Do you have to believe in Jesus to have eternal life?

12-minute video       As a podcast episode

Seven friends are discussing the importance in the teachings of Jesus of the idea of Jesus as the uniquely divine Son of God.

Friend number one: You don’t have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven. The expert in religious law asked Jesus what was needed in order to gain eternal life. Jesus said, “How do you read?” The scholar replied, Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said, “Do this and you will live.” There was no reference to faith in Jesus. To the rich young ruler who asked what he needed to do to gain eternal life, Jesus said that he should give away all his possessions. No mention of faith in Jesus. And consider the Sermon on the Mount, which makes no mention of faith in Jesus, which begins, “Happy are the poor in spirit, the humble, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Friend number two: But Jesus had enemies, some of whom knew Jesus well enough to have experienced evidence of his divinity. If you reject Jesus after you have truly glimpsed his divinity, you are rejecting the Father. And to say no to God is to say no to eternal life. For those people, it was necessary to believe in Jesus in order to receive salvation.

Friend number three: Most of the time, Jesus kept the truth of his divine Sonship under wraps. When Peter said, “You are the Son of the living God,” Jesus told his apostles not to tell that to anyone. He would hardly have said that if his divine sonship was the core of his gospel.

 

Friend number four: But toward the end of his career as a public teacher, Jesus proclaimed his divinity openly, publicly, in Jerusalem, in the temple, proclaimed his divinity. “I am the light of the world.” “I am the door for the sheep.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I and the Father are one.” So Jesus’ divine sonship must be part of the full gospel.

Friend number five: And what about Jesus’ teaching, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Friend number six: But this teaching comes at the very end of Jesus life, and is spoken only to the apostles. Is this consistent with the examples that our friend number one mentioned? As a matter of fact, we can interpret it as consistent with those teachings about eternal life that make no mention of faith in Jesus. What we have to do, along with a number of other conservative Christian commentators, is to recognize that it is not necessary in this life for a person to recognize Jesus’ divine sonship. We can recognize that after this life. Christianity really started with Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection. Three thousand people got baptized. The message was tremendously effective, and Paul continued with his Christ-centered preaching. The New Testament was written by authors who wanted to pile up the evidence in favor of their belief in the centrality of Jesus’ divine sonship. There is so much truth in the central Christian message that we would not think of trying to discourage it or take it out of anyone’s heart. Nevertheless, it is worth pondering why the religion that Jesus lived and taught was centered on the Father not on himself.

Friend number seven addressed the other six: Your emphases are different, but what each person has said is consistent with what every other person has said. If you would like to believe each thing that has been proposed, you can do so in intellectual responsibility as far as logical consistency is concerned. Truth is many-sided.

 

Image: Bertel Thorvaldsen, Christus (sculpture), 1838. Statue of Christ, by Bertel Thorvaldsen, Vor Frue Kirke, Copenhagen. The inscription at the base reads “Kommer til mig” (“Come to me”) with a reference to the Bible verse: Matthew 11:28. The photographer, IbRasmussen, has released it into the public domain worldwide.