By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” Psalm 33:6-9.

It is important for everyone to know how big God is if we are to truly understand our need for salvation which is found in the shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ.

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” I read years ago that one of these psalms indicated that God created the cosmos like a woman who knits. She knits and listens, knits and thinks, or knits and talks. These women knit and create effortlessly just as God breathed and it was so.

The problem is that the God who did all of this is so infinitely pure, righteous, just, and loving that sin cannot enter His presence.

“How then can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman? If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in His sight, how much less man, who is a maggot, and a son of man, who is a worm?” Job 25:4-6.

God did not create an earth just to let men drop hopelessly into the lake of fire, a place where men, Satan and his fallen angels are permanently removed from the presence of God.

“When His disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Matthew 19:25-26.

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he brought the curse of sin upon all of mankind, all of us.

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…” Romans 5:12.

But the curse of sin which Adam brought upon us, making it impossible for men to be saved God made possible through the shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ.

“But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ abounded to many.” Romans 5:15.

The free gift of eternal salvation comes through acceptance by faith in an eternal sacrifice of which we are woefully incapable of making. But how is this done? What are the mechanics?

“Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’” John 6:28-29.

This pack of deadbeats have no interest in Jesus’ response. They are not interested in spiritual things, only the material, “What shall we do that we may work…” They completely ignore the Lord’s response, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
Their reply to this shows their hard hearts:

“Therefore they said to Him, ‘What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do?’” John 6:30.

This group was among a great crowd where Jesus healed all the sick among them, preached to them and fed this huge crowd of five thousand plus people with five barley loaves and two small fish.

“What sign will You perform… What work will You do? Nothing to see here folks! Well, nothing more than a group of worldly, greedy folks who only wanted Jesus to feed them for life.

But while these godless folks ignored Jesus’ simple answer to their question, we must not.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” John 6:29b.

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:37-40.

The first sentence here may confuse some because it seems to tell us that God chooses to send some to Jesus to be saved, while others are not, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me, I will by no means cast out.”

This sentence is true, but it does not mean that God chooses some to go to heaven and others are doomed to go to hell. This is not the God that we have seen in this post. The meaning of this sentence should become clearer as we continue.

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” John 6:44-47.

This passage clarifies the meaning of the confusing sentence we noted before:

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” John 6:37.

We have here a good explanation of how salvation comes to a desperate soul. The first step is given in John 6:45 by Jesus.

“It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’” John 6:45a.

God speaks to everyone who comes into this world. There are three responses to God’s revelation of Himself to the individual, there are those who knowingly reject His revelation.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress [hold down] the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest [evident] in them, for God has shown it to them.” Romans 1:18-19.

The other two responses work together.

“Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” John 6:45b.

Everyone who listens, truly listens to God learns of Him, “And they shall all be taught by God.”

Those who have heard and learned from the Father will have a heart open to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Father sends them to the Son Jesus Christ who teaches these teachable souls the way of salvation.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” John 6:47.

The last phrase here is “…he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” Belief here could also be rendered faith, to believe in Jesus means to have faith in what He says and who He is.

Throughout the world millions of unbelievers believe in Jesus, He was a great prophet and teacher just like Buddha, Aristotle, or Sartre, even the savior of the world.

But they don’t believe that He bled and died on a cross to pay for our sins. They try to make Him a political prisoner, a rebel, a myth, or a legend. But not the living God who came to this earth in the form of a man to give Himself a ransom for all mankind.

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6.

So, belief in Jesus is not just head knowledge, it is the sure faith in Him and the knowledge that He has paid for all our sins and that we shall stand in His presence in heaven as surely as we know that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Here are two last examples of faith below.

“For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’” Romans 4:3.

Here we see that before Jesus’ advent faith was based on belief in God. The words of the prophets were still true, “And they shall all be taught by God” all who heard and learned embraced the Creator God and followed Him.

Just how strong was Abraham’s belief in God? Let us now examine a different aspect of faith.

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect [complete]? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God.” James 2:21-23.

This confusing passage shows us that Abraham’s faith was so strong that he was willing to give up his only son because God asked him to do so. Abraham was saved by his faith in God. His willingness to give up his son is an outward sign to the world just how strong that faith was.

Faith without works is dead. In other words, if a person says they are a Christian and never change from a pugnacious hard drinking, foul mouthed abuser, it shows that they are not a Christian.

People who accept Jesus as their Savior will change, perhaps not much at first, but they do change.

“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us or sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” 1 John 1:5-10.

On Salvation taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 6-7-24 ck.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.