Finally, Jesus’ Physical Resurrection Proves to us Absolutely that God  will give  Eternal Life to  Anyone  who receives His Son as Savior and Lord of their lives. What does it mean to receive Jesus Christ as Savior? First, it means you cannot gain God's forgiveness for sins repented of through your own works. The Apostle Paul wrote,

"By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.... For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law." (Romans 3:20, 28)

What does the Bible mean by the works of the Law? This is referring to the Old Testament ritual of sacrifices the Jews had to go through over and over in order to gain God’s forgiveness for sins repented of and sins of ignorance. However, we now gain God’s forgiveness for our sins past, present and future by faith once and for all through the sacrifice and death of His Son. This means that there is nothing that we can do to gain God’s forgiveness for these sins through any works of ours. In Chapter 1 of this Section we explained that the reason for this is because the only thing which pleases God is that which is initiated by Him through His Holy Spirit, not through the soul or flesh. Man acting out of his own initiative is what got him in trouble in the first place. God only wants us to act out of His initiative. Another act out of our initiative only further complicates the problem, it does not solve it. Paul further explains to us that the reason why God gave us His law was not to try and be saved through obedience to it, but to reveal to us that we are hopelessly lost sinners: "Therefore the Law has become our conductor¹⁴⁵ to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith." (Gal 3:24).

Second, in light of this, receiving Jesus as Savior means to accept God’s forgiveness for our sins through Jesus’ death and shed blood alone. The Apostle Paul wrote,

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." (Romans 5:8-9)

The only way we can be saved from our sins is by God taking the initiative to save us and that is exactly what Paul tells us in this passage God did. He tells us that God Himself atoned for our sins through Jesus’ death and shed blood. The only way we can be saved from our sins is by believing on God’s work of atonement for us through Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross, not by any works of our own. The Apostle Paul wrote concerning his own salvation:

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith." (Philippians 3:8-9)

What does it mean to Receive Jesus Christ as Lord? First, that Jesus loves you and that He has a present and eternal plan for your life and that He is the ONLY WAY to that plan. Jesus said,

"I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly. . . . I am THE WAY, and THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." (John 10:10, 14:6)

Again, as we have already shared, Jesus is the only way to God for Salvation and He is the only way to God for his will and plan for our lives. To confess Jesus as Lord means to look to Him and Him alone for the answer to our life and needs, nothing else. Jesus told us in the Gospel of John Chapter 10 that to look to anything else: religion, astrology, TV psychics, government, man or anything besides him is to be a thief and a robber. This is because to look to anything else will not save you from Your sins and will not reveal to you what God’s will and plan for your life is. Jesus is the one who created you, therefore ONLY He knows why you were created and the plan and purpose that He has for Your life. To look to any thing else or anyone else is to rob yourself of life and the knowledge of why God created you. It is a thief and a robber because it leads to hell. Jesus is the ONLY way to God and heaven and the only way to His purpose and plan for Your life. Therefore, first, to confess Jesus as Lord means to look to Him and Him alone for His will and plan for Your life and to forsake all other ways. This is the Bible’s definition of an idol: anything we look to for answers to our needs besides Jesus and anything we look to besides Jesus for salvation (Col 3:5-6). Jesus is the ONLY way to God, to salvation and to God’s will and plan for our lives.

Second, receiving Jesus as Lord means to repent of your sins. The Apostle Paul wrote,

"Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor 6:9-10)

"Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, lewdness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal 5:19-21)

"For this you know with certainty, that no fornicator or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." (Eph 5:5-6)

"For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." (Hebrews 10:26-27)

The Bible is clear, that whether Christian or not that those who refuse to repent of their sins will not inherit the kingdom of God. What does it mean to repent of our sins and what is involved in repenting? John the Baptist gives us the answer to this in Matthew 3:1-17. John the Baptist preached: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt 3:2). John then went on to explain what he meant by repent. Repentance involves: first, confessing our sins to God, Matt 3:6; second, making right the wrongs we have confessed, Matt 3:3; and then third, bringing forth fruit, continued changed behavior in evidence that one has truly repented, Matt 3:8.

If a person has not truly repented, if he has not brought forth fruit in keeping with repentance, whether he confesses his sins to Jesus or not, this in itself does not give evidence of repentance for salvation, for John teaches us that if a person has not brought forth fruit in keeping with repentance, that Jesus will cut down that person and throw them into the unquenchable fire of hell. John stated in Matthew 3:10,

"And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

However, one also needs to understand clearly that repenting of your sins will not save you or make it possible for you to enter into the Kingdom of God either. Repenting of our sins does not gain God’s forgiveness for our sins. Once we have repented of our sins, the only way we can gain His forgiveness for our sins is by coming to Him for the forgiveness of our sins through His Son’s death and shed blood on the cross. Only Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross gains us God’s forgiveness for our sins, not repenting of our sins.

If just repenting of our sins could save us, then all people of all religions who have repented of their sins as they understand them would be saved. But if a person does not repent of his sins, neither will he be able to receive Jesus’ Salvation for his sins through His death and shed blood on the cross. Hebrews 10:26-27 makes this very plain,

"For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." (Hebrews 10:26-27)

In order for a person to be able to receive Jesus’ Salvation, he must first acknowledge his sins, that he is a sinner, and repent of his sins. This was why God first sent John the Baptist to preach to the people to repent of their sins before He sent His Son Jesus. Why did he send John the Baptist to preach repentance of sins before revealing His Son Jesus Christ to the world? So the people would be able to receive Jesus when he came and His forgiveness for their sins through His death and shed blood on the Cross. Matthew in the Gospel of Matthew 3:1-3 tells us about John the Baptist,

"Now in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight!’" (Matthew 3:1-3, Isaiah 40:3)

God knew that men would not turn to or listen to what He had to say through His Son Jesus as long as man was living in willful sin. God knew that man would not turn to the light, but rather that he would run from the light. Jesus said in John 3:19-21,

"And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21)

What is the light? The Apostle John tells us in the Gospel of John 1:4 that Jesus is the Light. He writes, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). Jesus said about Himself in John 8:12: "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." God first sent John the Baptist to preach to men to repent of their sins and then baptized them in water to let them know that God was forgiving their sins and getting ready to cleans them of their sins through Jesus. He had John the Baptist do this so they would not be afraid to turn to His Son Jesus Christ when He manifested Himself publicly.

In John 3:19-21, Jesus explains to us that as long as a person is living in sin, that person will not turn to the light, that person will not turn to Him. That is why when we preach the Gospel we must explain clearly to people what the Bible means by sin and their need to repent of their sins in order to receive God’s salvation for them through Jesus Christ. Until they confess and repent of their sins, they won’t be interested in Jesus or his salvation.

How is this proved? What did men, who did not repent of their sins, do when Jesus manifested himself publicly? When Jesus came, he loved man, healed man of his sicknesses and diseases, raised the dead and fed man. What did man do in response? Man tried to get rid of God by killing His humanity in the person of Jesus Christ by nailing him on a cross. Why did they do this? Because in the presence of Jesus’ sinless life they could not live with themselves in light of their sin. They did not want to repent of their sins, so the only way they could live with themselves was by getting rid of Jesus by killing His humanity. This is why godless men in our society today are doing all they can to eradicate Christianity from our society, education and government.

This is why God sent John the Baptist first with the message to repent of their sins so that when Jesus came they would not flee from Him or try to get rid of him, but would be able then to turn to Him and receive the salvation from their sins that He purchased for them. Those who obeyed God’s message through John to repent turned to Jesus. Those who did not were the one’s who had Him crucified.

Therefore, in preaching the Gospel, we start by calling men and women to repent of their sins. Repenting of our sins, however, does not save us because the wages of sin is death. Only death will pay sins penalty for us. That was why Jesus came: to die and shed his blood for our sins. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." The writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 9:22, "And without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." There is nothing here in these passages about forgiveness of sins coming about through repenting of our sins. Forgiveness of our sins repented of only comes about when we receive Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross for our sins by faith. However, in order to receive God’s forgiveness for our sins through Jesus’ death and shed blood on the Cross, we must first confess and repent of our sins.

As we have already shared in an earlier chapter, Jesus’ death and shed blood for our sins does not become ours until we receive Jesus into our hearts as savior and Lord. This is because when we do this 1 Corinthians 6:17 tells us that we become one spirit with Jesus. Becoming one spirit with Jesus means that whatever is true for Jesus is now true for us also. This means that His death on the cross becomes our death for our sins. It also means that as in the likeness of His death we shall also be raised from the dead in the likeness of His resurrection, not to death and eternal judgment, but to a resurrection of life, eternal life and eternal joy in heaven forever. Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-5,

"Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (Romans 6:3-5)

Paul explains in Colossians 3:1-4 that for the person who has received Jesus as Savior and Lord that this is an already present tense positional reality. He writes,

"If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory."

Often I am asked if I believe a person is saved simply by believing on God’s promises about Salvation even if they continue to live an immoral life. I do not believe that a person who is living in willful immorality is saved for the following reasons: First, because the Bible is plain that those who live in immorality whether saved or not cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Secondly, because a person who has not repented of his sins is not interested in Jesus’ Salvation for him. Only a person who is sorry for his sins and has repented of his sins is looking to God for the forgiveness of his sins.