What is necessary, little or much, for salvation to occur, for a person to become a Christian and enter the kingdom of God? That is, what is the lowest common denominator? The Bible is quite clear that salvation is by faith through grace alone (cf. Eph. 2:8-10). But what does that mean?

It means, that there are no pre- or post-requisites to salvation. Acts 2:21 should be our guide (it is a quotation of Joel 2:32):

And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Salvation is not the consequence of right doctrine, right knowledge, right behavior, right attendance, or any of the thousand and other lists and regulations and expectations set up by human beings to determine the validity of a salvation. Salvation is something God does, and he does it with the least bit of provocation.

To argue that right behavior or right doctrine is necessary or a part of salvation creates contradictions, scripturally. As an example, consider one of the individuals listed in Hebrews 11 as great men of faith: Jephtha. His behavior and understanding of theology was low, even given the level of special revelation available in his time period. Jephtha acknowledged the existence of gods other than Yahweh (cf. Judges 11:23-24) and wound up sacrificing his daughter as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30-31; 35-39). Certainly it would have been to both his advantage and the advantage of his daughter had his theology been straight and his ethics a little more enlightened, but neither of those things have anything to do with his relationship with God or his salvation.

Likewise, Lot, nephew of Abraham, is described by the author of 2 Peter as a “righteous man” (cf. 2 Peter 2:7-8); yet, when we examine the narrative about him in the Old Testament (Gen. 19), we find him reluctant to leave Sodom and having little influence on his family or his society. Then, we find him getting so drunk that he has sex with his own daughters (to say nothing of the questions raised about his parenting that they would have thought of such a thing). By even his own standards, he was morally bankrupt, let alone by modern standards. Yet, since salvation is by grace through faith, and since our righteousness is “in Christ” (cf. 1 Cor 1:30-31; Phil. 3:8-9; Gal. 2:20-21), we are reminded again that though it may be beneficial to be a “good Christian” (both for the sake of those around us, as well as to our own happiness), our behavior isn’t what makes us righteous and it’s not what’s going to get us (or anyone else) into heaven.

God is not trying to keep people from getting into heaven. Rather, he wants as many as possible to get there, and he has done everything in his power to make it easy. He is not standing there, tapping his foot, waiting to see what someone will do, frowning and clucking and looking through the application, nitpicking to find something that will keep the applicant out.

Heaven is not an exclusive club not interested in letting “your kind” in, with St. Peter as a three hundred pound bouncer. God did and does everything he can to get people into heaven (he’s dying to let people into heaven, after all).

What about passages like “narrow is the way”….? Or “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven”. Doesn’t that imply that getting to heaven is difficult and unlikely? That God in fact IS making it tough, that not just ANYONE can get in?

It would do well to keep in mind a distinction between cause and effect, prescription and description, and human choice versus God’s demands. Confusing such points is what creates the apparent contradiction.

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