What Precisely Must One Believe About Jesus?
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including faith, repentance, commitment, and baptism.
2
Thus some people are born
again simply by believing in Jesus. But others gain eternal life by commitment of
life, and still other by turning from their sins or by baptism.
I find this trend disturbing. Ultimately it denies the doctrine of justification
by faith alone. People can be justified by baptism or commitment or turning from
sins. The key is to come to Christ.
That view also brings the issue of the analogy of faith into question. No
longer can it be said that if one New Testament author says that the only condition
of justification is faith in Christ then no other New Testament author can give a
different condition. Now it is acceptable in evangelical circles to suggest that
different NT authors present different conditions of justification, as long as the
various conditions are ways for a person to come to Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of John is the sole book in the Bible whose purpose is
evangelistic (John 20:31). Thus it is reasonable to look there first to answer our
question about precisely what one must believe about Jesus Christ to have eternal
life. I have selected three representative passages.
John 4:7-26. One of the most beautiful evangelistic encounters ever reported
is Jesus leading the woman at the well to faith in Him. Unlike modern evangelism
that is often a monologue, Jesus engages in dialogue. He speaks seven times and
she responds seven times.
1
Robert N. Wilkin, Confident in Christ, Chapter 1, Saving Faith in Focus.
2
See, for example, James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, Chapter 2, Kerygma or
Kerygmata? pp. 11-32. Note especially this statement, In different situations the actual gospel was different, and
could be as different at the situations themselves. These differences were often considerable and incompatible when
transposed to other situations (p. 32). Similarly, in a 1991 Chapel message at Dallas Seminary, Darrell Bock said,
Our problem may be that we are trying to have one gospel presentation that applies to everybody. In fact, there are
many metaphors to describe what the gospel is: come, rest, receive, repent, turn, believe, trust, have faith. And in
different situations in the gospels we get different approaches to the person depending on how they need to respond
to the offer of the gospel. In February of 1998 in a public discussion with me entitled, What Is the Gospel, Bock
repeated this point, saying that some come to Christ by repenting, some by simply believing, and some by a total
commitment of life. Likewise, see Robert Stein Baptism and Becoming a Christian in the New Testament,
Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2 (Spring 1998): 6-17.