Words of a Fether

Have you ever wondered what happens next, after this life?

Some say you just keep coming back in different bodies, maybe even as an animal or plant or rock. Others say you just stop existing, you just disappear, or you get absorbed into some cosmic consciousness. But the Bible says there is a real heaven and a real hell, and you’ll go to one place or the other for all eternity.

God says that where you will spend eternity is decided by what you believe. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not about what you’ve done or how good or bad you may be, but what you believe about Jesus Christ that decides where you’ll go. So what do you have to believe in order to get into heaven?

• God Himself, YHWH (means “I am”, the Self-Existing One) who exists as three “persons”, sent one “person” to earth in the form of a human being, and he was given the name Jesus.
• Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life we could never live, then sacrificed himself on a cross to take away all mankind’s separation from God.
• Jesus rose from the dead physically, in a new immortal body, and will someday return for us.

Although Jesus “took away the sin (rebellion against God) of the world”, only those who put their trust in him get into heaven. To put your trust in someone is to have a deep conviction about them, to “put all your weight” on them. You can’t just say “I believe Jesus is God who died for us and rose again”, you have to understand, believe, and accept this. You don’t just believe about him, you believe in him.

God wants you to choose to spend eternity with him in heaven. He offers this choice to you freely– entry into heaven is a gift. But although the gift is available to all, only those who accept it will receive it. And we receive it by understanding who Jesus is and what he did. If you are convinced that Jesus is God and accept the fact that He died for all sin and then rose from the dead, you are saved. No doubt about it, you’re in!

If you are newly saved, get a Bible and read it, and find some experienced Christians to help you grow spiritually. You also might want to check out some good Christian teaching such as available here. You probably have many questions, and that’s what this site is all about, to help you find the answers.

But don’t think that an easy life awaits you. This life is a temporary testing ground, and the test is not always pleasant or easy while you are taking it. But the reward is eternal happiness to come. So don’t put off deciding whether you believe in Jesus or not; decide today!

Expanded Explanation of Salvation

Romans 3:23	All have sinned.
Romans 6:23a	The penalty of sin is death.
Romans 5:8	While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 10:9	But Christ is alive; he came back from the dead.
Romans 6:23b	The gift of God is eternal life in heaven.
Acts 16:31	Put your trust in Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
2 Peter 3:9b	He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to go to hell.
1 John 5:13-15	God hears us.

What Is Salvation?

The word “salvation” means to be saved. Saved from what? An eternity in hell– hell is eternity’s “prison”. It is a place of punishment and separation from everything good: light, companionship, rest, happiness. No matter how you lived your life, if you’re in hell you’re there for one reason, and one reason only: you didn’t trust Jesus to save you. Forget “but what about…”, “but why…”, “but it isn’t fair…”. You either trust Jesus to save you, or you don’t. Everything else is just a matter of degree, not location.

Why We Need Salvation

We are all mortal; that is, we have inherited “corrupt flesh” that will eventually die. This is the curse all life was placed under because of Adam’s sin (Gen. 2:16-17, Romans 5:12, 8:21-22). But it also broke the relationship between God and Adam (which is the spiritual or figurative “death” that happened immediately), so all who sin are also separated from God and cannot enter heaven. This does not mean we can’t ever do anything good or comprehend the Gospel message, just that to be out of relationship with God is to be in relationship with evil; we are “dead” to one and “alive” to the other.

A broken relationship requires both parties to reconcile willingly. God has done his part by providing a sacrifice on our behalf: Jesus became human and sacrificed his innocent life to pay for ours. Since he committed no sins of his own, he was qualified to offer his life as a ransom for ours. He is also qualified because he, being God, was the one offended. Therefore we can’t earn what has already been paid for; salvation is a gift. The only thing remaining to restore the relationship is for each person to accept by faith Jesus as Savior, and believe that God raised him from the dead.

How to be Saved

There is nothing that can keep you from reserving your place in heaven right now! The Bible says that if you put your trust in the Jesus of the Bible to save you, you can rest assured that you have a reservation in heaven that you can’t lose. So what do you have to believe in order to get into heaven?

• That God Himself, YHWH (means “I am”, the Self-Existing One), came to earth in the form of a human being, and he took on the name Jesus (”God With Us”).
• That he lived the perfect, sinless life we could never live, then sacrificed himself on a cross to take away our separation from God. He did this for all mankind.
• That he rose from the dead physically, in a new immortal body, and will someday return for us.

1 John 5:12-15 says that anyone who accepts that gift has eternal life, and that they have it with confidence. Not might have, or have for a while, but have eternally. Ephesians 4:30 says that when we believe, we are sealed. 2 Cor. 5:5 says that believers have God’s Spirit in our hearts as a “deposit guaranteeing our inheritance”. Where do “works” or “deeds” fit in? They are the result of salvation, not the cause of it.

The Bible says that even demons “believe” in God, so why aren’t they saved? Because not only do they obviously not want to be in God’s presence forever, they have not been offered salvation as humans have. And look at the Jews of Jesus’ day: they believed in the One True God and had his scriptures (the Old Testament) and followed all God’s laws, yet Jesus’ disciples told them they had to “repent” (means to change one’s mind) and accept Jesus as the risen Messiah in order to be saved. Before Jesus, God tolerated ignorance to some degree, and Jews were saved by their faithfulness in recognizing God and their own unworthiness, requiring sacrifices of animals. But after Jesus’ death and resurrection, salvation was only to be by faith.

So if you put your trust in Jesus alone to save you, you are saved. Period. Obedience will follow naturally out of your gratitude for salvation. You don’t have to work at salvation. Neither do you have to pray or ask for the Holy Spirit to come into your life and empower you to live for Jesus. He’s guaranteed to do that as an automatic result of your faith in Jesus.

Please also see this article on the alleged “sinner’s prayer”.

God didn’t have to reconcile to us, but offered himself for us out of his great mercy and love. But he won’t force us to accept him, not that he doesn’t have the power, but that Love never forces itself on anyone. He made it possible for everyone to be saved, but forces no one. In accepting the free gift of salvation, we are not saving ourselves at all. A gift is not a wage. Nothing can be both a gift and a wage. I didn’t earn any part of my salvation, because it’s impossible to merit or earn a gift. I did not deserve or earn it, but I am free to make a choice about whether or not to accept it.

Some claim that “everybody’s going to heaven”, but available salvation is not the same as accepted salvation. We have no part in our salvation, but we can choose to accept it or reject it. In so doing, we are not working with God, we are simply accepting him. When a man proposes to a woman, he is motivated by love to spend money on a ring. He then offers this ring he paid for to her, not requiring her to accept it, but simply offering it. She is free to choose either way. In accepting it, she has not “earned” it or had any part in its purchase. So it is with salvation.

Some therefore claim that this makes God look weak, like he’s sitting helplessly in heaven hoping people will accept him. But that shows only the failure of people to understand the nature of salvation. Jesus did not fail in dying for the whole world in spite of so few actually getting saved. No, his dying made salvation possible. We are saved by faith in who he is and what he did.

What Is Sin?

The first basic teaching we see in the Bible is about the origin of sin. There are many definitions with very subtle shades of meaning, but simply put, sin is rebellion against God. Adam and Eve were innocent when they were created, but created “in the image of God”. What does that mean? Scholars differ, but personally I think what the Bible means is that we are free moral agents, just as God is. No, we’re not equal to God, just like him in some respects. I can hear the philosophers screaming, but this is one of those concepts that must learn to bow to the Bible. Would God have instructed “robots” to leave the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” alone? What would be the point of telling people without self-will that there would be “a substantial penalty” (death) if they disobeyed?

Adam and Eve were not created with a “sin nature”, because God is not the author of sin. So what made them sin, when they were not “programmed” to do so? If people with no inherited capacity to sin could sin, then how can anyone blame our nature for sin? Or to put it another way, if we sin because it’s our nature, then what made Adam and Eve do it? Those who believe in an inherited sin nature have no answer for this without blaming God for sin.

The answer is free moral agency. Adam and Eve had the capacity to sin simply because they had the power of choice. As the knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade put it, they “chose poorly”. God’s nature, which is perfect and from which we get the very concepts of justice, fairness, holiness, and love, could never curse people for doing that which they had no choice but to do. Robots don’t sin, free moral agents do.

So what exactly happened when the first sin was committed, an event which is commonly called “the Fall”? What fell, and from where?

Before sin entered the world, man enjoyed direct communion with God. Man was in a state of moral innocence, much like children even today. But the moment he freely chose to disobey God was the moment that innocence was lost. This was part of the price of knowing good from evil. But it also erected a barrier between God and man, a legal separation that broke the spiritual communion they had shared: God had been offended, and restitution would be required. In addition, physical death entered the world– not just to people but to all of creation. On top of all that, God pronounced specific curses on the ground (because of Adam) and on the serpent, and predicted (not commanded!) women’s oppression. That’s what “went down”. It would be more accurate to call that first sin “the Wall” than “the Fall”.

The Bible knows nothing of the concept of inherited sin or inherited guilt. It simply isn’t there. After all, if we can inherit sin then we can also inherit righteousness (means not being charged with sin). So since righteousness cannot be inherited, then neither can sin. What we inherited was corrupt flesh, that is, we are mortal; we die physically. We have all been born into a corrupt world, a world of death and decay and temptation. But God knew this would happen, and he already had a plan in place to deal with it. After all, since God is love yet is also holy, there needed to be a way to satisfy both aspects of his nature. To simply ignore what had happened would violate his holiness, and yet to leave man in a spiritually separated state would violate his love.

What Is Judgment?

Judgment is all about earning wages, about paybacks for things we did. This has nothing at all to do with deciding between heaven and hell, but only what happens after we get there. Salvation is a gift; judgment is the wage we earn for things we did.

Christians who die go directly to heaven to be with the Lord. They will be judged and rewarded according to their “works”– their deeds done in this life. Some will have had many and be greatly rewarded, while others will have none and get no rewards. The unrighteous dead, those who did not admit guilt before God and dependence upon him to save them, will also be judged according to their works. It will be a judgment to determine punishment. “Good” people will suffer little while “bad” people will suffer much. Justice will at last be done and evil avenged.

What about those who never knew about God or Jesus?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that every person, regardless of knowledge of the Gospel, has an inner moral code. No human can claim to have never violated that code, so all are guilty of sin. People also know that Someone must have created the universe. But being aware of a problem and knowing what to do about it are two different things.

The rest of the answer lies in the believer’s role in spreading the Gospel. In both Testaments God commanded his followers to tell everyone about Him, and the Bible speaks of the failure of his people to carry out this command. Consider these verses of scripture, and see whether God charges his people to bring knowledge of him to others (Ez. 3:18, 33:8, Hosea 4:6, Mt. 11:23, 23:13, Luke 10:2, Rom. 1:21-25, 10, Eph. 2:12). We believers will be held accountable for our failure to warn them and preach the Gospel. There is no other, and no greater, motivation for spreading the Gospel. The fact that we are commanded to evangelize the world means that it must be necessary. (see also This Link for more discussion)

Some will say that those who never hear the Gospel can be saved by living up to whatever religious “light” they have. But the consequence of this is that it would be better to never tell them the Gospel! Why take the risk of having them reject it when they can be saved by sincerely practicing their own religion? What other reason could God have had for commanding us to tell the whole world the Gospel?

So why didn’t God choose to directly spread the Gospel instead of leaving it up to people? Look at Genesis 4:6-7, where God Himself directly “witnesses” to Cain. It shows that people will reject the Gospel even if it is told to them by God Himself. Or why did God bother with all this and not just create robots to populate heaven? God created us in his image, as free moral agents, because only such beings, not robots, are capable of real love. God values our freedom to choose to love him or not more than our comfort.

The bottom line, though, is this: Do we trust God or not? Do we think we are more just, more fair, more compassionate than he is? God will do a perfect job of deciding where people wind up and what conditions they have there. He is not obligated to explain every mystery before we trust or follow him. He is God, and we’re not.

Some people think they will get a second chance, but that would be like a teacher letting students change their test answers after the tests are graded. Is that fair to the students who studied hard and earned a good grade? Some people think a “loving God” wouldn’t send anyone at all to hell for any reason, but how loving is it to send both the murderer and the victim to heaven?

The fact is, heaven belongs to God so he has the right to say who gets in. You can hate him for not doing things your way, standing in judgment of the One who created you and gave you life (how should he have asked your permission to create you before you were created?), or you can humble yourself, swallow your pride, and bow to him. Is that really too much to ask? Is defying God really worth an eternity of suffering?

Summary: Salvation Q and A

Q What was The Fall?

A Adam willfully rebelled against God, so God pronounced curses on the physical world. Also the innocent (an animal) was killed to cover the sin of the guilty (Adam).

Q Was man’s spirit/nature corrupted, making “divine election” necessary for anyone to be saved?

A There is no mention of this at the Fall. In fact, after the Fall, God reasoned with Cain not to kill Abel, saying he had the ability to resist sin. Cain had a choice to make, which would not be true if he were unable to resist sin. Would God “witness” to a “dead” man, exhorting him to choose wisely? Or would God witness to someone he had already decided to condemn? There is no evidence that Cain was forced by his nature to sin.

Q What is “original sin”?

A Depends on who you ask! Some will say that it means man’s nature “died” and thus all people are born “spiritually dead”. But if spiritual death can be inherited, then so can spiritual life. In other words, if we inherit a dead, corrupt nature from our parents, then what about the children of the saved? Do they inherit a saved nature? You can’t have inheritance for one but not the other; either spiritual attributes are inherited or they are not.

Others say it means that man’s spirit was given a weakness for sin that it did not previously have, making man’s spirit not “dead” but “sick”. Yet this same capability of sinning existed in Adam even before he “fell”, since he was a free moral agent. Personally, I believe “original sin” is simply “the first sin”, the one that opened the door and brought death to the physical world.

Q Why did God make people as free moral agents, knowing it meant they could possibly sin?

A The answer is love. We would not be able to love God if we were puppets or robots. Only free moral agents can truly love. Love requires freedom to choose, which has to include the option of not to love. One cannot “choose” love (or anything else) without an alternative. So free moral agency must allow the possibility to sin, but it does not guarantee or cause sin.

Q The Bible says that death came through sin. If babies are born innocent, then why do they sometimes die?

A Adam’s sin brought a curse upon all the physical world, including animals and plants, which obviously are incapable of sin and are therefore innocent. So while innocent babies can die physically, their spirits would automatically go to heaven by virtue of not having a broken relationship with God. Since all physical life became mortal (destined to eventually die), all offspring would pass this mortality to each succeeding generation, because the mortal cannot produce the immortal; it’s a fact of physical life. We suffer the physical consequences of that first sin, but not the guilt.

Q The Bible says that Jesus took away the sins of the whole world. Does that mean everyone goes to heaven, good or bad?

A Taking away our sin is not what saves us, it’s only what makes our salvation possible (legal). What saves us is faith in the one true God, specifically faith in what Jesus did for us in taking away our sin (the wall of spiritual separation). Between the Fall and the Cross, salvation was still by faith in the one true God as evidenced by the Jewish symbolic sacrifices: the person admitted his guilt, which was “transferred” to the innocent animal. This is a clear symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, for all sins. We each must individually put our trust in Jesus and thereby admit our need for his sacrifice.

The Bible frequently, but not always, draws a sharp distinction between Jesus’ sacrifice and our faith in it. It is the failure to recognize the importance of our individual faith that leads to the heresy of Universalism (everybody’s going to heaven) or Predestination (a fatalistic view that rejects personal faith exercised by a free moral agent).

Q So if all the world’s sins have been taken away, then what are people judged for at the end of time?

A Salvation is about where you will spend eternity, nothing more. Your destination is determined solely by faith: if you believe Jesus is God who took away your sin and rose from the dead, your destiny is heaven; if not, your destiny is hell. There is absolutely no other factor in deciding which it will be. How you lived your life has no effect on it, but only faith. Presumably, if you get saved you will live accordingly, but spiritual growth after salvation is largely a matter of individual choice. If it were not up to us at all, the Bible would not be filled with so many verses telling us to grow, mature, study, etc. And the Bible says clearly that some who wind up in heaven will have no “works” at all to their credit; if works of any kind were a required part of salvation this would not be true.

Now about judgment. Think of it as a “payoff”, a reward or punishment for what you did in this life. Since salvation is a gift and judgment is an earned wage, judgment can have nothing to do with whether we’re saved. Here is an illustration (based on Jesus’ parable of the “sheep and goats”).

This life is like a teacher giving a test to a classroom full of students. There is a critical pass/fail checkbox (faith in Jesus or not), and many other secondary questions. When the papers are graded, the ones with the box checked are placed in one pile, and the others in another pile. The students who didn’t check the box are sent to jail. Their answers to the secondary questions will determine how bad of a cell they’ll be placed in. But the students who checked it are sent to a resort. Their answers to the secondary questions will determine how nice of a room they’ll get.

What happens the moment we are saved?

declared righteous	Romans 3:28, 4:5, 24, 5:1, 9, Gal. 3:24, Phil. 3:9
become children of God	Romans 8:14-17, Galatians 3:7, 26
clothed with Christ	Galatians 3:27
belong to Christ, not ourselves	1 Cor. 6:19-20
heirs according to the promise	Galatians 3:29-4:7
the flesh was crucified	Galatians 5:24
redemption through Jesus’ blood, forgiveness of our sins	Eph. 1:5
became God’s own possession	Eph. 1:11
sealed with the Holy Spirit who guarantees our inheritance	2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:13-14
made alive with Christ	Eph. 2:5
raised up and seated with Christ in heaven	Eph. 2:6
brought near to God, have peace with God	Romans 5:1, Eph. 2:13
citizens of God’s household	Eph. 2:19
sealed for the day of redemption	Eph. 4:30
buried and raised with Christ	Romans 6:4-6, Col. 2:12
made alive and forgiven	Col. 2:13
died but life now hidden with Christ in God	Col. 3:3
protected from the evil one	2 Thes. 3:3
given eternal life	Romans 6:23, 1 Timothy 1:16, Titus 3:7, 1 John 2:25, 5:12-13
set free and purified	Titus 2:14
born again	Titus 3:5, 1 Peter 1:3,23
given an imperishable reservation in heaven	1 Peter 1:4
ransomed	1 Peter 1:18
kept from falling	1 Cor. 10:13, Jude 1:24
are God’s temple	1 Cor. 3:16
washed, sanctified, justified	Romans 3:24, 1 Cor. 6:11
are a new creation	2 Cor. 5:17

From that list it’s obvious that you can never lose your reservation in heaven. The moment you choose to trust him, God does things for you that cannot be undone. Once you have been assigned an inheritance, there is nothing you can do to change that; you cannot disinherit yourself, and God will never disinherit you. Even if you do nothing with your inheritance you can never give it back. When someone puts down a deposit on an item, it is a guarantee of eventual full payment. But if the payment is not made, the person cannot have the deposit back. Likewise, it is God who put down a deposit on each saved person, and that deposit (the Holy Spirit) can never be taken back. (But of course God will not fail to make the “full payment” either, which is eternity in heaven.)

A gift is a one-time event; a ticket to heaven is a one-way trip. Your faith gets you saved, but it’s not what keeps you saved. It is God who keeps you saved, and God who guards your faith.

But there are things you can lose: rewards. A believer who just sits on his inheritance, never investing it or paying any attention to it, will get no rewards. This may be good enough for some people, whose goal is only to get in the door. But others, who in gratitude for salvation invest it and make good use of it, will be given great reward.

A word of caution: loss of rewards is a big deal! So don’t treat your salvation lightly; don’t just sit on it and let it rot. Keep your nose in the Bible and your eyes on Jesus.