Is belief in Jesus all you need to get into heaven?
Read Dave’s answer
Answer 1
No - the idea that you’ll go to heaven by simply believing that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, without regard to how you live your life, the choices you make, whether you live by the teachings of Jesus or not, and so on is contrary to scripture and common sense.
Let me first state that I believe that it is ONLY by grace that we are saved, AFTER all we can do. And that does NOT mean that we are saved by grace BECAUSE of all we can do.
If you believe the Bible, you should consider a few things Jesus said according to John:
“You are my friend, if you do whatsoever I command you…” - John 15:14
“If a man love me, he will keep my words.” - John 14:23
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.” - John 14:15
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” - Matthew 22:37–39
So how can you believe IN Jesus, but not believe what Jesus said? How can we believe actions don’t matter when the commandments are mostly actions and Jesus equated love of God with obeying His commandments with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength? What Jesus said often had a lot of “ifs” and other conditions that are easy to forget or ignore. To our peril.
Someone who says faith in Jesus is all we need is ignoring the actual words of Jesus. Is it possible, even perhaps likely, that Jesus was referring, in the following passage, to those who miss the entire point that salvation is not some binary fork in the road but rather is about the person we ultimately become as we live a life of love for Jesus, which love is evidenced by how we change (repentance = change) by obeying Jesus’s commandments (words) to become more Christlike, in the following words:
“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
- Matthew 7:21–23
Jesus will ultimately judge us and He has made it very clear what criteria He will use - whether we have shown our love of God and our faith in Him by how we lived our life. By our thoughts, words, and actions. Namely our works and the love we have shown for God, ourselves, and others. We do not show love for God, ourselves, OR others when we do whatever we please believing that belief or faith in Jesus is all that matters.
Our actions DO matter, because true faith invariably leads to repentance and the kind of “works” that reflect our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not the works that save us - only Jesus Christ and his redeeming blood and grace can save us - but faith in Jesus Christ leads us to love Jesus and a desire to know Jesus and follow Jesus and obey His commandments and hunger and thirst after righteousness and a yearning to be born again every day of our lives as we seek to become more like the Savior we love and wish to obey. That’s why Jesus said “If you love me, keep my commandments” - so we can become more like Him!
Now, those who profess this vain belief usually point to the thief on the cross as evidence that the thief’s belief is all that’s required. First, Jesus knew the man’s heart and the man’s deeds in life and everything about this man. We don’t and can’t. So when Jesus tells the thief he’ll be in paradise with Jesus “this day,” that only tells us that Jesus judged him to have met whatever requirements there are to be in paradise after death. It doesn’t say anything about what paradise is, other than Jesus went there after His death and before His resurrection. Apparently, it’s a place for spirits to “enter into their rest” while awaiting resurrection. Is paradise salvation, or is resurrection salvation?
This is also from The Bible:
“Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”
John 3:5
Obviously, more is required than mere belief - being born again of water refers to baptism and being born again of the Spirit refers to being born again through the Spirit not only into a newness of life but also into a state of grace as the Spirit prompts us in how to stay on the strait and narrow path that leads to eternal life and gives us the kind of knowledge of the Father and the Son that Jesus said was “life eternal.”
Remember that even Jesus was baptized by immersion even though He was perfect and had no need to be baptized! As he told John the Baptist - baptism was important to “fulfill all righteousness.” He was obviously showing us the way. Being baptized by immersion for the remission of our sins is an inevitable consequence of true faith and an action we ignore or dismiss as unnecessary to our eternal peril.
James wrote, in The Bible, something that your Christian classmate apparently has never read, but should:
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
James 2: 14–20
Just do a thought experiment - suppose you accept as true the idea that your actions don’t matter, and every morning you say a prayer acknowledging that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, and then you go out and commit every sin your all-too-human heart desires. You cheat, lie, steal, and hate - believing all the while that Jesus will save you from your sins and even rejoicing in the idea that Jesus will save you and prepare a place for you in heaven. Think about that for a minute.
I submit that God cannot look on any sin with the least degree of allowance, which is why He has provided us with a Savior who can change our hearts through faith on him - and thus change our thoughts, words, and deeds to match our faith. Yes, faith leads us into a newness of life, but it should not lead us to a careless dismissal of our personal need for repentance and whatever righteousness we can muster (knowing it’s never enough) in order to draw nearer to our God and Savior (knowing that it is only by His grace that we are saved - after all we can do).
I admit the [false] doctrine you describe is appealing. It removes from us all moral responsibility to do good and do as Jesus taught. It lets one sin without remorse (at least if we’re able to convince ourselves that our faith in Jesus gives us license to sin freely) - after all, Jesus already paid for them all and only asks us to believe in Him! Harboring this false belief lets us repent so easily that we don’t need to even think much about our sins and how to overcome them.
In fact, it is so appealing that you’d think it might very well be one of Satan’s favorite tools. And it is. Even the earliest Christians were led astray by these very appealing ideas that your classmate (and millions of others) hold.
The Apostle Paul wrote this in an epistle to the Romans, some of whom had apparently been persuaded to believe as your classmate does:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Romans 6: 1–14
In other words, when we are baptized, we are buried in the water - our old sinful selves dead with Christ - and then we rise out of the water a new creature, born again by water into a newness of life through Christ. We can then be born again of the Spirit, as Jesus also commanded. Both of those require not only faith but also effort and action on our part, our faith - which is an ever-increasing gift from God to those who diligently seek Him - leads us to LOSE THE DESIRE TO SIN.
That doesn’t mean we stop sinning instantly - it simply means that we are dismayed by the idea of sin, and are humbled at the thought of how much the Lord Jesus Christ gave of his infinite grace to pay for OUR sins, including those we commit and repent of after we’re baptized. It’s very personal. And every time we sin again, we realize that, in a very real way, we have caused our Savior to suffer. And while we rejoice in Christ’s saving grace, we must also mourn for our sins and make every effort to repent and “go on unto perfection.” (Hebrews 6:1)
THAT is the end of all true faith, that we gradually, with the help of the Holy Spirit and our faith in Jesus Christ, become new creatures, born again to a newness of life, and become “perfect, even as [our] Father in Heaven is perfect.”
As Paul also wrote to the Romans:
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Romans 8: 13–18
So in summary, rejoice and be glad, for Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior - but repent of ones itching ears that want to hear that faith is all we need to be saved by grace, and remember how important it is to earnestly strive to make your faith LIVE as Jesus LIVES, and be baptized by immersion for the remission of your sins through the grace of our Savior, and receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, that you can be born again to that newness of life promised to the saints by the grace of God and His Holy Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior!
Answer 2
Easy answer: No.
“Heaven” is about what we become as much as it is about the truth we accept and believe and the actions we take in faith. Jesus commanded us to become perfect, and that is an eternal journey beyond this life. Jesus said many things that cannot be reconciled with shallow beliefs that limit our personal responsibility to repent (change ourselves and obey God's word) even knowing the immeasurable grace of Jesus and perfect love of the Father, who wants His children to become as He IS, so we can enjoy eternal life with Him.