©1996 by Thomas F. Heinze
Reproduced by permission

If someone came to you today and asked, How can I be saved? I want to go to heaven and not to hell! What should I do? what would you tell him?

I have asked this question of thousands of Roman Catholics, and ask it of you. Almost all give substantially the same answer. It is the same answer I as a Protestant gave before my salvation, when I did not yet know the answer God gives in the Bible. This answer could be summarized: Be good. Don't sin. Live by God's law.

The Bible teaches us the exact opposite of that which most of us have believed! It teaches us that we are sinners who do not merit salvation. All men have sinned Not one of them acts uprightly, no, not one (Romans 3:23, 12). We are all included! The Bible teaches that we are not good enough to save our souls. Cursed is he who does not abide by everything written in the book of the law to carry it out (Galatians 3:10). God asks us to abide by everything, not simply to be better than others, but abide by everything! Some of us abide by more than others, but no one is perfect. Even though none of us abides by everything written in the book of the law, God still loves us, and in His love, He gives us the good news of the Gospel. That is, that in spite of what we deserved, He has had mercy on us, and has sent His son to pay for our sins.

Sometimes a guilty and condemned criminal waiting to be executed is handed a complete pardon from the governor. God did that for us: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). Yes, God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

God explains that we cannot save ourselves, but that salvation is His gift to us sinners: I repeat, it is owing to His favor that salvation is yours through faith. This is not your doing, it is God's gift; neither is it a reward for anything you have accomplished, so let no one pride himself on it (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Notice how the Bible completely contradicts the fond belief of so many people that if they try hard enough they will be able to save themselves by keeping God's law: Never-the-less, knowing that a man is not justified by legal observance but by faith in Jesus Christ, we too have believed in Him in order to be justified by faith in Christ, not by observance of the law; for by works of the law no one will be justified (Galatians 2:16). And again, the just man shall live by faith (Galatians 3:10-11). (See also Galatians 3:12-13; 5:4; Romans 3:20).

The criminal who is handed a pardon, does not receive it because he is better than other criminals. He is guilty and condemned. But he had faith that that piece of paper would really free him. He gave it a try and walked out a free man. In Jesus Christ, God offers His pardon to undeserving sinners. What will you do with it?

The Bible says that if it were possible for us to merit salvation by keeping God's law, there would have been no reason for Christ to die for us. I will not treat God's gracious gift as pointless. If justice is available through the law, then Christ died to no purpose! (Galatians 2:21).

The Bible explains both why we cannot merit our salvation, and what Christ did about it. He died in our place, and took upon Himself our punishment. All men have sinned, and are deprived of the glory of God. All men are now undeservedly justified by the gift of God, through the redemption wrought in Christ Jesus. Through His blood, God made Him the means of expiation for all who believe so that He might be just and might justify those who believe in Jesus For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from observance of the law (Romans 3:23-28). This passage also explains who will be justified: those who believe in Jesus.

God says, All men have sinned. Take His word for it. Don't try to convince Him that you are an exception. Repent of your sins because Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for them, not just for the original sin of Adam, but for all sins. The Apostle John wrote, the blood of His Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Accept the pardon He offers you!

In Italy, when a pope dies, great posters are plastered on the walls of the cities calling the people to pray for his soul because the church believes that he is suffering in purgatory. Roman Catholicism, very frankly, cannot save even its own popes. If you are trusting in that system for your salvation, you should fervently hope for one of two things:

• That the Bible is wrong about how one is saved.
• That you are a better Catholic than the popes.

Let's face the truth: The Bible is not wrong, and you probably are not a better Catholic than the popes. The wonderfully good news is that God offers salvation in His Son for sinners that have not earned it.

Salvation, as we read earlier, is God's gift to us. All we must do to receive a gift is to accept it (Ephesians 2:8-9). To accept God's gift of salvation means to accept His Son because, God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever possesses the Son possesses life; whoever does not possess the Son of God does not possess life (1 John 5:11-12).

For you to accept Christ means to stop believing that you can save yourself by your baptism, by being good enough or by your own suffering in purgatory. Shift your faith to a more solid foundation. Trust Christ to save you! Ask Him to enter your life and to cleanse it as He wishes. When you do, God no longer sees you in your sin, but in Christ's goodness. John, the apostle that Jesus loved most, wrote, All who did accept Him, He empowered to become children of God(John 1:12). The apostle Paul experienced this in his own life, and wrote, Now that we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have gained access by faith to the grace in which we now stand (Romans 5:1-2).

In my own experience, when I realized that God was asking me to trust Christ to save me, I had a real struggle. He was asking me to give up what I had always counted on for my salvation; my own goodness and merit. An artist captured this thought with a picture of a child who was dropping a toy to make room for a beautiful bird that was flying down to land on her hand.

I was not what I considered a very bad sinner when I first understood that God was offering me salvation in Christ. As I considered my life, the one outstanding thing that bothered me was that I used a filthy vocabulary that I knew God was not pleased with. I felt that if I could only clean this up, I would be worthy of my salvation.

I had another motivation for cleaning up this sin as well. I was a university student at the time, and wanted very much to make a good impression on the girls, but I was often very embarrassed to find my habitual dirty language popping out at the most inappropriate moments.

At one point, I even enlisted the help of a friend. Every time he heard me say a dirty word, I paid a fine. In a very short time he had accumulated a good sum of money which we spent for an evening out on the town. But nothing worked! I couldn't control the only sin I can think of which offers the sinner nothing.

Had I been a thief, I would have had more money. Sexual sin would have given me an occasional moment of pleasure. But despite the fact that my filthy language offered me nothing in return, I still couldn't kick the habit. Seeing this, I abandoned every hope of ever being good enough to save myself, and believed God. It was a humbling moment and a very difficult decision. I faced the fact that I had been wrong for 18 years and asked Christ to come into my heart and cleanse me.

The tears of relief at the end of this inner struggle were still running down my cheeks as I walked off a new man, saved by grace, not by works, and bound for heaven. Christ living in me soon cleaned up my vocabulary, and has been cleaning things up ever since.

I have seen the same thing happen to all kinds of sinners since then, from the most righteous of sinners, to thieves on drugs who stole the last dollar their own mother had to buy groceries. Letting Christ cleanse a life after He saves a soul is not always easy. It takes time reading His word to let Him persuade us, but God sends the Spirit of Christ to live in us when we receive His Son, and we are cleansed by His power and not our own. That is the secret.

You too can be saved today by a simple sincere act of faith. Jesus said, All that the Father gives me shall come to me; no one who comes will I ever reject (John 6:37). Will you pause and come to Jesus right now to get this thing settled? You will not be rejected! If you need to, read again anything you have not understood, but don't put off your decision.

God says it is Christ who saves, and that those who come to Him will not be cast out. Don't allow yourself to be sidetracked either by people who think they can be saved by their works or by the Catholic Church's claim that it dispenses salvation. The church says: This sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism, just as Baptism is necessary for those who have not yet been reborn. (from the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1994, Page 255, Paragraph 980) And again: There is no offense, however serious that the Church cannot forgive. (Page 256, Paragraph 982)

Remember, the Church's kind of salvation and forgiveness leaves even its best popes suffering in the flames of Purgatory for some undetermined length of time (which it suggests may be shortened by masses and prayers).

When the Bible speaks of how Jesus Christ saves, it is entirely different: Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25) Why can't the Catholic church save like this? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6). Don't believe those who offer another salvation.