Salvation

John’s gospel is constructed around a series of signs – seven in particular – that he masterfully employs to prove that Jesus is the Eternal Word who was from the beginning with God and was God, who was now made flesh and dwelt among us. The entire flow of John’s gospel is focused on a series of narratives exhorting the reader to come to a firm conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. This exhortation to believe is, subsequently, accompanied by a promise: all who come to believe in earnest that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, by believing, receive eternal life in His name. Accordingly, it would help to remember as well these words from chapter 1 where we are introduced to the major themes that John unfolds over the next 20 chapters. In 1:11-13 we read:

He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

From these words we could distill this core idea: all who believed in His name were born of God, that is, they received eternal life in His name “as a result of” their faith. But there is another idea here that is equally fundamental to John’s purpose, to Christian theology, and to our practical understanding even today. All who believed in His name were born of God, but that is a passive reality: “they were born.” The Author of our spiritual birth is not us but Christ – the One who gives us the right to become a child of God. This much then is elementary to our Christian understanding: there is but one way to eternal life: faith in Christ the Son of God. 

But our understanding of eternal life must include the fact that such life is granted by the Son of God. It is not something we achieve; it is something we receive. It is not something we work for; it is something already accomplished for us. Jesus alone is the one who gives eternal life. As He said in John 5:21: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will.”

One must distinguish between what must be objectively true for salvation to be possible and what one must personally embrace to be saved. No one can be, nor needs to be saved in the fullest sense of the term unless 1) God exists as Unity and Trinity; 2) humans are depraved, condemned, and perishing; 3) Christ was the virgin born, sinless, God Incarnate who died and rose again for our sins, ascended into heaven, is presently interceding for the saints, and is coming again to complete our redemption.

Those doctrines must be objectively true for salvation to be possible. But not all those truths must be explicitly embraced today for one to be saved. Minimally, one must believe that 1) God exists (Heb. 11:6); 2) that he is estranged from God because of his sins (Rom. 3:23); 3) that he is incapable of reconciling himself to God by any quality or quantity of self-effort (Rom. 3:20); and 4) that Jesus Christ, as God Incarnate (Matt. 1:23), is the perfect and only Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5-6) who died for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification (Rom. 4:24-25; 1 Cor. 15:3-4). 

Ultimately, the basic condition for receiving salvation for all morally accountable people in all dispensations is faith. But while the condition for receiving salvation has never changed, the content of the gospel of salvation has changed from its seminal introduction in Genesis 3:15. For example, the content of the gospel that Abraham believed is obviously different from the content of the gospel that one must believe today (Gen. 12:1-3, 15:1-6; Gal. 3:8). But Abraham’s response to the gospel he received is still the model response that we must follow today (Rom. 4:23-24). We must, like Abraham,  be fully persuaded that what God has promised, namely eternal life through faith in His Son (1 Jn. 5:10-13), He is also able to perform.