Transcription
Are you going to go to hell for picking the wrong denomination of Christianity? I don't think so, and neither does the Bible. I'm going to explain why.
But the reason I'm making this video is because there's been lots of ecclesial anxiety with all the different denominations online claiming that they are the one true church. The ecclesial anxiety is mostly caused by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox because you don't really hear many Anglicans online today saying there's no salvation outside of Anglicanism. But as a YouTuber, I get hundreds of DMs every week saying like people have lost their assurance of salvation. They have lost their peace with God because there's so many different arguments from different churches saying that there's no salvation outside their church and they have no idea who to believe. I think there's some conservative Baptists who make this argument too that there's no salvation outside their denomination. And because I'm going into pastoral ministry, I want to make sure I alleviate these concerns and help people have peace with God.
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So it's very clear from scripture that believing in Jesus Christ, true faith in Christ, because there are some people who say they believe but they don't truly believe. True faith in Christ is sufficient for salvation. It's necessary for salvation, meaning it is impossible to be saved without it. And it's also sufficient for salvation, meaning if you have it, you are definitely going to be saved and you are never going to not be saved due to lacking something else. So yes, scripture does say other things are involved in the process of salvation. Scripture says baptism saves. That's what Presbyterians believe. By the way, many people don't know that. Scripture says that eating the flesh and blood of Christ is necessary to have eternal life. Sure. But these things are connected to faith. Meaning somebody with true faith is normally normatively also going to do these things. It's not that somebody who has true faith is going to be denied entrance to the kingdom of heaven due to not having those things. John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." It doesn't say whoever believes in him and joins the one true church shall not perish him but have eternal life. Um Romans 10:13 says everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So what's necessary for salvation is not truly approaching Jesus through the channel of the correct denomination. No, it is calling upon the name of the Lord. If you call upon the name of the one true God in faith, you'll be saved. Uh Romans 10:9 says, "If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved." That's the key thing. It needs to be a true legitimate faith. You can't just like believe it intellectually. Every Protestant understands that faith is more than just an intellectual ascent. You have to truly believe it in your heart. But if you do that, you will not perish, but you will have eternal life. When the Philippian jailer asked Paul, "What must I do to be saved?" They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." They did not say, "Submit to Rome." They did not say, "Discern the correct church by digging through 500 years of church history debates." Now, of course, at this time, this was before all that, but this is normative for us today, right? What you need to do to be saved is have faith in Christ. It is absolutely clear from scripture that there's not going to be a single person on the last day who had true faith in Christ, who always had true faith in Christ, but is going to be damned for lacking something else. Faith in Christ is sufficient for salvation.
Now, what about Mormons? People might say, "What about Mormons? What about Jehovah's Witnesses? They have they believe in Jesus, right? But they're considered heretics and they're considered not saved." And I agree. I agree that you know if you are Mormon, if you are in the Jehovah's Witnesses, I would not say there is any hope of salvation for them because they're outside Christianity. It is not Christian. So if you are Mormon, if you are Jehovah's Witness, if you are a Unitarian Universalist, if you are in any one of these heretical sects that denies the Council of Nika, that denies the Nyian creed, repent and believe in Jesus Christ. I would agree these people do not have a promise of salvation. But the reason is not because they lack something additional to faith in Christ. It's because they don't have faith in Christ. If you say you believe in Jesus, but you define Jesus as a tomato, you don't believe in Jesus. What matters is not the sign, the verbal sign, but the things signified. Uh, Mormons do not believe in the same Jesus that Christians do. Mormons do not believe in the same God Christians do. Mormons think God used to be a man just like we are, and we'll one day become gods the way God is. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in Jesus either. They think he was a very high angel, but not God. It's basically a resurrection of the Aryan heresy. Unitarians don't believe in Jesus because they do not believe in the Trinity. And Jesus is inseparable from the rest of the Trinity. Since Jesus's person has two natures, a human nature and a divine nature, you have to believe in both of Jesus's natures to really believe in Jesus. You have to believe that Jesus is human and you have to believe that Jesus is God. Uh that doesn't mean you have to fully understand how that works. That's fine. But rejecting that means you do not really believe in Jesus. Jesus is one person. He has two natures. So you have to believe in Jesus's humanity and his divinity to be saved. That's why people who are gnostics or dositists who deny Jesus's humanity think Jesus wasn't really human. Uh the early church thought they were not saved. It's also why people who are Ebianites or think Jesus was just a human teacher but not really God. Those people aren't saved, right? Or at least they have no promise of salvation. It's not up to me to say any particular person's going to hell. But the promise of salvation is for only for those who actually believe in Jesus. And believing in Jesus means believing in the real Jesus, not something you made up and slapped the label Jesus onto.
Okay. Now, some people might say, "Sure, faith in Christ is sufficient for salvation, but you can't have faith in Christ if you're not in the one true church because the church is the body of Christ." And okay, so logically, this could be possible. You could logically say, you could try to argue that when the Bible says believe in Jesus, what they really mean is believe in the Portuguese right oriental true Orthodox church outside of which there is no salvation. Uh but Jesus told us how to tell whether or not somebody has true faith in him. Jesus did not leave it up to speculation. Jesus said, "By their fruit, you will know them." The fruit of the Holy Spirit is how you determine who has true faith in Christ. the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, that is how you determine the fruit of the spirit. That is how you determine who has true faith in Christ. So yes, it is logically possible, meaning hypothetically in some possible world, it is possible that one of these denominations is the only way to have true faith in Christ. But if that were true, then we should see a vast disparity in the good works in the fruit of the spirit produced by one of these denominations above all the others. For example, if oriental orthodoxy was the true church, actually that's not a good example because you actually do see a lot of good fruit from oriental orthodoxy. Okay, fine. If um Catholicism was the true church, the average Roman Catholic should lead a much more holy life than the average Eastern Orthodox Christian or the average Oriental Orthodox Christian or the average Lutheran Christian. But we just don't see that. And we don't see them leading a less holy life than the rest of them either. Uh there's really devout Christians in all the denominations. There's casual Christians in all the denominations. And no study has ever shown a really strong correlation. Uh so logically it is possible, but it contradicts the method that Jesus actually gave us for determining who has true faith. If you're being logically and intellectually honest, you have to understand, you have to admit that many people in many different denominations have true faith in Jesus Christ.
So here's why you don't need to worry. God wants you to be saved. God's not going to hide the true church behind a puzzle. First John 4 says we're supposed to have boldness. We're supposed to have assurance of salvation. If that's true, then it doesn't make sense for salvation or assurance of salvation at least to depend on your ability to dig through centuries of historical documents and debates about the filio way or mophysitism versus diophysitism. Um because if picking the right Christian denomination is necessary for salvation, then there's no way to know that you've actually picked the right denomination. Because no matter how much you study church history, no matter how much, there's always going to be somebody smarter than you, who studied way more than you and came to different conclusions. There's scholars who spend their entire lives studying this. Passionate scholars passionate about following Christ who come to different conclusions. And unless we're going to say they're all lying or they're all making stuff up, then yeah.
All right. So, does this mean that Protestantism is correct? Now yes, the logical implications of this are that Protestantism is the true faith or at least some highly accuminist variant of Roman Catholicism recent orthodoxy. Like maybe this if assuming this is true, maybe Pope Francis's version of Catholicism is correct because anecdotally there are times he told Anglicans to stay Anglican and not go Catholic just to stay and fix the Anglican church, which I really admire. That's why I really admire Pope Francis, but that does contradict infallible Catholic teaching like Unum Sanctum. Uh so the logical implication of this yes is that Protestantism is indeed the true faith. But uh Protestants have never taught that you strictly must be Protestant to be saved. Luther and Calvin both acknowledge there are many true believers within Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy even though they didn't think those were the true churches properly speaking. What Protestants do say is that truth matters and we ought to pursue the truth wherever it leads us and not to stay where we feel comfortable nor try to pull a Pascal's wager on God. It's not faith in God to try and pull a Pascal's wager saying like, "Oh, well, Protestants say it can be outside saved outside of Protestantism, but Orthodox say it can't be saved outside of Orthodoxy. It's safer to be Orthodox, I guess." Yeah, by that logic, it's safer to be true Orthodox than mainstream Eastern Orthodox because they're even more exclusive. It doesn't make sense to try and join the most exclusive church that also has the highest probability of being right. That is putting the Lord our God to the test, which is sinful. Uh there is assurance of salvation for everyone who genuinely trusts in Christ. Uh but that is not a reason to be intellectually lazy and that is not a reason to try and put God to the test. What we should do is read the script scriptures. John Chrisostum says that if there is uncertainty about which church to join, read the scriptures. These are simple and true. The decision is easy for you. And I'll be praying for anyone who continues to struggle with ecclesial anxiety that they would have peace with God.