What do I have to believe to be saved?
(Excerpt from DesiringGod.Org blog)
What are the most basic things a person needs to believe in order to be saved?
Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” He says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.”
So I take texts like that and begin at the core—the death of Jesus. He died for our sins, which means I must believe I am a sinner. A person that doesn’t believe he is a sinner can’t be saved. If there is nothing to forgive, Jesus didn’t do anything for me. If he didn’t do anything for me, I’m not believing him for salvation. If I’m not believing him for salvation, then I’m not saved. So you must believe you are a sinner.
You must believe that there is a God who has created the possibility for sin. That is, sin by definition is the falling short of the expectations of your Creator. So there has to be a Creator God out there who has expectations of humans. God expects humans to trust him, love him and live for him. And we fail.
Which leads us to the third thing we must believe. Because we fail to trust, love and live for God we are under his holy judgment—his wrath. You’ve got to believe that.
If you are a sinner and there is a holy God, and if you are defining sin as a falling short of that God, then in order to understand what he is doing to make things right you must understand that God is angry about sin. He is a good and just judge.
So, what has he done to solve the problem of our alienation from him? He has sent his Son into the world. You’ve got to believe in the deity of Jesus. Psalm 49:7-8 says that no man can pay a ransom for another man. A few verses later, (Ps. 49:15), it says God will pay the ransom.
He couldn’t have used John, or Peter or Paul to die for us. He had to have the God-man die for us. So the deity of Jesus is essential.
You also must acknowledge what Jesus did. He lived the perfect life. I don’t think you can believe that Jesus sinned and still be saved. Because then the sacrifice made for you was not what God required, and you aren’t believing in what God did for you. So Jesus is the sinless Son of God and he gives himself up to die in my place.
This substitutionary dimension of the death of Christ for my sins is necessary. There are lots of ways the Bible talks about this and I think you can be very confused about some of them while still being saved. I don’t want to start listing off all the ways the Bible talks about the atonement and how confused you can be about them while still being saved. Let’s just say that what is required is the core of the gospel—that the remedy is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who never sinned got in my place and took the wrath of God for me. He died in my place.
If he had stayed dead, we would still be in our sins. So you must believe he rose from the dead. So now he has risen from the dead.