Chapter 18: How to Enter the Kingdom. A person doesn't become an American citizen by simply crossing the United States border, legally or illegally. Rather, the United States government has set forth a procedure that an immigrant must follow to become a naturalized citizen. Basically, the person must be at least 18 years of age, a lawful resident of the United States for five years, of good moral character, able to read and write simple English, and possessing a basic knowledge of American government and history.
Finally, the applicant must take the oath of allegiance. Similarly, there are procedures or steps that must be taken before a person can enter the Kingdom of God. To begin with, before persons can enter this Kingdom, they must be freed. That's because all mankind are in bondage to sin, Satan, and death. Jesus died as a ransom to free us from this bondage. Through His death, He bound Satan and cleansed all believers by His blood.
A person avails himself of Jesus' shed blood through faith by following the steps set forth in Scripture. Jesus had trained His apostles to be able to help others enter the Kingdom. A short while after Jesus returned to heaven, the apostles had the opportunity to put Jesus' training into action. On the day of Pentecost, the first group of new applicants entered the Kingdom. The second chapter of Acts describes how they did this.
Now, when they heard this (Peter's preaching), they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Then Peter said to them, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call." And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be
saved from this perverse generation." Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.
Let's review those steps by which Peter's hearers entered the Kingdom of God. They heard the message of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, and they believed it. And this was no mere superficial belief; they were cut to the heart. Furthermore, they repented of their former life. What does that mean? My dictionary defines repent as to feel such regret or dissatisfaction over some past action or intention as to change one's mind about it. So Peter's hearers changed their minds about how they wanted to live.
They decided to live the rest of their lives as subjects of Jesus Christ. They were baptized in water. They received the Holy Spirit. After these steps, they entered the Kingdom. Please notice that these persons had to repent of their sins, but they did not have to atone for them. Jesus does the atoning for us. We do not save ourselves. Jesus does the saving. Please also notice that there was nothing Peter's hearers had to do to earn their salvation or to earn the Kingdom of God. They were completely unworthy.
Their salvation and their citizenship in the Kingdom were free gifts. They were saved by grace, not by their own righteousness. What happened to the crowd at Pentecost who believed and were born again? Many things, marvelous things. All of their past sins were forgiven and washed away. They had a clean slate before God. Furthermore, they were reborn as new creatures. That is, they underwent a supernatural spiritual transformation. They became citizens of the Kingdom.
And these new citizens of the Kingdom became a branch on the vine of Jesus. If they had died right then, they would have gone on to paradise. According to the Gospel of Easy Believism, that was the end of the matter. According to this popular Gospel, every sin a person has ever committed, plus every sin they will commit in the future, is forgiven when he or she is born again. This popular Gospel declares that salvation is a one-time step.
Once persons are born again, their salvation can be spoken of only in the past tense. But Jesus never said any of those things. The Gospel of Easy Believism is not the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Gospel of the Kingdom recognizes that there is both a past aspect of our salvation and a future one. Unless a person understands these two stages, he can never understand the Gospel of the Kingdom or the New Testament teaching on salvation. A number of passages in the New Testament speak of salvation in the past tense.
For example, the Scriptures say, "And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, for we were saved in this hope." So when we are born again, we have been saved. We have been taken out of the world. We enter the Kingdom of God right then. At that moment, our names are written in the Book of Life.
When writing to the Philippians, Paul referred to his fellow workers as those whose names are in the Book of Life. But the Scriptures also refer to a future aspect of salvation. Jesus said, "You will be hated by all for my name's sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved." So there is a future aspect of salvation. We must endure to the end of our life for our salvation to be final. Again, Jesus made this quite clear in his illustration of the vine. "I am the vine. You are the branches.
He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered. And they gather them and throw them in the fire, and they are burned. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away." This passage demonstrates the two aspects of salvation: past and future. Only those who have been born again, who have been saved, can be branches on this vine. That's the past aspect of salvation.
Nevertheless, just because we're a branch on Jesus' vine doesn't mean that we are going to stay on the vine. If we don't maintain our obedient love relationship, God will lop us off of the vine. That's why we must also talk of the future aspect of salvation. Because of this future aspect of salvation, Jesus told the Christians in Sardis, "He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life.
But I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels." So just because our names were written in the Book of Life at our new birth, we can't presume that our names will stay there. In fact, Jesus' words to the church in Sardis sound like he was going to blot out the majority of their names.
For he said, "You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy." It's because of this future aspect of salvation that Jesus told the Christians in Thyatira, "Hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations." And it's because of this future aspect of salvation that the Scriptures tell us, "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.
Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you." If we endure, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. It pains me to hear Kingdom Christians argue with each other about salvation, not acknowledging that there are both past and future aspects. I've heard or read exchanges between Kingdom Christians who resemble Christian number one and Christian number two in the following scene.
Christian number one is a Kingdom Christian who loves Jesus and lives by his teachings. But he belongs to a church that emphasizes the future aspect of salvation. Christian number two likewise loves and obeys Jesus, but he belongs to a church that emphasizes the past aspect of salvation. Unfortunately, even though both churches in reality believe in both aspects of salvation, neither church places an equal emphasis on the two aspects.
As a result, their members often have exchanges similar to the following: Christian number two, "Brother, have you been saved?" Christian number one, "What do you mean, have I been saved? Of course not. It would be presumptuous for anyone to say that he is already saved. Jesus will make that determination once I die." Christian number two, "Well, if you don't know now that you have already been saved, it will be too late when you die.
You're holding to a false gospel." Christian number one, "No, you're the one holding to a false gospel, a gospel of presumption." It might sound like these two Christians are light years apart in their beliefs. And perhaps they truly are. But often their beliefs are quite similar. If they are truly Kingdom Christians, each of their churches probably holds to both the past and future aspects of salvation.
Yet, because each church emphasizes one aspect almost to the exclusion of the other, their members have a confused understanding of salvation, and they cannot clearly articulate the gospel of the Kingdom even though they hold to it in their hearts. Asking someone, "Have you been saved?" is like asking a person, "Have you quit stealing from your employer?" An honest employee can't answer that question with a simple yes or no, can he?
He can only thwart this deceptive question by replying, "I have never stolen from my employer, so there's nothing to quit." The salvation question is just as deceptive, although unintentionally so. A simple yes or no will not suffice. Someone who understands the gospel of the Kingdom must counter the inherent deceptiveness of the question by responding, "Yes, I was saved when I was born again.
However, my final salvation will not be determined until I have endured to the end." Before leaving the subject of salvation, I want to add a quick statement about security. We Kingdom Christians don't live in constant anguish and insecurity. No, we live in joyous anticipation of the promises that Jesus has made. And we know that Jesus' grace will enable us to stay on the vine so long as we continue to love and obey him. However, at the same time, we must not become overconfident and presumptuous.
Nor should we ever lose our fear of our Lord. Yes, we enjoy true security, but it's conditional security. Please understand that, to be saved, a person doesn't have to be able to articulate the various things I've discussed in the last two chapters. Jesus is not that interested in what we say. He's primarily interested in what we do. He made this clear in one of his parables.
A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, "Son, go, work today in my vineyard." He answered and said, "I will not." But afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, "I go, sir." But he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father? They said to him, "The first." It's what we do, not what we say. Jesus' teachings were designed to be understandable by the simplest of people. No education was necessary.
If our theology requires someone to study for years to master it and be able to teach others, something is seriously wrong. Neither Jesus nor his apostles founded any seminaries because none are needed for the gospel of the Kingdom. Kingdom Christians rarely establish seminaries. And when they do, they invariably end up losing the Kingdom Gospel.
The Kingdom Gospel is so simple, so unattached from complicated theology, that for the first 300 years of Christianity, the following statement of faith sufficed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell, Hades. The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic universal Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." This simple statement of faith usually is known as the Apostles' Creed. To be sure, the early Christians had teachings and views that went beyond that simple statement of faith.
But that was all the theology a Christian had to believe. If some Christians wanted to dig further, they were welcome to, so long as they didn't take themselves too seriously and go beyond the things handed down. If the Apostles' Creed was adequate theology for the first three centuries of Christianity, it was adequate theology for the centuries that followed. And it's still adequate theology for today.
The institutional church didn't grow into a better understanding of Christ once it abandoned the gospel of the Kingdom. Rather, it has grown further and further from the real Christ.