How to Lead People to Christ, Part 1: The Content of Our Message (John 6:43, 47)

 

[Lii]

At the start of the millennium, in the year 2000, Grace Evangelical Society held its national conference at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, founded and pastored by Dr. Tony Evans. At this conference, Zane Hodges gave two seminal messages on how to lead a person to Christ. In the years that have followed these messages, the questions raised in these messages, as well as Zane’s deserted island scenario, continue to be discussed and debated today.

In this first message, titled The Content of Our Message, Zane asks and answers biblically a simple, but yet profound, question. What is the core essential truth to be believed about Jesus in order to have eternal life? Over the years, some have criticized Zane for focusing on the central core of the gospel message. But Zane never advises anyone to only present the essential core gospel.

However, if we do not know the core truth to be believed in order to have eternal life, how can we focus our presentation in our evangelistic efforts? Our prayer for you is that you be fair-minded and think about the teachings in these messages, and search the Scriptures to find out whether the things taught by Zane in these messages are so. We hope you enjoyed this presentation from the Zane Hodges Library and the Grace Evangelical Society. And remember, keep grace in focus.

[Hodges]

How to lead people to Christ. The title of my two talks, uh, at the GES pastors conference this year may lead you to expect, uh, that I’m going to talk to you about how to do personal evangelism. Hopefully, you will get some ideas about personal evangelism from the things that I say. But that is not my major objective. Instead, I want to talk about how grace theology should affect the way we present the gospel, whether we’re presenting it to individuals or to groups.

Nevertheless, before I go any further, let me just say this. I do genuinely enjoy talking to people about their eternal salvation, and I’ve done so with many, many individuals over the years. In the Kerugma office where I work, there works with me a close friend who does not attend Victor Street Bible Chapel. When I first met him, he did not understand the way of salvation. But over a period of years, and after many conversations on the subject, he became a believer.

He understands now that salvation is absolutely free, even though most of the people that he knows do not understand that. He even knows what lordship salvation is, and he knows it ain’t good. Now, the salvation of this friend of mine is one of the very highly treasured results of my many years of service to Christ. It’s an immense joy to me to realize that, as a result of his faith in Christ, the friendship that we’ve had now for 18 years will go on forever in the kingdom of God.

What I’m trying to say is this. I’m a teacher by spiritual gift, but I enjoy doing the work of an evangelist as much, or maybe more, than teaching. So, as I talk today about putting good theology into our soul-winning, I’m talking about something that’s an important issue to me. And I want you also to know that I try hard to practice the things that I’ll be preaching to you today and tomorrow.

The question I am raising in my talks is a basically simple one. Here it is. Have we allowed solid grace theology to properly affect the way we proclaim and share the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Have we really allowed our grace theology to impact our sharing of the gospel? Now, I propose to address that issue under two headings.

The two headings are these: number one, the content of our message, and number two, our invitation to respond to it. Now, I want to consider the first of these topics this afternoon and the second one, God willing, in the discussion tomorrow morning. So, this afternoon, the content of our message.

Let me begin with a strange scenario. Try to imagine an unsaved person marooned on a tiny, uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He has never heard about Christianity in his entire life. One day, a wave washes up a fragment of paper onto the beach. It is wet, but still partly readable.

On that paper are the words found in John 6:43-47. But the only readable parts of the paper are these, quote, “Jesus therefore answered and said to them,” end of quote—that’s in verse 43—and, quote, “Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” And that’s verse 47.

Now, suppose that our unsaved man somehow becomes convinced that this person called Jesus can guarantee his eternal future, since He promises everlasting life. In other words, he believes Jesus’ words in John 6:47. Is he saved? I suspect that there are even some grace people who would say that this man is not saved because he doesn’t know enough.

For example, he doesn’t know that Jesus died for his sins on the cross and rose again the third day. Needless to say, there’s a lot more he doesn’t know either, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ, or the doctrine of the virgin birth. But my question is this: why is he not saved if he believes the promise of Jesus’ words?

It is precisely the ability of Jesus to guarantee eternal life that makes Him the Christ in the Johannine sense of that term. Our Lord’s exchange with Martha in John 11:25-27 demonstrates this. You remember the passage. Jesus said to her,

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he were dead, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?

John 11:25-26.

Her reply is a declaration that she believes Him to be the Christ. Martha said,

Yes, Lord. I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world.

John 11:27. Notice here that to believe that Jesus is the Christ means to believe that He guarantees resurrection and eternal life to every believer.

But now let’s look at John 4. In that famous passage, we have the Samaritans saying to the woman who had encountered Jesus at the well,

Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.

John 4:42.

Observe that the common denominator between the two passages, the one from John 11 and the one from John chapter 4, the common denominator to both passages is the term Christ. On Martha’s lips, He is the Christ, the Son of God. And on the lips of the Samaritans, He is the Christ, the Savior of the world. This is not an accidental or insignificant difference.

In Jewish prophecy and theology, the promised Christ was also the Son of God. That is, He was to be a divine person. Recall the words of Isaiah:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6-7.

But in Samaritan theology, deeply flawed theology, of course, but in Samaritan theology, the Messiah was thought of as a prophet. And the woman at the well is led to faith through our Lord’s prophetic ability to know her life. Her words, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet,” John 4:19, are a step in the direction of recognizing Him as the Christ.

There is no evidence in the text of the Gospel of John that either she or the other Samaritans understood the deity of our Lord. But they did believe that He was the Christ. And John tells us in his epistle, 1 John 5:1,

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

A full theology of the person of Christ is not necessary to salvation. If we believe that Jesus is the One who guarantees our eternal destiny, we have believed all we absolutely have to believe in order to be saved. Did you notice the way I said that? The way I said that is kind of important.

If we believe that Jesus is the One who guarantees our eternal destiny, we have believed all that we absolutely have to believe in order to be saved. In other words, we have believed the bare minimum that is necessary in order to be saved.

Years ago, as a student at DTS, if you can think back to antiquity like that, I used to wash dishes in the dining hall to pay for my meals. Often, after I had finished this chore, I hung around and talked theology with another student who swept up the kitchen every night. We had a lot of interesting theological discussions.

One night, this student made a statement to me that I’ve never forgotten. He said something like this. He said, “I know I trusted Christ for salvation before I realized that Jesus was the Son of God. I know I trusted Christ for salvation before I realized that Jesus was the Son of God.” I was surprised because I had never heard anyone say that before. But I did not quarrel with that statement then, and I would not quarrel with it now.

It is the name of Jesus that brings salvation whenever anyone believes in that name as their sure hope of eternal well-being. We are not saved by believing a series of theological propositions. However true, however important those theological propositions are, we are saved by believing in Jesus.

That’s why the man on the deserted island can get saved with only the barest minimum of information. When he believes John 6:47, he is believing in Jesus as the Christ. But what about the cross of Christ? Is it not essential for a man to know about that in order to be saved?

This leads to a question about the 11 disciples who believed in Jesus before He died. Did they understand the cross or the significance of His death? Did they understand the necessity of His resurrection? Of course they did not, as John 20:9, to mention only one point, makes perfectly clear.

You recall that text. In recounting how the unnamed disciple came to believe that Jesus had risen, it is said of Peter and of himself that, quote,

As yet they did not know the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead.

The 11 disciples had believed in Jesus long before they understood that He must die for their sins and rise again.

As Peter so emphatically states in John 6:68-69,

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

The disciples were saved without a knowledge of the death and resurrection of their Master, without any theological understanding of that.

However, some people today would say, but it’s different now that the cross is behind us. Now, we have to believe in that as well, do we? Where does this idea come from? Certainly not from the Gospel of John.

Let us think for a moment. The events described in John’s gospel occurred before the cross. We all agree to that, most of them at any rate. But the entire book was written afterward. In my view, it was written about 70 A.D. But if you prefer a later date in the 80s, my point is even more forceful.

At the time of the writing of the Gospel of John, the cross was years ago. And if belief in the work of the cross was by then necessary for salvation, John definitely gives us the wrong impression by stressing the way the cross dumbfounded even His most intimate disciples.

Let me put it to you this way. The Gospel of John is the only book in our New Testament canon that explicitly declares its purpose to be evangelistic. Of course, I’m thinking of the famous theme statement found in John 20:30-31, where we read, quote,

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

This statement does not affirm the necessity of believing in our Lord’s substitutionary atonement. If, by the time of the writing of John’s gospel, it was actually necessary to believe this, then it would have been not only simple, but essential, to say so.

Inasmuch as the key figures in John’s narrative did believe in Jesus before they understood His atoning death and resurrection, it would have been even more essential for John to state that the content of faith had changed. But, of course, he does not do this.

The simple fact is that the whole fourth gospel is designed to show that its readers can get saved in the same way as the people who got saved in John’s narrative. John wants us to do what they did. To say anything else than this is to accept a fallacy. It is to mistakenly suppose that the fourth gospel presents the terms of salvation incompletely and inadequately.

Now, that’s what the lordship people are stuck with. But I sincerely hope that no grace person would want to be stuck with a position like that. Let me repeat. Neither explicitly nor implicitly does the Gospel of John teach that a person cannot be saved without understanding the cross. It just does not teach that.

If we say that it does, we are reading something into the text and not reading something out of it. What is my point? That we should not preach the cross of Christ to men? Not at all. Are you all awake? That is not my point.

I will make it emphatically clear a little later that I think we should. Instead, I am arguing that we need to focus on the core issue in bringing men and women to faith and eternal life. What is the core issue? Very simply, it is this. We want people to believe that Jesus guarantees their eternal destiny.

May I repeat that? The core issue is, we want people to believe that Jesus guarantees their eternal destiny. Of course, we would like them to believe a lot more than that, but this at least must be believed. Our failure to clearly define our goal in evangelism can have a negative or impeding effect on our efforts to lead people to simple faith in Christ.

Most of us in this auditorium deplore the efforts made by lordship people to add provisos to the message of faith in Christ. According to them, true faith has not occurred if it is, if it is not accompanied by surrender, or if it is not accompanied by a commitment to live for God. We rightly reject such ideas.

But in our own circles, there is a tendency to add theological information to our message of faith. Let me repeat that. In our own circles, there is a tendency to add theological information to our message of faith.

Some people even regard belief in the virgin birth as essential to salvation. And in the absence of such belief, they would not admit that a person is saved, even though they believe that a man is saved by faith alone. They do this despite the fact that the Gospel of John makes no effort to present this gospel—to present this doctrine.

In fact, in John 1:45, Philip announces to Nathanael that he has found the Messiah. And he refers to Him as Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph. And John never bothers to set the record straight, since in any case Jesus was legally Joseph’s Son. But there’s no reason to doubt that Philip thought of Jesus as the naturally born son of Joseph and Mary.

I am sure he learned differently later on, but at this point, that was what he must have thought. Let me say this. All forms of the gospel that require greater content to faith in Christ than the Gospel of John requires are flawed. I’m going to repeat that one.

All forms of the gospel that require greater content to faith in Christ than the Gospel of John requires are flawed. Evangelism based on such premises will also be flawed because we will be tempted to test professions of faith in terms of the doctrines we think must be believed.

Instead, we should be focusing on whether an individual believes that Jesus has given him eternal life. Evangelism, therefore, is intended to bring men and women to the place where they believe that Jesus guarantees their eternal destiny. If a person does this, and we insist on more than that, we will be guilty of seeking to invalidate the simple exercise of faith that actually does bring salvation.

Even in the grace movement, even in the grace movement, we are sorely tempted to make the gospel more complicated than God makes it. Why can’t men leave the gospel alone? Why can’t they let it be as simple as the Gospel of John makes the gospel?

We can hardly bring ourselves to believe that a man who is largely ignorant of evangelical theology, yet genuinely trusts Christ for his eternal well-being, is truly saved. We have every reason to be embarrassed by this tendency on our part.

According to the Apostle Paul, God is “the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Moreover, it will be at the name of Jesus that “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess.” The name of Jesus, therefore, is a mighty and exalted name compared to which all other names in our age, or in any future age, are inferior and weak.

No one has ever trusted in that name for his or her eternal well-being who has not been saved by doing so. And this is true no matter how little they might have known about the One whom that name represents.

I think in the grace movement we need a renewed emphasis on the power of Jesus’ name, as Peter declares in Acts 4:12:

Nor is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

If there is one salient fact about the proclamation of the gospel in this present age, it is that God saves all those, and only those, who believe in this name for eternal salvation. Another way of saying this is that the name of Jesus is the one and only way to God. “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6.

Naturally, this eliminates the idea that a pagan person who has never heard the name of Jesus can be saved by believing in something like the light of creation. That doesn’t happen. Therefore, that is why we must always have missionaries and witnesses to the saving power of Jesus’ name. Without the name of Jesus, there is no salvation for anyone anywhere in our world.

But the flip side of the coin is this. Everyone who believes in that name for eternal salvation is saved, irregardless of the blank spots or the flaws in their theology in other respects. Another way of saying the same thing is this. No one has ever trusted in that name and been disappointed.

No one has ever trusted the name of Jesus for eternal salvation and been disappointed. No one. Illustration. Suppose I am in some deep financial trouble, and a stranger named Sam—let’s, let’s call him Sam—tells me he will get me out of my trouble if I will just trust him to do it.

Perhaps Sam strikes me as a reliable and honest person, and I am convinced that he can and will do what he says. So I leave the matter in his hands, and sure enough, he comes through and saves me from my financial problem with a generous infusion of cash. Did I believe in him? Sure.

But suppose that, after trusting him, I found out that he is a corporate CEO and a multimillionaire. Would he later come back to me and say, “Well, you didn’t know enough about me when you trusted me, so I’m afraid I can’t help you. Our deal is canceled”?

I hope you think, in this illustration, that would be an absurd way for the CEO to act. If he invites my faith and I give it to him, why should he deny the reality of that faith on the basis of my ignorance about his vast resources? On the other hand, is it not true that knowing these things up front would make it a whole lot easier to trust Sam to help me in the first place? I’ll say more about that in a moment.

So, suffice it to say, Jesus never fails anyone who trusts Him for everlasting salvation. No one on earth will ever possess more than a rudimentary understanding of our Savior’s person and work. Even the most profound theologian has only begun to scratch the surface. But if I know I can believe on Him for salvation, and I do, He is too great to fail me.

It is this conviction that ought to arm us for the work of sharing the gospel with people. In the final analysis, therefore, salvation is a result of believing in Jesus to provide it. Salvation is not the result of assenting to a detailed creed. Salvation does not even require an understanding of how it was provided or made possible.

All it requires is that the sinner understand the sufficiency of the name of Jesus to guarantee the eternal well-being of every believer. Thank God salvation is so wonderfully simple.

According to Paul’s own statement, when he came to Corinth to preach, he was determined “not to know anything among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2. Later in the epistle, Paul describes his gospel as one that declared that

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and then He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4.

I don’t need to tell you, do I, that the Greek word for gospel, euangelion, as well as the word for preach the gospel, euangelizō, are words that are both frequently found in Paul. Peter also uses these words a total of four times in his first epistle. Luke uses the verb many times in Luke and Acts, the noun twice in Acts. Matthew and Mark have both words.

Are you ready for this? John never uses either word in his gospel. He never uses either word in his gospel. Why? Because, as I have already suggested, John makes the person of Jesus, not a set of doctrines, the object of the faith that brings eternal life. Fundamentally, he’s trying to get people to believe in Jesus for their eternal salvation.

But this is precisely where the preaching of the cross becomes so important. Why should men trust Christ for eternal life? The gospel gives us the wonderful answer. They should do so because Jesus has bought their salvation at the cost of His own precious blood. And God has placed His seal on the work of the cross by raising Jesus from the dead.

As Paul states,

He was delivered up because of our offenses, and He was raised again because of our justification.

The preaching of the cross greatly facilitates the process of bringing men to faith in God’s Son.

This brings me finally, at the end of this message, to the bedrock issue of leading people to Christ. After all, that’s the title of my talk. And I mean by it just what the title says. We need to lead men to Christ. In my manuscript here, the word Christ was in capital letters just then.

We are to lead men to Christ. Winning souls is a matter of leading people to a person to whom they may safely entrust their eternal destiny. We are not leading them to a message, but to Jesus Christ as the object of their faith.

But more often than not, we have difficulty leading them to Christ unless we lead them through the full gospel message. Can I repeat that? That’s a fairly important transition in the thought. More often than not, we have difficulty leading people to Christ unless we lead them through the full gospel message.

The gospel message is normally the avenue through which men and women come to understand why they can trust completely in the Savior. To be sure, trust in Christ can occur without a knowledge of the cross. But more often than not, it doesn’t. The message of the cross clarifies God’s way of salvation.

On a very practical level, when I am dealing with an unsaved person, I find that if I simply tell them that he only needs to believe in Christ, that this usually doesn’t make sense to him. Why should it be so easy? Why are not works required? To the unregenerate American mind, it doesn’t sound reasonable.

So I find it not only useful, but indeed essential, to explain that the Lord Jesus Christ bought our way to heaven by paying for all our sins. In recent years, I have liked to emphasize the fact that He paid for all our sins, all of the sins we would ever commit from the day we were born till the day of our death. This serves to stress the completeness of the payment He made.

It is usually only in the light of so perfect a payment that people can come to see the reasonableness of a salvation that is absolutely free. And I have found this in personal work. If I only told them, “You need to believe in Christ,” even if I quote the verses from the Gospel of John, oftentimes I will meet a blank wall in the individual until I explain to them what Jesus did that made this possible.

I say to people, “Jesus paid it all, and there’s nothing left for you to do or pay. All you have to do is believe in Him for the free gift of everlasting life.” One of my favorite illustrations when I’m witnessing to people goes like this. If a friend bought you a Rolls-Royce and paid for it in full, and offered it to you as a free gift, don’t you think he would be hurt, or maybe even offended and insulted, if you insisted on paying for it yourself?

In the same way, if we try to pay or do something to go to heaven, even though Jesus paid it all, I say to the unsaved person, “Aren’t we insulting His great sacrifice and treating it as if it were not enough?” Most unsaved people can understand that point, even if they don’t believe it’s true. They understand the logic of that.

The Savior’s work on the cross thus becomes a powerful argument that He can and should be trusted for eternal life. And apart from the cross, for most modern Americans, the offer of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone just doesn’t compute. Even after hearing it, it still may not compute.

But by offering the truth of the gospel to people, we give the Holy Spirit something to work with in their hearts. And in the final analysis, it is only the Holy Spirit who can sweep away the blindness of the human heart so that the glorious light of the gospel of Christ may shine into unsaved hearts.

Nevertheless, let it never be forgotten. If anyone has faith in Jesus as the One who secures his or her eternal destiny, that person is born of God. Jesus has never yet failed anyone who trusted in His name for eternal salvation. He has never done it, and He never will.

Okay, I think we’re ready for your questions, and, uh, I see a line for me. Alfie, fire away.

Zane, I think it’s been very helpful for you to, uh, provoke us to think through how we present the gospel and the content of it. And maybe this is just a point of clarification coming from your opening example, the guy on the beach. Okay. Wouldn’t someone need to know something about Jesus, who He is and His identity, apart from just that five-letter name?

Uh, and isn’t that, in fact, what John does with his gospel? He didn’t write just 6:43-47. He wrote all 21 chapters, and that’s what he’s trying to communicate, who Jesus is.

There’s no question, Alfie, that, uh, John is giving us a lot of information about who Jesus is. But the issue that I’m raising is basically the issue of the core minimum which is necessary for salvation. The first question is, is the Jesus mentioned in John chapter 6 the, the Jesus who really offers eternal life? The answer to that question is yes.

And therefore, if the person believes that this, you know, that this Jesus will indeed do what He’s promised to do, he has believed the promise of the word. Now, I think what you’re really thinking is, is it likely that a person with that minimal type of information about Jesus would exercise, uh, uh, faith in Him on the basis of that fragmentary verse?

I will admit to you, that’s not very likely. And that’s why we try to present, uh, the person of Christ, the work of Christ. What we’re really doing is painting a portrait of Jesus that invites men increasingly to believe in Him.

So, in my illustration about Sam, Sam comes up to me and he offers to, to meet my financial need. And maybe I don’t know a single thing about Sam, but Sam sounds honest to me, and for some reason or other I, I trust him. But, uh, that’s probably not going to happen too often. Maybe I’m even a little gullible there.

But if I find out that Sam has enormous resources, that would certainly enhance the offer that he makes to me. But I think the basic issue is, is the Jesus being referred to in John 6:43 the Jesus who does indeed fulfill His promises? And the answer to that question is, yeah.

Uh, Professor Hodges, is it the fact that, um, that you and Dr. Radmacher and some older gentlemen are moving up in years—and that’s no disrespect, but what I mean by that, it’s, uh, inevitable. No, but that’s no disrespect. I mean, but a lot of the great teachers of grace have moved on and gone on to be with the Lord.

And I think one of the strategies of the enemy may be to have the gospel misrepresented. I’m not saying people are intentionally misrepresenting it, but there’s not a clear grace teaching that Dr. Chafer taught and you gentlemen for many years. And now people are adding things to salvation that were never intended to be in the first place. What do you think about that?

I would be very flattered if I thought that Satan wanted to get rid of me. And, and I really do think that you’ve put your finger on a significant, uh, significant point. And that is that everyone, I think, whether they’re young or old, who is standing for a clear gospel and is, is fighting to make this thing as simple and clear as they can to the unsaved world, is opposing Satan’s program, which is, according to 2 Corinthians 4, “to blind the minds of those that believe not.”

Notice that, that Satan is the one who has to do the overtime here. Uh, if he just leaves everything alone, why, people would get saved all over the place because of the clarity and simplicity of the gospel. So he’s actively engaged in blinding people’s minds, and those who are working against that blindness, I would assume all of them are, in one way or another, the objects of satanic opposition.

We need to support each other. Not just—I know that Earl agrees with me on this—we older guys definitely need your support in prayer. But everyone who’s out there preaching that gospel, way out on a mission field, for example, or in a city where they’re the only grace church, they need our prayers.

Yes, sir. Uh, give me your name first. I—I’ve met some of you, and already the mental gears are slowing.

So, I’m Jason.

Hi.

Hi, Jason.

Hi. Um, you say that nobody who believes in the name of Jesus for their—or believes in Jesus as the guarantor of their eternal life, um, doesn’t have that eternal life. But we also know that somebody who believes in their works does not have eternal life. So what about somebody who believes in Jesus as the guarantor of eternal life, but also believes that they have to do good works? Uh, would you say that they haven’t believed fully in Jesus as the Savior?

Their, their belief is contradictory. They have not believed that Jesus is the guarantor of eternal life because they think they have to do something in addition to what He does.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, thanks for that question. That, that’s, uh—you offered the answer yourself. Yes, sir.

Hi, Bruce.

Um, Professor Hodges, what about people like a Jehovah’s Witness who comes by and willfully and aggressively denies, say, the deity of Christ? Would that person be saved in light of the purpose statement for the Gospel of John? You know, “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”

It seems as though they’ve recreated Christ in an image that they want to present Him, and they’re believing in something that John did not present. How would you handle that?

I don’t think there are very many Jehovah’s Witnesses who have believed that Jesus is the guarantor of eternal life to every believer. I, I don’t think that’s part of their theology.

Well, what about anyone who would deny the deity of Christ, aggressively deny, not, not misunderstand, but deny it? Would that person be believing in the Jesus of John chapter 6?

My only question about a person like this: was there ever a time when, in the simplicity of faith, they trusted the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life? If the answer to that is yes, there was such a time, then they are still saved, even though they may have veered widely off the track.

I still would say, however, uh, and this is a, a guess, but I doubt if there are very many Jehovah—Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking at our doors who were at one time saved. But there may be some of them.

Yes, sir.

Hi. Um, I have had discussions with a teacher of mine, and he’s lordship. He brings up the verse in John 5, uh, verse 14, where Jesus told the lame man to “go and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you.” And I haven’t been able to give a good answer on that. I was wondering if you could help me.

Jesus, uh, is talking about the lame man’s, uh—you’re talking about John 5?

Yes, John 5.

He’s talking about the physical ailment that the, uh, the man had. He had been there for 38 years. Uh, it was apparently, uh, a judgment that God had inflicted on him because of sin. And so Jesus is saying there are worse things than being paralyzed for 38 years. Don’t go out and do something that will cause God’s justice or judgment to reach you again. The issue here is not eternal salvation at all.

Okay. Thank you.

You’re welcome. Bob Kanei.

Hi, Bob. I should know you. All right. Good.

Uh, I’ve thought I’ve previously heard you say that you can’t believe in a person apart from a proposition about that person, as in Gordon Clark’s writings. But now, was I hearing you say a person can believe in a person without believing in a proposition about that person, or—

No, you did not hear me say that. Bob, you’re very alert to have raised that question because, if you will notice, what I was saying all the way through here is that the person is believing that Jesus guarantees their eternal salvation. So that’s the proposition they believe, but they’re focusing on the person who guarantees that and not the auxiliary, uh, truths that support it.

So I, I, I, at least in my own mind, I’m free of contradiction there.

I appreciate the—

No, I, I think that’s good. I just wanted to hear it again, I guess.

Yeah. Okay.

I, I, I agree with Proto-Hodges and Deutero-Hodges both.

Good.

And then a comment about Old Testament, uh, people. I, I was comfortable thinking, all right, they believe in the Messiah, you know, that there was oral tradition perhaps, or whatever. And so I thought that was continuity with now, but they didn’t know that Jesus was the One guaranteed. So help.

Yeah, obviously the Old Testament people couldn’t believe in the name of Jesus, and that is a reality that occurs only after Jesus comes and is manifested as the Messiah. So the Old Testament person was saved by looking forward to the promised Messiah, you know, of the Old Testament Scriptures.

This is what we would call a dispensational change. Once Jesus has come and, uh, been revealed as the Messiah, now all faith is focused on the name of Jesus. And, of course, uh, in the very fine discussion we had, uh, of Ephesians, uh, last night, the exaltation of that name, so that it’s above every name, above all principalities and powers.

This is the name through which God deals with the human race today. And that’s because He came and lived and died and has gone back into glory. Uh, it’s a slight content change, uh, but it’s not, uh, basically a change of principle.

The Christ is just made more specific, uh, by this change. It’s not a change in the way of salvation, but a, a more focused, uh, faith that is based on the name of Jesus.

I think even people who are non-dispensational, uh, uh, in most respects, will have to admit that that change at least occurred, uh, through the coming of Christ, because the New Testament doesn’t recognize, uh, a salvation that doesn’t identify, uh, the person’s faith with the name of Jesus.

Neither is salvation in any other, no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

Alfie? Yes.

Uh, just wanted some clarification. I think I’m still a little bit unclear about what a person needs to know about Jesus, especially in light of, uh, New Age religions today and confusion. Say someone that believed or thought that Jesus was equated with Buddha, but yet named the name of Jesus, but did not understand who He was in light of biblical truth. Is there a minimum that people need to understand as far as this person is concerned?

That’s a very good question, and, um, I’m very thankful that I don’t have to make all of the refined decisions that are related here. Um, quite obviously, uh, there are concepts of Jesus that move away from any kind of biblical, uh, presentation of Him.

And so I am aware of a movement, uh, that finds, uh, in Jesus just simply another manifestation of the, the same phenomenon that we found in Buddha and, and all of the great mystics, that sort of thing. And, uh, so the question, my first question is, is somebody who believes that way, is he going to really believe in the exclusive claims of Jesus?

But suppose he does. Then I’m going to leave it to God to decide whether he had his focus on Jesus or he was believing in Jesus, Buddha, uh, somebody else. That is something I, I frankly would not even venture to try to decide because, really, God knows the heart of each individual who believes.

And the bottom line is, if the Jesus whom we are focusing our faith on is the Jesus of the Bible, that’s the person we’re talking about. If we’re trusting Him for the provision that the Bible says He makes for the believer, that’s the person who’s saved. But there, I’m going to admit, there are cloudy areas here that God alone will be able to penetrate.

So, in talking to an individual that, say, had some belief such as this, would you try and clarify or give them assurance of salvation?

I would definitely try to clarify. Absolutely. Yeah.

Ken, I got—I know your name.

Thank you. Uh, this may be a unique problem to me, but I doubt it. But up from where I am and minister, uh, the people do not have a very strong sense of their sinfulness. And in your presentation, uh, I was looking for that, and I’m not disappointed that I didn’t hear it, but how much of a sense of man’s sinfulness does one need?

Now, you mentioned salvation, uh, Savior, uh, are we to assume that people are going to naturally know that they are sinners, that there is a rift between them and God? How do you handle this when you’re presenting?

That’s an excellent question, and the way I would want to answer that is this: that in saying that you trust Jesus as the One who guarantees your eternal life, that implies that you need someone to guarantee it. If you thought, if you came to Jesus and thought, I don’t really need anybody, not even Jesus, to guarantee my eternal future, then obviously you couldn’t trust Him to guarantee your eternal future.

So, what this, this gets us off of the, what I think is a terrible, uh, and misleading dilemma that sometimes occurs in the evangelical movement. How sinful must we think we are before we can believe in Christ?

Well, if I know that I somehow or other need somebody besides myself to guarantee my eternal well-being, then I have the grounds for believing in Christ. But in America, as we know, uh, this is not a very major problem. You don’t need to talk to most Americans very long before they will acknowledge that they’re sinners.

And most people have, because of the veneer of Christian culture that we have in our society, they have something of a fear of the future precisely because they know they’re not everything that they ought to be.

But when you get, let’s say, to the experience of a little child, how deep must the child’s consciousness be of sin, uh, before he can trust Christ? If the child is able to say, “Jesus, I’m going to believe in Jesus to take me into heaven,” that’s enough, regardless of the degree of the child’s sense of sin.

Thank you. Actually, I have two, two questions. One related to the, the discussion just before this. In our society, where Jesus means all kinds of things, um, in, in your clarifying talk with that person, wouldn’t you focus on the, um, not so much who is this Jesus, as He is the only means of salvation?

And that it’s a matter of my placing my trust in Him alone, and not in Him and my followings of this, that, or the other thing, or my walk on, on the Buddha life, or whatever. Um, so wouldn’t you focus on, on what it is that we’re trusting Him for, and we’re trusting Him for eternal life solely?

Yeah, I, I would agree with what you’ve said. I would take the Gospel of John and, uh, try to introduce him to the real Jesus from the Gospel of John.

We have to remember that what I was talking about—and this is not really an answer to your question, but to a question that may be floating, uh, around here—we have to remember that what we were talking about just now is the bare minimum which it is absolutely necessary to believe. But very few people get saved by believing a bare minimum.

So most people have more information than the bare minimum suggests. And certainly the Gospel of John gives us more information than the bare minimum, although we can conclude from the Gospel of John what the bare minimum actually is.

But the whole Gospel of John is designed to present a person who, uh, is not only worthy of our trust, but has every right to demand it. And so, if I find obscurity in people and they’re, they’re having trouble trusting, uh, Jesus, then I want to give them everything I can give them from the Bible, uh, to invite their trust to Him.

And that’s why the gospel serves. That’s why truth of the person of Christ serves. So, we’re not talking about the salvation of loads and loads of people on, on bare minimal theology.

But we, if we don’t get our focus clear—that was my point today—if we don’t get our focus clear, and we don’t focus on what the, the core that we’re driving for is, we’ll make confused presentations and we’ll introduce auxiliary conditions and all the rest of it.

Thanks for a good question. Do you have another one?

I do. I have another question.

I hear you. After that, we’re going to let the pastor of the church speak.

Ah, I hear, uh, I’ll be fast.

Don’t let that worry you. He’s a very nice man.

I trust you. Um, I hear you using the word faith, trust, and, uh, believe as synonyms. Can we do that validly biblically? Can we use those, those three words together, uh, as synonyms?

And is it advisable to do so to clarify the issue, since, uh, our society has made belief this thing out there that you got to have a lot of, or as Bob calls this, really big faith?

I’ve got to thank you for both your questions, and this one I’m going to answer by saying I’m going to talk about that tomorrow. Uh, come back tomorrow. We’re going to—the word trust will emerge in the discussion tomorrow, and I think that’s a, a second good question from you.

Tony, is, um, whatever problems lordship people had with you have just quadrupled after this presentation.

I’m not sure that they will call a church council to discuss this, but, um, it would seem like, uh, one of the retorts that you would get to your, your, your thesis today is that even if the Gospel of John was—or since it was written when it was written, since it included the whole life of Christ, and since that life also included His death and resurrection, uh, even spoken of, uh, or at least alluded to earlier, “God gave His only begotten Son”—that it would seem like, uh, it would be argued that even in John’s thinking the concept of the cross was not just contributory, so that it became support for this minimum level of faith, but that John may perhaps have viewed it necessary to be understood.

That’s why those events were included in the, in, in his gospel. And therefore, if those events, uh, the death and resurrection, is not included in the presentation, then the, the, the, the message that is to be believed has not been fully communicated either. And how would you respond to that?

Well, I think, uh, Tony, that I would say, first of all, that, uh, yes, uh, uh, John obviously presents a lot of material that is supportive of his call to faith in Christ. But also against this is the, the fact that he makes it clear that people did believe in Him without understanding, uh, these realities.

Uh, what I have said today is basically that the full gospel message is an effective and by far the best tool to bring people to faith in Christ. But if we are asking the, the theological question, what is the bare minimum that a person could believe and still be born again? Then I think the Gospel of John would support the idea that the person who believes in Jesus for eternal life is the person who’s saved.

I admit that the lordship people might have some problems with me, but, uh, all I can say is, uh, I’ve got a few with them.