What did Jesus teach about salvation?

Verse 24 is a blessed Gospel text. Hearing and believing are the conditions to receive eternal life. There is no mention made of repentance. The word "repent" so prominent in the Gospel of Matthew in the Kingdom offer is not found once in the fourth Gospel. Faith and repentance, however, are inseparable. He that hears His words and believeth Him that sent the Son also repents. Again eternal life is spoken of as a present possession, "hath" not "shall have" or "shall receive later," but "hath eternal life." And with that gift comes deliverance from judgment. The reception of eternal life is a full acquittal; passed from death and all it means, into life.

Life. — And now He, who had the authority to judge, and the power to enforce the execution of His sentence, speaks in a different key, unfolding teaching about grace and salvation, prefacing it with those words, which as to their repetition is restricted to this Gospel, and throughout it are the utterance of the Lord Jesus Himself. "Verily, verily, I say to you, He that hears My word, and believes Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment [not, condemnation]; but is passed from death to life" (24). He had spoken of all judgment being committed to Him. Now He would have every one hear what is the way of escape from it. How fitting and how encouraging is this! The Judge Himself tells us how we may escape the judgment. Who so fitting as He thus to speak? And if He thus speaks, what sure ground we stand upon, when we take Him at His word, and do what He says! To hear His word, He says; then it will not do to oppose Him. To believe Him (not, on Him) that sent Him. That takes us to the written Word. These are the conditions set before the creature. To have, 1st, as a present possession everlasting life; 2nd, never to come into judgment; and, 3rd, to have passed from death to life, — these are the blessings here offered without money and without price.

As to the believer the Lord makes it most certain. He says, "Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, [it should be,] but is passed from death to life." Have your ears been opened to hear the words of Jesus? Have you been brought, through grace, to believe God who sent His Son? Then the Lord Jesus assures you that you have eternal life; that you shall not come into judgment; that you have passed from death to life. Why should you doubt Him? He further says, "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which sees the Son and believes on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day?" only there must be faith in His death, as well as in Him as the bread come down from heaven in His incarnation. "Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood, has eternal life." Nothing can shew more ignorance of His word, or spirit and truth, than to pervert these words of Jesus as though He spake of the bread and wine in the Lord's supper. It is receiving the fact of His death, the shedding of His blood, for our salvation. Whoso does this has eternal life.

The gospel finds man blind as to God's character of love, and morally dead in sin. It reveals God in the blessed Jesus. God is love. The cross — ah! there the sinner sees the goodness of God. The infinite love of God — what a sight! This, and this alone, leads to repentance, or, as the word in the Greek always means, a change of mind. When Jesus, saving from the curse of sin by the death of the cross, is revealed to the soul, there is then that change of mind toward God — that knowing God which is eternal life. This is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ — this is repentance toward God. It is only as I gaze on the cross of Jesus that I can either learn or feel what sin is. Blessed Jesus! Thy precious blood cleanses me from the guilt, and delivers me from the power, of sin! If I look back at my feelings or my doings, all is failure and sin; and hence, if these have aught to do with my salvation, all is darkness and uncertainty. But looking at the cross of Jesus my Lord, I find no failure. "It is finished." With all my coldness, and unworthiness, and sin, I do believe; and hence I can say I am saved. "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." My reader, if you have been brought to give up all dependence on self, your feelings, your sorrows, or your tears, then hear the words of Jesus. He says, "Verily, verily, I say to you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, HATH everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life." Again, He Says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand."

How awful the fact that every one of us is described in this verse. Yes, born in this very condition, and held fast prisoners by the devil, the god of this world — so fast that, however you, my reader, may desire to deliver yourself from the power of sin, you cannot. Every effort is utterly vain. I believe that such is the awful dominion that sin has over man, that if all the men in the world, and all the angels in heaven, were to unite to deliver one soul from the power of sin and Satan, they could not do it. I think I hear you saying, "If that's the case, I must have been dreaming. I thought a man could repent at any time, and give up his sins, and then God would forgive him; and so I have not been particularly troubled about it. I have thought there is time enough yet." My reader, if this is your thought, you could not well be under a greater mistake. How awful if you should go on in this fatal delusion until the door is shut, and you are lost! Now, come, try your plan. Try to repent — try to give up all your sins — try to love God with all your heart — try to keep His holy law. The effort, sincerely made, will soon convince you of your hopelessly sinful state; but even if you could succeed in such all effort, there would still be the fearful weight of past sins. No amount of bitter remorse could undo, or wipe away, one past sin. Judas is a solemn beacon as to this; he tried this way; but he found it the way to hell. Sorrow for sin is but a very small part of true repentance. Your mind must be entirely turned from sin to God. There is but one only way by which this can be done. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." To repent before you believe would be as if the bitten Israelite had to be healed before he looked at the brazen serpent. No, no. Faith in the love of God, as seen in the death of Jesus, alone can produce true repentance. The moment I believe in Jesus, my mind must be changed toward God. If you have been brought to look at Jesus lifted up on the cross, dying for your sins, and now lifted up to the highest glory — if He is your entire trust — you are, and shall be, certainly saved. "For through him is preached the forgiveness of sins; and all that believe are justified from all things." But if you have not looked, and do not thus look, on Jesus lifted up — if you are trusting in anything else — you are as certain, should you die in this state, to perish, as though you were just now in hell.

I presume that you are all satisfied there must be faith; but without the truth there cannot be faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Through faith comes eternal life; but eternal life, you must all acknowledge, is not the gift of man nor within the reach of man until the conscience is exercised by the word of God. But the moment the soul bows to Jesus in self-judgment, not merely as a worker of miracles but as the Son of God, come into this world to do these two great things - first of all, to give me a life that I have not, and, secondly, to take away the sins that I have (to remove all the evil that weighs me down, and to give me the very best that God has for me — eternal life in His own Son), then all is clear. The man is a believer. He has repentance towards God. He hates himself, judges himself, condemns himself out-and-out before God; yet none the less but the more does he look out of himself to the Son of man suffering for man's sins the Son of God given of God's grace. He has faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and he is a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

The appeal arose out of the question, Are those to be saved few? The prophets had intimated such a remnant in terms as searching as they were repulsive to Jewish feeling. The Lord's words are a direct dealing with conscience. "Strive earnestly to enter through the narrow door; for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and shall not be able." Men are ready enough to do or suffer much for salvation. They welcome a means which allows of their efforts if not deserts. But "ye must be born anew" is hateful, unless it be within their ability to hinge it on an ordinance, which works without bringing the soul into the presence of God. This is what men naturally dread and shirk. They refuse to face God about their sins. Anything but the repentance which accompanies believing Him that sent Jesus. For He treats man, moral or not, as alike lost, and insists that salvation is in none other than Him Whom man despised and crucified. "For neither is there any other name under heaven that is given among men whereby we must be saved." It is therefore by grace through faith; and this not of ourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works that none might boast. Hence strive earnestly to enter through the narrow door of being begotten by the word of truth. Entrance by any other way, however attractive, is vain and ruinous.

The Lord Jesus receives at night the visit of Nicodemus, a ruler and a doctor in the law, and He reveals to him the fundamental truth that to see the kingdom of God (v. 3) and to enter therein (v. 5), any man must be born again. To see the kingdom, the eyes of the understanding must be enlightened (Eph. 1 : 18), while to enter the kingdom, the door must be opened, and Christ is the door (John 10 : 7, 9). The new birth must be (spiritually speaking) by the water (emblem of the Word of God) and by the Holy Spirit. This necessary condition, thanks be to God, is all sufficient ; nothing more is required. Likewise, the Lord Jesus says of Himself that He must die,the Son of Man must be lifted up. Again, this necessary condition - the death of our Lord - is all sufficient for our salvation by faith () . The first truth (the new birth) refers to God's work within the believer, while the second truth (the Lord's death) refers to Christ's work for the believer, in favour of him. This distinction is fundamental ; the Scriptures distinguish always between propitiation and substitution. Salvation is offered "unto all" men, because of the allsufficiency of Christ's work, but imputed in righteousness only "upon all them that believe" (Rom. 3. 22).

The blessed Lord, the true and good Shepherd, declares that He is the door, the only way of access to God, the ONLY door, for any who desire salvation. He said, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." Thus we see that Jesus not only sought to convict these Pharisees of their blindness and falseness, but throws wide open the door to any who had a desire to enter in. There was not a soul who heard Christ's ministry that could go away and say, "There is no salvation for me;" for Jesus said, "By me if any man" — no matter who he is — "if any man enter in, he shall be saved." How simple this is! A door is not a long, dreary passage. A person only takes a single step to enter a door. My unconverted readers, you are outside the door. It is simply entering into God's presence through Jesus Christ His Son, who was crucified for sinners, but is now at God's right hand, and you are saved, and saved for ever. It is "by ME," said Jesus, not by feelings, nor by experiences, nor by good resolutions, nor even by good works, but by Christ. "By ME if any man enter in, he shall be saved." Oh the blessedness of having the Lord's authority for the assertion, that those of us who have entered into God's presence by Christ are saved! Can anything be more simple? I remember hearing of a poor sick woman, who was told by some ladies who visited her, that Jesus was the door into God's presence, and that there was no other way, and that all who entered in by Him were saved. She replied, "May I enter in in that way?" She was told, "Yes." "Then why not now?" said she; and, turning on her side, she simply looked up toward heaven, and taking God at His word, entered in by Jesus, and was filled with joy and peace.

Next, our Lord applies the same principle to the disciples; for now He has done with the outward question. We have seen nature in its best estate seeking Christ in a sense; and here is the result of it: after all the man is unhappy, and leaves Jesus, who now looks upon His disciples in their utter bewilderment, and enlarges on the hindrance of wealth in divine things. Alas! this they had thought to be an evidence of God's blessing. And if they were only rich, how much good might they not do! "How hardly," says Christ, "shall they that have riches enter the kingdom of God!" He further says to them, already astonished, "Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." The Lord insists only the more solemnly on this lesson, so little understood even by disciples. They, beyond measure surprised, say among themselves, "Who, then, can be saved?" which gives the Lord the opportunity to explain what lies at the bottom of the whole question; that salvation is a question of God, and not of man at all. Law, nature, riches, poverty — no matter what, that man loves or fears — has nothing in the least to do with the saving of the soul, which rests entirely on the power of God's grace, and nothing else: what is impossible for man is possible with God. All turns, therefore, on His grace. Salvation is of the Lord. Blessed be His name! with God all things are possible: otherwise how could we, how could any, be saved?