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who took upon Himself human flesh. Of course, the belief that one is a sinner and in need of help is implied in coming to Christ to find salvation.”
The believer’s emotions are key, as well. Though a person believes the gospel is factually true with his mind, “it is with his emotions that a person develops a conviction about the facts,” writes Waterhouse. The person must views the facts not only as true but also as an important need in his or her life.
“With emotions he gives assent to the value of the Gospel and believes in it in a personal (as opposed to a strictly theological) way. The facts are not only deemed true but also personally needful and relevant,” writes Waterhouse.
A person’s will must also be expressed in saving faith. “With the will a sinner chooses to place confidence (trust, faith, reliance, dependence) in Christ and His shed blood, believing in Jesus Christ and the cross for salvation,” writes Waterhouse. “It is the nature of saving faith that it also involves a choice to commit the soul’s eternal destiny to Jesus Christ and His perfect work upon the cross. The mind, the emotions, and the will, all play a role in genuine saving faith.”
But one major disagreement among denominations, church leaders, intellectuals, scholars, pastors and the broader ‘church,’ is whether or not saving faith must be accompanied by something else, such as ‘works.’
Dr. Waterhouse writes that adding additional requirements would cause the verses on faith to be incomplete and misleading. “Therefore, all terms that express a condition genuinely necessary for salvation (such as repentance) must be interpreted as to be compatible with a salvation based upon faith alone. Terms that cannot be made compatible with faith alone as a condition for salvation are used improperly and dangerously at best and, at worst, are sheer heresy. All Protestant theologians began with that basic tenet of the Reformation, sola fide, faith alone.”
The gospel appeal is not just to believe facts about Jesus or to believe that He can help us, but to believe in Christ, i.e., to personally trust Him. Saving faith exists when the will of a person commits the soul’s eternal destiny to Christ and the cross, i.e., by an act of the will a person chooses to place his confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross.
Brief List of Scriptures on Saving Faith
Although Dr. Waterhouse’s list is much longer, included here are 10 key texts where the Bible declares faith alone brings salvation:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” [John 3:16].
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” [John 5:24].
“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” [John 6:40].
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” [John 6:47].
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
[John 11:25-26].
Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name [John 20:30-31].
“[A]nd through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things…” [Acts13:39].
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household” [Acts 16:30-31].
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…[Rom. 1:16].
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law [Rom. 3:28].
What Saving Faith Is Not
An old argument states that a person, if she believes that there is a historical Jesus, must admit only one of three things to be true.
- Jesus lived, but His claims about being divine and the Son of God, are not true. This results in believing Jesus was a liar.
- Jesus lived, but Jesus’ claims were basically the ravings of a lunatic, someone who was delusional and not in control of his mental faculties.
- Jesus lived. He is the Son of God. He was born of a virgin, died on the cross, was buried, rose again, and is currently in heaven. He conducted miracles. He is who He says He is. His is Lord.
So, the choices are simple. Either Jesus was a liar, a lunatic, or He is Lord.
Where do you fall in your beliefs? If you’re in the camps of #1 or #2, then you do not have saving faith.
Believing in the existence of God is not saving faith.
Believing intellectually that Jesus lived is not saving faith.
Believing intellectually that Jesus performed ‘miracles’ is not saving faith.
Hoping that Jesus will rescue you or someone else, or save you from some challenge, misery or upcoming defeat is not saving faith.
Proclaiming that Jesus is King in hopes of some future benefit is not saving faith.
“A person who believes that Jesus Christ was a guru or that He was merely a great religious teacher does not have saving faith because he is not believing in the “Biblical Christ,” writes Dr. Waterhouse. “Nicodemus believed in the existence of God and that Jesus was sent by Him as a miracle worker, but the Lord told him that he still needed salvation. James reminds us that even demons intellectually believe in correct doctrine. Saving faith does indeed include a belief in certain key facts about Christ. Yet, saving faith is more than intellectual faith.”
The difference is the believer needs to care about a spiritual Savior from sin.
During Christ’s ministry while in the flesh, the crowds his presence generated were excited about him saving them from temporal problems, such as sickness, financial challenges or political upheaval. but there was no real spiritual interest in being saved from sin.
“They wanted a political savior, or a medical savior, or an economic savior, but not a Savior from sin,” writes Waterhouse. “Today a person may desire Jesus to save them from sickness, a broken relationship, combat, financial burdens, etc., and may genuinely believe He can help in such temporal problems. They may even be excited about it. Of course, it is neither wrong nor unwise to want help from Christ for these trials, but this type of faith by itself is not saving faith.”
Conclusion
The Biblical view requires that for any person to expect to go to heaven, they must have “saving faith.” And “saving faith,” which leads to salvation, requires the sinner to believe that Christ died for his/her sins, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and this involves accepting Him as Lord of their life. Nothing less is acceptable, nothing more is required.