Did you grow up knowing you needed a Savior? And ‘needed’ is spelled in capital letters. I suspect that unless your family was Pentecostal, the probability for most of we who were raised in mainstream churches didn’t. Baptists did though. Point being is that if you didn’t know… how do you know? What was your path that pointed you in the right direction?
My family were Good Methodists (sadly, not the John Wesley Methodists, the ‘modern day’ version) and were good church goers, involved in the life of the church. But ‘good’ is never good enough. Besides, scripture teaches that no one is good… only God. I know the Word teaches us that we all have no excuse not to know even if all we saw was nature. However, knowing there is a God, and a creator God at that, is still not enough. Scripture teaches that even the demons know there is a God (James 2:19).
Because Adam and Eve sinned and lost us our standing, who we were meant to be, we are now sinners born as fallen in a lost world. However, God had a plan (He always does) and He and His Son had a way to redeem mankind back into relationship. This is explained in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus:
“Jesus answered him, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless a person is born again [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified], he cannot [ever] see and experience the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God.” [John3: 3-5]“And there is salvation in no one else (speaking of Jesus); for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among people by which we must be saved [for God has provided the world no alternative for salvation].” (Acts 4:12)
This ends any defense of other ways to God. It also answers the question about what we need to do… and why. I’m beginning to think that my excuse for other people not accepting the free gift of salvation, that it was a lack of knowing or realizing and understanding. Not so sure anymore… I think it may be simply pride. We want to do what we want to do if we want to do it when and how we want to do it – our way. And our way gets us nowhere.
A Savior, the spotless Lamb, who was who He said He was and did what He did as evidence of who He was, would be the only acceptable atonement. Think about that. At no time did even the scent of sin lay on Jesus… He always was sinless and it would be our belief in, our acceptance of this – our faith – that would be our path back into relationship with the Father. And it takes little time for us to see that our own integrity, out own righteousness was tarnish, was as dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6). None of us would ever have the mark of an acceptable offering.
And then we read John 3:16-18
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
The reason, the method, the purpose… and the gift.
