Warning! There is but One Way!

Beware of inventing alternative ways of salvation, as many people within the church are oh-so-likely to do.

We Christians love to fill heaven (in our own minds) with all sorts of means of salvation. On one hand, this is not a bad trait to have. We love our fellow man. On the other hand, this might be the worst trait to have. We are flatly rejecting God's Word.

How many ways of salvation does Scripture tell us about? Just one. THE way of salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. Period. Plus nothing.

We are not saved by:

1. Innocence. The number one heaven-filler, if you ask most American Evangelicals, is innocence. The salvation by innocence dogma usually takes its form in the so-called "Age of Accountability." The problem is, the Scriptures do not teach this idea anywhere. On the contrary, the Bible says that everyone is a sinner. Yeah, that includes infants and young children.

Does this mean that all infants and young children are unsaved heathens who get to fan the flames? Well, of course not. God works faith even in them, and even in utero, if John the Baptist is any example.

2. Our Good Works. Many Christians have decided that living a good life is an alternate way to heaven. This is just as much nonsense as the innocence argument above. To think that a person can just do their best to please God and that will earn them heaven has numerous theological problems. First and foremost, it actually assumes that God is not holy. That's just a little bit of a problem...

3. Ignorance. Well, what about the bushman who has never heard the Gospel, someone may ask? Is he saved because he never heard? Well, no, unless you think he deserves to be saved. If this is the case, shouldn't we just not tell anyone about Christ?

We do our best to cling to the simple words of Scripture. By grace you are saved, through faith. (Eph 2:8-9)  How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Ro 10:14) Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)

The better question is why would we even want to go beyond what God's Word says about the topic?