How Does Salvation Work?
When I was younger, my church used to lead the congregation through a prayer of salvation at the end of every sermon, and they would always say something about how true Christians could “know that they know” that their salvation is secure. I had never experienced the level of confidence they described, so I found myself silently “praying the prayer” as earnestly as I could Sunday after Sunday just in case I hadn’t really been saved yet.
Not having that 100% certainty was scary because there was so much at stake: if I got this topic of salvation wrong, then I could end up in Hell forever.
Even though this topic of salvation was a high priority for me, the mechanics of how it worked remained shrouded in a cloud of mystery and ambiguity. Despite knowing all the Sunday School answers, the church’s claims about salvation didn’t always make sense to me. In my confusion, I was left with questions like these:
How does having “faith in Christ” enable me to go to heaven when I die? Why is FAITH the thing that saves? Is there any logic to that? or is it just “because God said so?” There has to be some sort of connection between “believing in Jesus” and “going to heaven.” If not, then the method of being saved seems like a made-up fairytale.
Why did Jesus have to die to offer humanity salvation? If God is all-powerful, then why couldn’t He just snap His fingers and give us all tickets to heaven? Why go through all the trouble of living a human life and dying?
What do I have to do in order to be saved? Churches make it seem as if obtaining salvation is as easy as having “faith in Christ,” yet there are many scripture passages that make it seem as though there are additional requirements.
How does the death and resurrection of Christ get applied to me as an individual living 2,000 years later? When people sitting in church hear that Christ died for them and resurrected, that statement will mean nothing to them unless they understand their connection to it.
Why do Christians refer to themselves as currently “saved” when they aren’t in heaven yet? It doesn’t make sense to say that Christians are presently “saved” when they aren’t in heaven yet.
When all these questions go unanswered, the gospel doesn’t sound much different than a fairy tale. It seems like God randomly decided that someone who “believes in Jesus” would go to heaven, in the same way that fairytale writers randomly decided that spells get broken when the princess kisses the frog. Is our eternal salvation based on the same unexplainable “magic” as made-up fairy tales?
I believe there’s a lot of logic behind why salvation works the way it does, which is why I’m writing a book about it, and summarized it’s message in the video How Does Faith Get Me Eternal Life?