I keep thinking about those who want to reduce the gospel to "Just believe that Jesus died for your sins and you will be guaranteed a place in heaven when you die".
It seems to me that they have a major timeline issue. And it includes every single person who "believed" in Jesus before his death, burial and resurrection.
What exactly did those people "believe" before Good Friday rolled around?
Jesus simply wasn't walking around telling people that all that really mattered was that they believe he would die for their sins.
In fact, he spoke so little about the necessity of his own death that his disciples were caught completely off guard when it happened.
So then, for one example, what message did the Samaritan woman take back to her village that caused many of the people to "believe in him"? (John 4:39)
John tells us her message: it wasn't "this guy is going to die for our sins" but, rather, "he told me all that I ever did".
THIS was enough to motivate the villagers to go to Jesus and ask him to stick around for a couple of days. (Because it made her wonder if Jesus was the promised Messiah.)
And by the end of two days in the company of Jesus, they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (v.42)
Now, if you grew up in the church, you have been conditioned to read "Savior of the world" as "the guy who can get you into heaven no matter what you've done".
But that obviously wasn't what the Samaritans meant by that phrase.
To them, "Savior of the world" probably meant something more like "the single most important man to ever walk the face of the earth - the One sent by God to set all of creation right again".
And if that is who you "believed" was standing in front of you, what would you DO?
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