Believe the Right Things! Say what?

And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." -John 8:23-24

Because the very heart of the Christian life is confessing faith in a person, Jesus Christ the Lord, it has been quite easy for some to push this truth out of all proportion and teach that faith in the Person of Christ is all that matters. John 3:16 is just the beginning not the whole of our Christian life. Yet so often we hear it on the radio, television and even car tags “Just believe & receive”. Who Jesus is matters not, who His Father was, whether Jesus is God or man or both, whether or not He accepted the superstitions and errors of His time as true, whether He actually rose again after or was only thought to have done so by His devoted followers, these things are not important, say the no creed believer. What is essential is that we believe on Him and try to follow His teachings.

What we read that is overlooked here is that the argument of Jesus with the Pharisees was over the question of who He was. His claim to be God spurred the Pharisees to fury. He could have cooled the fire of their anger by backing away from His claim to equality with God, but He refused to do it. And He further taught that faith in Him embraced a belief that He is very God, and that apart from this there could be no salvation for anyone.

To believe on Christ Jesus for our salvation means to believe the right things about Christ and His teachings. This is an essential and there is no escaping this.


Thank You, Lord, that You are Who You claim to be and that our salvation does indeed rest on a solid foundation. Don't let me ever back down from this essential truth of Who You are. Amen.

In His service,
As always, womswf&t
Sandy Perry