What Must We Believe About Jesus in Order to Be Saved?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network Podcast. To be saved?

Must one believe in the deity of Jesus? To be saved? That's what we're going to talk about today as we focus on theology this Tuesday. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. And you can weigh in. Here's the number to call.

866-344-866-348-7884. The end of the show yesterday, I said that we were going to be talking probably about some millennial topics today and looking about the debate on that. But as we shifted, and I realized also I had a guest that was going to come on at 3.30, I wanted everything to kind of go in the same direction, hence this topic. But we're going to be exploring in the Tuesdays ahead a bunch of theological controversies, not for the goal of getting people all upset, just want to tune in next week and yell at somebody, but to get more light than heat. Now, this is one of these shows where there is a dividing line. In other words, there will be a show where we may talk about pre-Trib rapture versus post-Trib rapture, or last week we talked about whether or not God continues to speak to his people outside of through the Bible alone, right?

And that's a debate in-house. We're going to talk about today there is a dividing line between saved and lost, between eternal truth and dangerous error. So we will draw that line as clearly as we can based on scripture.

Why do we say that Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult as opposed to part of the body? Well, there are many reasons for it, but one is their denial of the deity of Jesus and viewing him as a created being. So I want to make an initial statement, then I want to give you some scripture to consider, all right? I do not believe that you can be in right relationship with God, that you can be in his family as a forgiven child of God if you simply believe that Jesus was a created being. If he's a created being, we cannot worship him. If he's a created being, we cannot pray to him as Lord.

If he's a created being, even calling him Lord means now there is competition between him and the worship that should go to the Father alone. Now there are many people who are not clear about what they believe, and my view of God and my understanding of scripture is that God is not sitting there with some hammer. It's like, okay, did you get that? Don't you just, you just missed it.

You were so, just missed it. And you give your theology and God pulls out and I see and created the Athanasian Creed and said, you didn't quite say it right, to hell with you. No, that's, that's not who our God is.

That's not who our God is. And he's not just looking for correctness. He's looking for a heart that loves him. He's looking for a heart that worships him.

He's looking for a heart that will serve him and trust in him. So you need to know who he is and on what basis Jesus had the power to die for our sins. Now clearly through the Bible it is the Father who is primarily identified as God and the Father sends his Son into the world and appoints him to be Lord. That is the primary testimony of Scripture. Just like John 3 16, that God gave his Son.

Peter's message in Acts 2 36, the culmination of his, of his message at Shavuot, Pentecost to his Jewish audience, let all the house of Israel know that this Yeshua, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made Lord and Messiah. So the primary witness of the New Testament is not to declare that Jesus is God but to declare that he is Messiah and Lord. At the same time, when we look at the larger picture that is painted about who he is, there's no question, as I understand Scripture, I say there's no question, many will debate this, but to me there's no question that he is identified as eternal and uncreated deity. Now let me say this again, you may be unclear, you may not be entirely sure, I don't get this Trinity thing, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, or I know you talk about the eternal begetting of the Son, what does that even mean, eternally begotten, and does he have a beginning or not? If he's begotten he has a beginning, is that different than created or what does it mean?

Those are all legitimate questions, those are all fair questions, and I do not believe that God is sitting there to repeat with some kind of hammer that's going to come crashing down on you or me if we don't quite fully understand it. At the same time, if we have a view of Jesus, a view of the Son, that he is merely a created being and you deny his deity, so in other words you say I understand the issues and I say that he is a created being and I deny his eternal existence or worse still believe he is just a glorified man. In other words, he was not pre-existent at all. Jehovah's Witnesses say he was Michael the archangel, so he's pre-existent creation but not deity, not eternal deity, in which case they would have two gods because they would say John 1 1 translated the word was a god, so then they have two gods, the big G God and the small G God, in which case they have other gods before God, so that raises all kinds of other problems. Some, even worse, simply say that he was a glorified man. He did not exist until he was birthed by Mary and he is simply a glorified man.

That is even more heretical. But let me give you a fundamental scripture that points to the deity of the Son and why we must recognize that in order to be saved, in order to be in right relationship with God. So Romans the 10th chapter, you know well that the scripture says, verse 11, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. What are the verses before that? What is the word of the gospel? Verse 9, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Now again, this is not simply, this is not simply empty words. In other words, it is an intellectual confession without a heart joined with it, right?

It's heart and mind together. But the confession of Yeshua as Lord, it means a couple of things. First, it means that he is king. He is the ruler. He is the one that you submit your life to, right?

He is Lord and we are his servants. One day I was meditating in prayer and saying, okay, you are the shepherd. I'm a sheep. You're the father.

I'm your son. You are the warrior in chief, the man of war. I'm a soldier.

You are a Lord. I am slave. I am your servant. That's how we relate. Relationally, we are children.

Vocationally, we are bond slaves. So we are making that declaration. You are Lord.

Therefore, my life is submitted to you. Therefore, I cannot just go out and live however I want to live. The idea that you can have Jesus as Savior and not as Lord is completely unbiblical. Completely unbiblical. There's not a stitch of biblical logic or biblical evidence that supports that. In fact, in the New Testament, Jesus is called Lord over 400 times. He's called Savior about 15 times. So it's completely off base and you can't separate his lordship from his saving work.

The one who saves you is the Lord. Let me say that again. This notion that you can have Jesus as Savior and not as Lord is complete nonsense. It is unscriptural. It is illogical.

And it bifurcates the Son of God in a way that the Bible simply does not. You know, it would be like on your wedding vows. Yeah, you can have me as husband, but not as your exclusive lover because I'm interested in other women.

What? No, having you as my husband and you as my wife, that means that we are now bound together, husband and wife, bound together as one, making a lifelong pledge of fidelity to one another. That's what that means. So when we confess him as Lord, it is not just a theological statement. It is a statement of loyalty. It is a statement of obedience. No, I'm not saved because I stopped doing bad things and started doing good things because I'll fall infinitely short of God's standard.

I'll always fall short. Like Spurgeon said, it's like trying to clean the floor, but it's a dirt floor. Like, wow, that's dirty.

Well, the more you brush it, the dirtier it gets because it's a dirt floor. That's the condition of our heart outside of God's grace. We are saved by putting our trust in the Lord to save us. But to save us means save from sin to obedience. But it is not only a statement of obedience.

It is also a statement of truth. He is not just a man. He is not just a prophet.

He is not some enlightened guru or yogi. He is Lord. God has appointed him Lord. It doesn't say God has appointed him God.

Correct. God has appointed him Lord, but the Lord is also God and God is the Lord. Meaning that when I confess him as Lord, I'm acknowledging his supremacy. And remember in Jewish thinking, one of the most sacred prayers you'd pray every day is called the Shema.

From Deuteronomy 6, if you're a traditional Jew, you pray to this day with eyes closed, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, or the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And that confession of him as Lord is an identification with the eternal deity. Philippians, the second chapter, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

Where is that coming from? That's a quote from Isaiah 45 that tells us every knee will bow to Yahweh. Every tongue will confess to him. This is now applied to Jesus. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus the Messiah is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So either you've got competition here, you've got people worshiping Jesus, praying to Jesus, saying they love Jesus, confessing him as Lord, and you have God that kind of rebounds to his glory, or you have one God, Father, Son, and Spirit, and the Father appoints the Son as Lord. And as we worship Jesus the Lord, we are worshiping God.

There's no competition, there is no dichotomy here. I could give you a number of other scriptures, of course, of course, indicating the eternal deity of the Son of God, and I'll do some of that on the other side of the break. But if you believe that you can be saved while denying the deity of Jesus, give me a call. Tell me why.

866-342. Do you think that's an unnecessary theological addition? Go ahead and make your point. Those agreeing with me, feel free to call in. Also, if you have a general Bible question, something we want to talk to you about on a theological line, by all means, give me a call. 866-3-4-TRUTH.

We'll be right back. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-3-4-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to the Line of Fire, 866-3-4-TRUTH. If you want to see a debate that I did with Dr. Dale Tugge about the deity of Jesus, you can see that on our website, AskDrBrown.org, or on our YouTube channel, AskDrBrown, just type in Tugge, T-U-G-G-Y. Hey, quick question for you. I'm going to share a little more scripture with you, then we're going to go to the phones, and then we've got a guest coming on that'll be joining us at the bottom of the hour.

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Thank you so much and we got some special gifts when you sign up and stand with us today. Okay, in terms of the deity of Jesus, again, this is not just academic theory. If he was a human being, if he was simply a human being, even a really good human being, he doesn't have the power to die for the sins of the world. Even if he managed somehow to live without sin for 30-something years, which of course would have been impossible, but even if he found a way to do it, born of a virgin, found a way to do it without being divine, that does not empower him to pay for the sins of the entire human race, multiplied billions of people over multiplied millennia?

Of course not. So it doesn't even make spiritually logical sense there. Not only so, the way he is exalted in the New Testament. Look in Revelation 5 when every created being in heaven and earth worships him, the lamb, and the father.

They both received that worship. That would be idolatry if he's not the son of God. And for Thomas to call him my Lord and my God in John 20-28 and for Jesus to say, you got it, finally you got it, that would be idolatry.

That would be having other gods. When the father in Revelation 1 identifies as the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, in other words as the only uncreated eternal being, and then Jesus uses those same words about himself in Revelation 22, that's telling you that he too is uncreated. And that's why he has the power to die for all of us, and that's why it is right that we worship him and even pray to him, although primarily our prayers are directed to the father through him. And when John 1-1 speaks of him as deity, and when John 8-58 Jesus says of himself before Abraham was I am, those are words of deity speaking. You say, well why doesn't he just come out and say I'm God?

Well that could be misleading. Does that mean he is the father, son, and spirit? Does that mean that God in heaven does not exist? Does it mean that the Holy Spirit working throughout the universe does not exist?

Does that mean that if you could kill this physical being that you killed God? And even to say that could be so fraught with misunderstanding. Even John 1 is nuanced. The Word was God. The Word became flesh. So, this eternal Word now becomes flesh. So, these things are laid out clearly in Scripture. Even his authority to forgive on earth ties in with his deity.

So, it's not just abstract. Again, when I came to faith, I've shared this many times, I didn't understand any of this. I prayed to God to forgive my sins. I believed Jesus died for me, rose from the dead. Was he himself God? Was there a trinity?

I had no clue. And I was definitely saved, definitely born again. And then over time, learned the rest.

In the weeks and months that followed, learned the rest. And ever since then, it's been the exploration of the massive person of God that continues to bring me to worship as he transcends my understanding. So, I'm not saying that you have to understand it all to be saved. And for many Jews, it's a process when they come to faith to get to that point of understanding Messiah's deity and eternal existence and our call to worship and follow him as God.

So, it can take time to process that. But to deny his deity, to say he is a created being means he's not worthy of worship, meaning that he would be a substitute Lord for the only God, that I'd be giving devotion to him that belonged only to God, and that would therefore be idolatrous. So, I do not see how someone can deny his eternal deity and say he is merely a created being and be in right relationship with God and be truly saved. When I said it earlier in the broadcast, saved, quotes, not everyone uses that terminology, even though it is biblical terminology. Okay, last point, then I'm going to the phones.

Last point. When it comes to recognizing who he is, it is, as we've been saying, theological and practical, right? It is right understanding of who he is, as well as now how I follow him and serve him. You may be a Jehovah's Witness and you really don't understand your system right, and somehow you came to genuine faith in the midst of a cult. You may be a Mormon and somehow you came to genuine faith in the midst of a cult. You may be part of some other group that has some weird doctrine, even heretical doctrine, but you came to faith in the midst of a cult.

Well, keep moving forward and get out of that cult so that you can fully embrace the truth with the people of God. I do not believe you have to sign on the Nicene Creed or the Athanasian Creed to be saved. I do not believe that you need to affirm every detail of that or say I have full understanding of the Trinity. The key point I'm making here is the rejection of the idea of the deity of Jesus. You say, I don't understand eternal beginning, how he comes forth from the Father. Okay, fine. That's not the big issue here. It is the idea of him being a created being where we draw the line. All right, let's go to the phones 866-34-TRUTH.

We'll start in Virginia with James. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thanks for calling.

Thank you, sir. I believe in the deity of Christ. Where I get a little confused is, you know, there's no way to the Father except by me, and you know, I imagine like a, you know, a young African child who has never had the opportunity to learn about Christ. Are they going to hell? And if, let's say, Mother Teresa was Jewish and she did everything that she did, and I know that it works, doesn't get you to heaven, but it still doesn't always sit well with me, that she'd be in hell. And the other question and point I was going to make, more of a question, is when Jesus was dying on the cross and He said, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do, who was He forgiving and what was He forgiving? Was He forgiving somebody standing there who was not going to ever believe in Him, or were they forgiven on the spot, and did they make it to heaven?

Right, so James, I'm just jumping in only because we're going to have a break, and I want to make sure I can answer as best as I can, all right? To answer the second question first, in context, Jesus is talking about those who crucified Him in Luke 23. So contextually, that's who He's talking about, those crucifying Him, and it doesn't mean that they are now saved or forgiven of all those, all their sins. It is simply asked them, don't, don't condemn them for doing this. So that, they didn't really know they were crucifying the Son of God, so he's saying, God, don't hold this against them. Now, they're still just as lost as they were before, they're still just as far from God as they were before, assuming they weren't, they weren't in right relationship with God, but that one sin is not going to be held against them, that is not going to be the thing, okay, well, you crucify them, you say no, Father, forgive them, and then he's showing his heart on a broader level to everyone that was responsible for his crucifixion, but in context, he's asking forgiveness for those directly involved. As to the question of what about that religious Jew that's as devoted as anyone you know, and as God-fearing as anyone you know, and as rich in good works as anyone that you know, what about that person? Is it possible that, and the only Jesus they know is the Jesus in their mind of the Holocaust and the Inquisition and Crusades and Jewish tradition that attacks him, so they really are in ignorance, it should bother us, it should hurt us that that person could be lost. I leave every individual before God, in other words, I can't tell you the state of that person, God knows, and I can't tell you the state of the theoretical Mother Teresa, I'd have to say, if she was Jewish, right?

God knows. So that's the first thing, and if you could, my take is this, if you could be good enough to get in without God's mercy, then all the more power to you, but as I understand it, none of us are good enough, and all of us need his mercy. If we reject that mercy, we're lost. What if we never heard of it? God will deal with everyone fairly and justly, but for sure, the finest person I know on the planet could not get in without the mercy of God through Jesus. If we knowingly reject it, we are certainly lost. We will be right back with Dr. Hugh Ross.

There are a lot of different views about Jesus. Find out more when we come back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. We have been talking about who the real Jesus is and what we should and must believe about him to be in right relationship with God. We're going to pivot a little, but not entirely, as I bring on Dr. Hugh Ross, astronomer, founder and president of Reasons to Believe, been a guest on the show many times.

If you've never visited reasons.org, there is a treasure trove of material waiting for you and for your kids as well, people of all ages and backgrounds, reasons.org. Dr. Ross, great to have you back on the broadcast with us. Thanks for joining us.

Oh, it's good to be back with you, Michael. Now, every time you've been on the air, we've talked about science in the Bible, or we've talked even about the theology of scripture and light of science, and it's always enlightening, but I understand you've got yogis and gurus on your mind these days, so talk to me about this. Well, I answer questions on our website, and a very common question I get is people saying, well, didn't Jesus go to the Far East, and isn't that where he got all of his religious training from Hindu leaders or people in China? And so they're trying to claim that as a way, I think, to get this universal idea that it doesn't matter what religion you follow.

So your question came up about this. Yeah, there are traditions that make this claim. In your view—I mean, we each know where we stand here, but we'll just flesh this out here—in your view, is there any reliability to these traditions? Is there any historical attestation that Jesus actually traveled outside of what we'd call Israel today, traveled outside of that to either India or China and got special enlightenment there? Well, Michael, the speculation is based on the fact that the New Testament is silent on the life of Jesus between the age of 12 and the age of approximately 30.

So they said, with those 18 years, we can speculate. But actually, you can't. If you look carefully at the text, it makes the point, number one, Jesus was in a poor family, so he didn't have resources.

It would be necessary to make a trip to India, for example. Moreover, he kept the Jewish law. He kept the commitment to the Jewish holiday. In particular, the text explicitly says that he and his family went up to Jerusalem every year to celebrate Passover.

So that doesn't really give him the time to make a trip to India or China and back, nor did he have the resources to make that trip. The other place of speculation is they say, well, didn't Jesus teach more or less the same things? Well, a lot of what he taught is in common for the simple reason of common grace.

God's Holy Spirit pours out light and truth upon all humans. So it's not surprising that you see elements of the law, for example, elements of the Ten Commandments and all the different religions of the world, but if you look carefully, say, at what's taught in the Indu Vedas and what's taught in the New Testament, the differences far outweigh the similarities. Yeah, and it's just like ancient Near Eastern creation accounts, and you may have a parallel here or there, but you compare it to Genesis 1 and other biblical creation accounts, and it's comparing light with darkness.

That's what I just tell everyone. The more you compare, the more the Bible stands out. You wonder, where did the biblical authors get this from? Where did they get this revelation of one God, one God only? If we look at, say, something like John 14, 6, where Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me. Are we right in understanding that in terms of exclusivity, and wouldn't that be the opposite of some of these universalistic claims? Yes, it is, but what is universal is anyone in the world, if they receive the light that God has given them, and the scripture is clear, every human being has received light, and John defines that in his first epistle.

It's a combination of God's love, truth, and life. We've all received that to some degree through the book of nature, and the promise is that we respond to that, God will give us more light. And so, everyone is heard, but not everyone is believed.

And what you see in Hinduism, for example, is this fundamental principle, everything reincarnates, the universe reincarnates, the physical stuff reincarnates, animals reincarnate, plants and humans. And the Bible says the exact opposite, is given unto men once to die, and then in judgment. There's no cycle, there's no second or third chance, and so we need to make the best of this one life that God has given us, which also means we have compassion for the poor. I mean, what I've noticed in the Hindu culture is that people are unwilling to intervene to help someone in a lower caste, because they think if they do that, they're going to ruin their second chance in their next life.

Right. But if you only got one chance, it's like you're going to help the poor, you're going to help the disadvantaged. Right, so you're interfering with their karma because they did something wrong in the previous life that has them demoted to begging on the streets, so let them beg on the streets, and let them do it well, and accept their fate, and they come back in the next world in a better state. Would you say, then, that there's not a real concept of grace in Hinduism? Yes, I mean, I think that's something that's unique to Christianity, this concept that we have undeserved favor from God.

You know, God's not judging us based on what we did good or bad, He's judging us based on what have we done, what the author, the creator, the universe has offered to deliver us from what we can't deliver ourselves. That's what separates Christianity from all the other religions of the world. Yeah, and what about Buddhist teaching, other teaching from the Far East?

There's not really a concept of sin or personal God, is there? There isn't, but what's been happening in the 21st century, I mean, I made a visit to Hong Kong just before the pandemic, ran into Buddhists, and Buddhism loves to syncretize, and I ran into this Buddhist sect that believed in salvation by grace alone. They believed that Jesus was the one that sacrificed himself for all of our sins. They believed in the doctrine of the Trinity. They basically co-opted all these doctrines from Christianity, but I remember engaging and saying, where did you get these teachings from? And they readily admitted they got it from Christianity in the Bible. But they were still identifying as Buddhists. They still identified themselves as Buddhists, but they could sign a rather rigorous doctrinal statement in the evangelical Christian community, but what I pressed them on, you are aware this contradicts the teachings of Buddhism, right? And they said, well, we just sift the good from the bad, which tells me there's an opportunity to reach Buddhists for Christ. Given that they have a syncretistic modus operandi, maybe we can kind of push them a little bit and say, well, you know, I'm glad you're willing to drop the stuff that's bad and receive the stuff that's good.

Let's pursue that and see where we end up. Yeah, and obviously missionaries on the front lines have wrestled with many of these things and the resistance, but God's at work and he does plant things in different hearts and minds and little by little, sometimes they have to be weaned and then they have the major, major breakthrough. One other thing, when you look at Hinduism, what message does it have for the people?

I've been to India 27 times. I've had many, many conversations with believers there and non-believers there and it still kind of mystifies me. I know that you've got brilliant people involved and Sanskrit scholars and all this and very deep spiritual thought, but I I don't get the appeal of it. Have you been able to understand that?

Yes, and just this past year we launched Reasons to Believe Asia Pacific. They're headquartered in India and I've done a lot of events in India during the pandemic via Zoom, and what I'm noticing is that you see a lot of Hindus leaving Hinduism for Christianity that are in the STEM career. You know, engineering, technology, science, and the reason why is that Hinduism teaches that you've got all these gods independently involved in creation and therefore they anticipate that when you study science, you're going to see all kinds of incongruities, inconsistencies, lack of homogeneity, and uniformity. However, when you study science, you see the exact opposite.

And Rudy does testify of a single plan, a single unity, a single Creator. So it's no surprise that a lot of educated Hindus, especially those educated in science and engineering, are coming to faith in Christ. I mean, I did an event in India a few months back and it was sponsored by the CIA, and it was the Church of the Inscrutable Algorithm, and virtually the entire Church was populated by engineers and scientists, including the chairmen of the science department at the local university.

So in the universities, we are seeing that swing away. And I mean, I actually studied Hinduism before I looked at the Bible, and what turned me off was this emphasis on reincarnation. I was founded that the universe reincarnates every 4.32 billion years. As a young astronomy student, I knew the number was wrong, but I also knew there was no way, given the entropy measure of the universe, that it could ever rebound into a second beginning. The universe has one beginning and only one beginning. And now people in India are becoming aware of how strong the evidence is for Big Bang cosmology and their brother's sake. Hinduism can't be it. Very, very interesting. You know, when I've looked at polytheistic accounts and polytheism in terms of creation, I've looked in terms of the ancient world, the biblical text, because I'm not a scientist or an astronomer, so my whole orientation is the ancient world and the text there, and then preaching the gospel from scripture. But you coming at it from this viewpoint, absolutely fascinating.

And CIA, that's extraordinary. Hey, we've got a minute. What's new on reasons.org? Well, what's really new is we've found some amazing fine-tuned discoveries in the scientific literature. Very briefly, the one that really blew me away if you want life to exist on a planet, it has to be on a planet-moon system virtually identical to the Earth, where the moon's magnetic field couples with the Earth's magnetic field, and only to get that coupled magnetosphere to prevent the water in the atmosphere being sputtered away from the young sun.

That's a habitability requirement that basically eliminates everything except the planet we're on. It just happened by coincidence. It just happened to work out. Hey, Dr. Ross, always fascinating talking to you. Thanks for joining us, friends. Reasons.org. Check it out.

You'll be amazed at what you find. Thanks for joining us, sir. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Are you ready to get pumped up with truth, pumped up with edifying quotes, pumped up with truth from Scripture?

Michael Brown, thanks for joining us on the line of fire. I want to read some quotes and some sections from my 1993 book, It's Time to Rock the Boat, a call to God's people to rise up and preach a confrontational gospel. And it is the chapter called The Savior is the Lord. The very theme that we've been on today, the Savior is the Lord. When I had COVID, my doctor recommended one day that I got some fluids.

So we just called some local place. They come to your house and they get you an IV and then they put certain fluids in you that are just, you know, helpful and healthy and rejuvenating and so on and getting you hydrated properly and some vitamin B, etc., to just add to energy. And what I felt like during the break, as I was looking at some of these quotes during our two-minute break, was just take this as spiritually, we're just pumping these beautiful truths into your arm, that there's a spiritual IV. Because remember, we're here to see you healthy and thriving in every way. We're here to see you spiritually reinvigorated and strengthened and personally revived so that the fire in you can spread to others, so that that yoke that is on so many as they get healthier and spiritually fatter in the right sense, boom, that yoke breaks off. Look at what Spurgeon said, I cannot conceive it possible for anyone truly to receive Christ as Savior and yet not to receive him as Lord. Man who is really saved by grace does not need to be told that he is under solemn obligations to serve Christ. The new life within him tells him that. Instead of regarding it as a burden, he gladly surrenders himself, body, soul, and spirit to the Lord who has redeemed him, reckoning this to be his reasonable service.

Amen, Pastor Spurgeon. John Bunyan, a few hundred years before Spurgeon, said this, Christ as Savior is not divided. He that hath him not in all shall have him in none of all, none at all of his offices in a saving manner. So, in other words, to say, well, have him as Savior, not as Lord. No, he's not divided.

If you won't have him as all, you don't have him as any. I wrote this, Jesus came to save his people from their sins. That's the heart of the gospel. It's true that he came to save us from hell, but hell is not our primary problem. Hell is only the consequence of the problem. Sin is the great problem of the human race. Jesus came to free us from our sins.

That is what his name is all about. So, Miriam Mary, she will give birth to a son, and you're given the name Jesus, Yeshua, because he will save his people from their sins. And, of course, Yeshua related to the root for salvation. Anything less than that is not salvation. Anything less than that is not our Savior. That's why he came, bled, died, and rose from the dead to free us from our sins. So, maybe you've been taught, I get saved to avoid hell.

Well, yes, that's part of it. We don't want to perish. We don't want to be destroyed by God. We don't want to go into eternal punishment. Absolutely. We don't want to be rejected forever. We don't want to suffer and forfeit eternal life.

Absolutely. We don't want that to happen. And we are being saved from that, but we are being saved from that because we're being saved from our sins. If we're not saved from our sins, we're not saved from hell. If Jesus doesn't deal with our sin problem, he's not giving us a ticket into heaven full of sin, full of uncleanness, bound by Satan and living in rebellion. That's not what salvation is. We are saved from our sins.

No, we don't reach perfection in this world as we were in the world to come, but we are freed from the dominion of sin so that we now live to do the will of God clean and obedient from the heart by God's grace and that debt of sin removed. Look at what the scriptures say. John the Immerser sees Jesus. John 1 29. Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Romans 6 6. We know that our old self was crucified with him, with Jesus, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. You don't have to be a slave. If you're a follower of Jesus and you're still bound, I'm telling you the power of God within you can give you victory.

I'm telling you, if you are still a slave and every single day you find yourself falling prey to the same sin, there is a better life that God has for you in Jesus. 1 Peter 2 24. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Is this pretty clear? God's intent? Revelation 1 5 and 6. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. Yeah, that's the gospel. 1 Corinthians 15 17. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

You are still in your sins. And that's why when Paul talks about don't be deceived, 1 Corinthians 6 9. The wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Don't be deceived. Those who live like this and this and this. Those who practice adultery and fornication. Those who practice drunkenness and extortion.

Those who practice homosexuality. You won't inherit the kingdom of God. But here is the good news. That's what some of you were. You've been washed. You've been cleansed, sanctified by the blood of Jesus and by the Spirit of God.

You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus the Messiah and by the Spirit of our God. Romans 6 17 and 18. You've been set free from sin and become slaves to righteousness.

Colossians 1 13 and 14. He's rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves. And then we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Here's what Scottish evangelist James Alexander Stewart said many years ago. We are saved from a life of sin to a life of holiness. Salvation is more than a passport to heaven.

It is deliverance from the dominion of sin in this life. So, salvation is not just forgiveness or go to heaven. Salvation is salvation from sin. Forgiveness from the guilt of sin and empowerment to break the bondage of sin. That's what salvation is all about.

But here's the simple thing. The Savior is the Lord. The one who saves us is the Lord Jesus. Save me Lord from my sins. I confess you as Lord.

It's not either or. There is no salvation outside of Jesus and there is no Jesus outside of his lordship. Oh, he came to serve and to die for our sins but he is always Lord. The remains Lord and every knee will bow to him and confess him as Lord.

I said this earlier in the show but he's called Lord. Yeshua is called Lord more than 400 times in the New Testament and he's called Savior 15 times in the entire New Testament. That was really named Jesus which is related to salvation.

Soter in Greek. He's called that 15 times and when you'll see Lord and Savior in the same sentence, the general order is Lord first, Savior second. He is our Lord and Savior Jesus. Let's listen to the call of scripture, all right.

It is to turn from sin and to turn to God, to turn away from disobedience and to turn to God in obedience. How? By the grace of the Lord. We can't do it on our own. We can't earn it.

Okay, I'm going to get good first. You ever share the gospel with someone? Maybe they're a drug addict. Maybe they're in some corrupt business and you talk to them and say, look, I got to get my act clean first before I turn to the Lord. You know, I got to get worthy.

You'll never ever be worthy. My brothers and sisters, on the best holiest day you ever had, you still needed God's grace and mercy. I'm just looking at some headlines. Oh, let's see, this one from NBC News.

Nearly a third of young gay people have attempted suicide study fines. And then I'm looking at this one, Guardian. The new record is estimated... Every single day we're going to be growing in grace until we meet him face to face. You say, that was really good, but you threw out a lot of scriptures. Could you repeat them all?

Well, number one, no, not time to do that. Number two, just go to our website after the show or go to our YouTube channel and watch the whole, or just fast forward to the place where we start to get into all these scriptures about, I don't know, 45 minutes or so into the broadcast. So you say, how do you do that? AskDrBrown.org. That's the place to go.

AskDrBrown.org or our YouTube channel, ASKDRBrown. By the way, are you on Facebook? How many of you are on Facebook still? A lot of you. All right.

Yeah. Several billion people. That would include a lot of you. So, and you say, Dr. Brown, do you really see people? No, I'm not seeing your hands raised. I'm just having fun on radio. Okay.

I see you by faith in that respect. Are you connected with us on Facebook? No.

Then go to Ask Dr. Brown, ASKDRBrown. ASKDRBrown on Facebook. And we post day and night there and you won't miss latest article, latest video. Boom. There for you. All right.

Don't stop there. Are you on Twitter? Okay. Here's where you find me on Twitter, Dr. Michael L. Brown. Make sure you get those two L's in the middle.

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Doesn't have two L's there. Dr. Michael Brown. Connect to us. Let us bless you. Let us sow into you. Let us pour into you that you in turn can be a blessing to others. Back with you tomorrow. Another program powered by the truth network.