What We Must Believe

By Arthur J Licursi

In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul tells us faith in Christ is the basis of our salvation. Paul also wrote of the simple basis of our salvation under today's "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 16:31) as being;

"...Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ [give yourself up to Him, take yourself out of your own keeping and entrust yourself into His keeping] and you will be saved, [and this applies both to] you and your household as well. (Acts 16:31 (AMP)

Paul's words above, and with the added emphasis of the Amplified Bible, are absolutely true, but here now I want to examine what we are to believe or trust in concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.

"If you confess (profess) with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and Believe In Your Heart That God Raised Him From The Dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified (declared righteous before God), and it is with your mouth that you confess (profess) and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10, NIV, with emphasis added)

These verses above are the key where salvation is concerned. Salvation is always a matter of the heart with the Lord, and in this passage it’s clear that the central issue of salvation is a heart-felt belief in the supernatural RESURRECTION of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

But why is belief in the resurrection of Jesus the requirement for salvation today?

Jesus' resurrection in itself proof that God the Father accepted the sacrifice of Jesus suffering and dying for us at the Cross. Christ's cross death was totally sufficient to make all who would believe in Jesus' resurrection... justified; that is... declared righteous in God's eyes.

God is just and was just in justifying us by Christ's death on our behalf. We would not have it any other way. Would like a God who winked at evil? He would then be unjust. God forbid! God the Father did not wink at sin, but rather fulfilled justice's demand of full payment on the debt of man's sin. So God the Father gave His only begotten Son to die and pay our sin debt in full, so that we would not have to die, but rather have Christ's own eternal life in us as our new life.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 (KJV)

Believing in the resurrection of Jesus is how we’re declared justified. Its by believing that we appropriate His sacrifice as our sacrifice on our behalf. The Greek word "dikaioo," for "justified," comes from a root meaning “to regard as innocent, faultless, guiltless.”

So, if we confess (agree with God the Father) that Jesus died for our sins and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead He will regard us as innocent of all charges, qualifying us to receive Jesus' own eternal life. We receive Christ's own very life the very moment we first believe in the resurrected Jesus as "the Christ," as our Savior.

Therefore Paul could write this of believers.

"... the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. ¹⁰ And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the (your) Spirit is life (alive) because of (Christ's) righteousness. (Romans 8:9-10 (KJV, with emphasis added)

Coming to possess Christ's very own one "Spirit of life" (Romans 8:2a) is the ultimate key issue for believers. It helps to understand that God the Father did not give Jesus to die so that bad people could become good. No! Jesus died so that spiritually dead people could be eternally alive by His Spirit coming to live in them... beginning the very moment they believe in His resurrection. When the Prodigal Son returned home, his joyful father didn’t exclaim, “My son was bad and is good again” but rather, “My son was dead and is alive again!” (Luke 15:32).

Thus Paul wrote of the heart and the matter of... our justification and our canceled debt.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you (eternally) alive with Christ. He forgave us ALL our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).

Paul wrote that "The wages of sin is death," so prior to becoming believers we were all dead in our sins. But when Jesus went to the cross He forgave all our sins, “nailing them to the cross” to signify that’s what He was dying for. The Greek word translated “all” in Col. 2:13 (above) literally means “each, every, any and all....sins” That means Jesus agreed to accept the full punishment that was due us so that all the charges against us could be dropped and we could escape the death sentence.

And Jesus' act of sacrifice wasn’t only retro-active, paying back for all the sins of our pre-Christian lives... it was also pro-active, paying forward for all the sins we’ll commit during the rest of our lives.

"by (Jesus') one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." (Hebrews. 10:14)

Put another way, Jesus took all our sin upon Himself, as being clothed in our sins, so we could be clothed in His righteousness forever.

"For he (God) hath made him (Jesus Christ) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; (so) that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (Jesus Christ). (2 Corinthians 5:21 (KJV)

God’s eyes are too pure to look upon sin. (Habakkuk 1:13) He literally can’t stand the sight of it. Seeing this fact about Him helps us understand the importance He places on us believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus became the physical embodiment of our sin. Thus, for the first time ever the Father had to turn away from His Son leaving Him alone and in anguish to cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Insulted, spat upon, beaten, whipped to within an inch of His life, and finally nailed to a cross, this was the only part of His entire ordeal that caused Him to cry out. The Bible says that day the earth shook and the sun went dark because the "Light of the World" (Jesus' life) was extinguished in that moment (Matt 27:45-51).

Praise God that was not the end of the story. Three days later Jesus rose from the dead to sit at the right hand of Majesty, and He’s seated there today, having completed His work of our redemption. That wouldn’t be possible if the work was incomplete and even one of our sins remained on Him. Since Jesus took all of our sins upon Himself, it follows that His death had to have absolutely and forever paid the complete penalty for every one of them, or else He’d still be in the grave.

So Jesus' resurrection is the guarantee of our salvation.

And by our believing in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we are really agreeing God... that we believe that ALL the sins of our life were forgiven at the cross.

With that expression of faith you immediately then acquire the eternal life of Christ to indwell you; making you God's child and you are assured of heaven as you eternal abode.

"FOR WE KNOW that if the tent (body) which is our earthly home is destroyed (dissolved), we have from God a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Corinthians 5:1 (AMP)