Our Savior, the Lord Jesus, has accomplished everything related to our salvation. It is very easy for a person to be saved; he needs only to believe and receive. The Lord’s salvation is like a rich feast; it can be received by coming forward to eat, drink, and enjoy.
Man’s concepts concerning salvation, however, are very different from God’s way of salvation. In order for the Lord Jesus to accomplish salvation, He had to be incarnated as a man. The glorious Lord in heaven became a lowly man on earth, and He set aside His position as God. The Bible also says that though He was rich, He became poor for our sake (2 Cor. 8:9). He passed through thirty-three and a half years of human living on the earth, experiencing all the hardships of human life. Then He suffered man’s persecution and God’s judgment on the cross (Mark 15:25, 34; Isa 53:10). He gave up His body and shed His precious blood. He was buried, and He entered into Hades (1 Pet. 3:18-19). After three days and three nights He resurrected from the dead, ascended to the heavens, and completed the accomplishment of God’s plan (Acts 5:30-31). In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit to be our real and living Savior (1 Cor. 15:45). In order to accomplish salvation, He went through many steps; this matter is too great and too rich.
Even though the accomplishment of God’s salvation was not easy, it is easy to receive His salvation. Man needs only to believe in order to receive this salvation. God requires nothing more of us because He has already accomplished everything for us. We can obtain salvation simply by receiving it. There is no constraint of time or limitation in space related to receiving salvation. Regardless of place, time, or person, those who receive the Lord Jesus receive God’s salvation; this is the way of salvation that God has ordained.
However, man’s concepts are completely contrary to God’s way. Even though we know that God’s salvation is received by faith, we still have many concepts about God’s requirement for receiving salvation. These concepts create additional conditions for salvation, which, in turn, hinder many people from receiving the Lord; hence, we need to consider some of them. As spiritual physicians, we have encountered various types of people who have heard the gospel. For example, I recently visited a brother who believed in Jesus. During my visit I asked, “Have you believed in Jesus?” He replied, “I have believed.” Then I asked him whether he had the assurance that he was saved. He hesitated and said, “I have believed, but I still do not pray enough.” His response showed that he had a concept that prayer was related to salvation. Rather than arguing with him, I opened the Bible and read John 3:36, which says, “He who believes into the Son has eternal life.” Then I asked, “Are you a believer?” He acknowledged that he was a believer. After he said this, I asked him, “If you are a believer, do you have eternal life?” To my surprise, he again spoke of his lack of prayer. This shows how difficult it was for him to drop his concept. At this point I said, “Your Bible must be different from mine because, according to your understanding, it says, “He who believes into the Son and prays much has eternal life?” He quickly opened his Bible to see whether it was different, but, of course, he could not find his thought in the Bible. After spending more time with him, he dropped his concept.
As a further example, I once met a lady who attended gospel meetings at a stadium for a period of five to six days. At the end of this time, I asked her, “Have you believed in Jesus?” She said, “After hearing the gospel, I felt very good, but I am still not so zealous.” Thus, I had to deal with her concept about the need to be zealous. I told her that the Bible does not say, “He who believes and is zealous has eternal life.” It helped her to know that the Bible says only, “He who believes has eternal life” (John 6:47). Between “believes” and “eternal life,” there is no further requirement for things such as prayer and zealousness.
I also have encountered some who say that they have believed but do not have the assurance of salvation because they are not faithful in their tithing. One person even said that he believed in the Lord Jesus but that he was not assured of his salvation because he did not have much money to give to the Lord. He said, “I do not have much money to donate. I go to weekly services, but I have not given any money because my income is limited, and I am in debt. If the Lord has pity on me and allows me to make more money, I will donate some money.” In his concept there was a relationship between tithing and the assurance of salvation. He had a concept that only those who believed and donated money had eternal life. He had the thought that, in addition to believing, donations were needed in order to have eternal life.
When a married woman was asked whether she believed in the Lord, she said, “Yes,” but when she was asked whether she was saved, she began to cry, saying, “I lost my temper this morning.” Her tears indicated that her concept of salvation involved both believing and not losing her temper. The concept that something in addition to believing is needed for salvation can also include the matter of Bible knowledge. A college professor once told me that even though he believed from his heart and prayed, he had not read through the Bible once. Then he said, “Since I still do not understand the Bible, I am not yet saved.” According to his concept, reading the Bible came after believing but before eternal life.
In response to those who have a concept about reading the Bible, I sometimes say, “If you have to wait until you understand the Bible in order to be saved, who can be saved?” I have believed in the Lord for nearly thirty years, and I read the Bible every day. However, the more I read, the more I do not understand. Who can say that they understand the Bible completely? If we have to wait until we thoroughly understood the Bible in order to be saved, there is no possibility of anyone’s being saved and having eternal life.
A brother who was a doctor once met an elderly woman in the hospital. This brother was very zealous, and he was burdened that she believe in the Lord. He asked her whether she had ever heard the gospel, and she responded with a smile that she believed in Jesus. When he asked her how long she had believed in Jesus, she said that she had been a believer for many years and even prayed to Jesus every day. However, when he asked her about the assurance of her salvation, she frowned and said, “I believe in Jesus, and I pray to Him every day, but I do not know whether I am saved. I must wait until I die and see Jesus. If He approves of Me, then I will know that I have eternal life. If He does not approve, I will not have eternal life.”
In response to her word, the brother asked her to recite John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” Then he asked, “Have you believed in Jesus?” She said, “I have believed.” Then he asked further, “Do you have eternal life?” She said, “I do not know. I must wait until I die and go to be with the Lord, and if He approves of me, then He will give me eternal life. If He does not approve of me, He will reject me.” Even though she had believed in Jesus for many years, was zealous, prayed frequently, and could recite Bible verses, she still had no assurance of her salvation. When this brother heard her response, he turned to the Lord for a way to help her. Then he asked her to recite John 3:16 again and again. She recited the verse until her irritation was evident. Then the brother said, “You have recited your version of John 3:16 incorrectly.” She was astonished by his word and asked, “How can I be wrong? I have recited it since I was a little girl. If I am wrong, you should recite it for me.” Based on her request, the brother said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him must wait until he dies and goes to meet the Lord Jesus to know whether he has eternal life.” She angrily replied, “John 3:16 is not that long.” Then the brother asked, “Then how long is it?” She replied, “John 3:16 only says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.’” Then the brother immediately asked, “Have you believed?” She said, “I have believed.” When he then asked her whether she had eternal life, she could not repeat her concept about waiting because it did not correspond to John 3:16. Then she immediately realized that those who believed into Him had eternal life. Many people have similar concepts. Even though they say that they have believed, they also speak of not having a firm faith, of not being able to meet regularly, of not being able to pray, or of having a difficult time dropping their old habits. Even if we spoke for many days, we could not exhaust all such concepts.