By: Louis Rushmore
Not only “does it really matter how one is saved,” a person can only be saved by obeying the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Every accountable soul who does not obey the Gospel is lost. Truthfully, everyone who attains the knowledge of right and wrong is already lost, and not obeying the Gospel of Jesus Christ simply adds to his or her lost state. Unless the human race was already lost because of sin, the Son of God would not have left Heaven, taken upon Himself a fleshly body and died on the cruel cross so that mankind could have its sins washed away symbolically by the blood of Christ. A disastrous confrontation with the Lord Jesus Christ awaits the unsaved when He will appear to them “in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:8 NKJV). “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17).
Only through Jesus can a soul approach the Father. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:6). Jesus Himself adds the saved to His church (Acts 2:47). Read about the birthday of the church in Acts 2. There you will find the first recorded Gospel sermon, presented by the apostle Peter to a crowd of his fellow Jewish brothers when they desperately wanted to know how to receive forgiveness of their sins. Note that Peter, guided by the Holy Spirit, told them “…‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…’” (Acts 2:38). Jesus identified the way one can be saved in Mark 16:16. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
Many people who thought they were saved will be disallowed into the desirable eternity of Heaven. Not humans but only God devised the plan of salvation. “…‘Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted…They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch’” (Matthew 15:13–14). “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21–23).
Any false salvation conjured up by mortals cannot offer true salvation. So, “Yes,” it matters how one is saved.
