Believe

But as many as received Him,

to them He gave the right

to become children of God,

to those who believe in His name:

John 1:12

What does it mean to believe? It's been the topic of several discussions this week, in one of which I was involved, and of another I was informed. But what does it mean to believe, and does it matter what we believe?

There are a lot of people these days saying it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe in something. They go on to say that all belief systems are equal true and valid to those adhere to them, and that not all people have to have the same beliefs. Then there is the opposite extreme in which someone gets their little corner on God and says, "If you don't agree with me on every minuscule point you're going to hell!" Can I posit here that neither extreme is true. The truth is found in balance, in the middle ground between those. It does matter what you believe, but it's not me you have to agree with. There is a God who wants us to get to Him, and He has made the way clear. He has made Himself available to all who will follow the path He has set out for them. He has extended the invitation to become the children of God. He provided the means Himself, and paid the entrance fee Himself. So what do we have to do to get to God?

We have to receive Christ, and we have to believe Christ.

To receive Him is to take Him to ourselves as our very own, but as possession but as possessor. We must receive Him as Lord and Savior, as Master and Controller of our destiny. We must receive His invitation, His offer of pardon from all of our sins, and His commandment that we love Him by doing what He says and love others by doing what He Himself would do. When we receive Christ, we accept His standard of living, His standard of holiness and morality, of faith and action, of faithfulness and obedience. We receive His life as our own, laying down our own lives on our own Spiritual cross so that we can be raised to walk in newness of life, bearing our cross by His power as new creatures because we have received Him.

And to believe Him...well, this was the point I was getting to. What does it mean to believe?

I have recently been made aware of a group of Christians whose basic tenet of faith is that if you at any point in your existence come to a reasoned belief in the fact of Jesus (which fact, I'm not quite sure), then you are eternally saved no matter what else you believe or don't believe, no matter how you've lived before that point nor how you continue to live after that point. You have "believed" in Jesus, therefore you are saved. However, I have to say, this is not what the gospel means when it speaks of "those who believe in His name".

Belief in Christ, belief in His name, is not simply reaching an intellectual admission that Christ is real. I mean, the Bible says even the demons believe there is One God and they tremble at His name, but that will not save them. Believing in the Name of Christ is to put the entirety of one's faith, confidence, hope, conviction, persuasion, and trust in the only Name that can save! In Acts 4, Peter preached that in the Name of Jesus the lame man had been healed, and that there is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved. But it was simply that name...the name, Jesus. I mean, Jesus was a very popular name the year Jesus was born, a name passed on for 1500 in the culture of His people. It was Joshua in Hebrew, Iesou in Greek, Jesus in our English vocabulary, and it means God is salvation. It wasn't just the name which brought salvation, but the specific individual upon whom that name was bestowed.

To believe in Christ is to believe that He is One with the everlasting God, ever existent as an equal part of the eternal Godhead. He is the Word of God, living, written, spoken, the creative force of God that framed the world and holds all things together. He is the Son of God, the only begotten, the one who came from and returned to the Father. He was born of a virgin, holy and pure, conceived in her unpenetrated womb by the supernatural power of the Holy Ghost. He came into this world without sin, lived a life like ours, acquainted with our griefs, our burdens and our sorrows. He was tempted and tried in every way that we are, and yet without sin. He spoke truth as no one else ever had; He worked miracles of the like no one else ever had; He understood things in a way no one else ever had, and He imparted that understanding to His disciples and also to us when He gave us the Holy Ghost. He lived that sinless life so that He could offer Himself freely in a sacrificial death on the cross, bearing in His body their the sins of all mankind. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we would not have to die for our sins, but that we could be redeemed from them. And after He paid the price for our punishment with His blood and His life's breath, He died, was buried three days, and rose again by the power of God to die no more! He ascended to the right hand of God, offered atonement through His blood on the heavenly mercy seat, and then sat down, having completed the work He was sent here to do, and there He remains where He ever lives to make intercession for His own until His Father says it is time to return and bring those out of the earth who have been brought into His kingdom!

Paul summed up the key to salvation this way: that if we believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, and if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, we shall be saved. But that is not some kind of easy believism or simply vocalization. It is a full-fledged commitment to the truth, and putting ourselves under the authority of that Truth. For all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

To those who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become sons of God. And I'm so glad He did!