Jesus wants man to believe in him. John 6.29 records: Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Why believe in Jesus? What does it mean to believe in Jesus?
Why Believe In Jesus?
The effect of believing in Jesus is eternal life. Jesus said:
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.[1]
I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.[2]
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.[3]
Man has sin, and sin leads to death[4]. God is eternal. If man dies, then God and man cannot be together as there will come a time when man will not be with God. For man to be with God, man must have eternal life. Hence, man having eternal life is man being with God in terms of time.
The effect of believing in Jesus is also salvation. The disciples preached: Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved… Salvation means being saved from sins.[5] Sin leads to death[6]. When man is saved from sin, he is saved from death.[7] Salvation also means being saved from the wrath of God.[8] The wrath of God results the destruction of man.[9] If man dies or is destroyed, then God and man cannot be together as there will come a time when man will not be with God. Hence, man having salvation, which is being saved from death and destruction, is also man being with God in terms of time. Salvation also means entering the kingdom of heaven. Colossians 1.13 states: For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son… 2 Timothy 4:18 states: The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. Man entering the kingdom of heaven is man being with God in terms of space. Man must be where God is to be with him.
Believe In Jesus Means Believe That He Is God (The Father)
The Jews asked Jesus, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”[10] Jesus identified himself as the Father, that is to say, he declared that he was God! To the Jews, it was a crime for a man to claim to be God, and Jesus risked arrest by making this declaration. Hence, John 8:20 comments: “He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.” After making this declaration, Jesus taught that it is necessary to believe that he is who he has declared i.e. God (the Father): “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.”[11]
Elsewhere, the Bible says that man must believe that Jesus is the Christ, or Jesus is the Son of God, or Jesus is Lord, or Jesus has risen from the dead.[12] It has been prophesied that God (the Father) would come to earth and would be known as the Messiah (which in Hebrew means “the anointed one” and is translated as kristos in Greek and becomes transliterated as “Christ” in English), Lord, the Son of God, and the one who has risen from the dead. As such, believing that Jesus is the Christ, or Jesus is the Son of God, or Jesus is Lord, or Jesus has risen from the dead are but different ways of saying believing that Jesus is God (the Father).
Believe In Jesus Means Trust Him
Romans 4:5 equates faith with trust: But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. And Romans 10.9-11 equates belief with trust: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Hence, when man believes in Jesus, he entrusts his life to Jesus. His life is no longer his own. He lives for Jesus:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.[13]
For to me to live is Christ…[14]
None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.[15]
And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.[16]
Entrusting his life to Jesus means believing that Jesus is always there for him and he leaves everything to Jesus knowing that all will be well: That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”[17]
Believe In Jesus Means Obey Him
John 3:36 equates belief with obedience: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath. To Jesus, belief without obedient action is not belief:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven…”[18]
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?”[19]
Hence, to believe in Jesus is to obey him. God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering, and he was willing to do it: He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.[20] However, in the end, he did not do it for God had stopped him: Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”[21] This act of Abraham was hailed as the acme of faith: Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.[22]
Thus Romans 1.5 and 16.26 speak about the “obedience of faith”.
Believe In Jesus Means Lifelong Belief
Faith is not a momentary act but a continuing one. John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Greek verbs have two tenses: the aorist and the present. The aorist tense describes a momentary act while the present tense describes a continuing act. The Greek verb for “believes” used in John 3:16 is πιστεύων (pisteuo) which is in the present tense.
Hence, contrary to popular preaching, faith is not a one-moment confession of Jesus as Lord and Saviour, but a lifelong belief that Jesus is God (the Father), lifelong trust in Jesus, and lifelong obedience to Jesus.
The corollary of faith being lifelong is that one can fall away. Hebrews 6.4-8 says: For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt. Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and on the verge of being cursed; its end is to be burned over. Jesus expected some to fall away during persecution: Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another.[23]
One falls away when he rejects God. One can reject God by denying God’s power e.g. by blaspheming the Holy Spirit: Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.[24]
One can also reject God by apostatizing (or going astray or renouncing the faith). Jesus predicted: And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.[25] 1 Timothy 4:1-2 states: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.
One can also reject God by defiant sinning. Hebrews 10:26-27 states: For if we wilfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,but a fearful prospect of judgement, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 2 Peter 2:20-21 states: For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.
Jesus cautioned that it is necessary to endure to the end: “Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”[26] Once saved doesn’t mean always saved. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 states that one is saved only if he holds firm: “Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.”
Misconceptions About Believing In Jesus
- Does John 10.27-28 say that salvation cannot be lost?
- Does Philippians 1:6 say that salvation cannot be lost?
What’s Next?
Read on about another command of Jesus to enable man to choose whether to love God and be with him: Baptism – Why? What Is It?
[1] Jn 6.40.
[2] Jn 11:25-26.
[3] Jn 3:16.
[4] For the wages of sin is death… (Rom 6.23) and the wrath of God that destroys sinful man: See, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it. (Is 13.9)
[5] Mt 1.21: “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
[6] Rom 6.23: “For the wages of sin is death.”
[7] Jas 5.20: “Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover a multitude of sins.”
[8] Rom 5.9: “Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.”
[9] Is 13.9: “See, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it.”
[10] Jn 8:19.
[11] Jn 8:23-24.
[12] John 20:31 says that the gospel was written so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” And Romans 10:9 says that “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
[13] Galatians 2.20.
[14] Philippians 1.21.
[15] Romans 14.7-8
[16] 2 Corinthians 5.15.
[17] Mk 4.35-40.
[18] Matthew 7.21.
[19] Luke 6.46.
[20] Gen 22.2-3.
[21] Gen 22.10-12.
[22] Jas 2.20-24.
[23] Mt 24.9-10.
[24] Mt 12.22-32.
[25] Mt 24.11.
[26] Mt 24:9-13.