Section 2: The Bible
Week 3: The Bible Is Necessary
Day 2: We Need the Bible to Find Salvation
Rom. 10:13-17
Imagine you’re on a plane that has a mechanical problem. At some point during the flight, the plane is going to lose cabin pressure, and everyone on board, including the pilots, will become incapacitated due to a lack of oxygen. What has to happen if you’re going to be spared a fiery death when the plane goes down? Obviously someone needs to realize there’s a problem. If nobody knows about it, you’re just going to keep flying happily along until disaster strikes.
The Bible Shows Us We Have a Problem
The same is true when it comes to our relationship with God. Sin has put us in a dangerous spot. As we’ve already seen, because he is holy, God must punish sin. According to the Bible, that punishment involves eternity in hell. What has to happen if we’re going to avoid that fate? First off, we need to realize we’re in danger.
Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t think we have a problem. Oh, we readily admit we’re sinners. But we have no idea how serious our sin is. We ought to know the danger we’re in, but we’re so immersed in sin that we’ve become desensitized to it. As a result, we wrongly assume it’s no big deal. On our own, we’d just go along happily through life never realizing we had a problem until it was too late. God’s word, however, wakes us up to the danger.
The Bible Points Us to the Solution
We’ve been desensitized to the severity of sin. But suppose for a moment that somehow on your own you did realize just how big a problem sin was. Would that solve anything? Not really. You’d still have no idea what to do about it. As Christians, we’ve heard many times that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sin and that we can be saved by putting our faith in him. But how do we know that? The Bible. Without the Bible, we’d have no idea faith in Jesus could save us.
Even if we knew about Jesus, even if we knew he died on a cross, on our own how would we know what his death accomplished? From our perspective, the most we’d know is that he was some guy who did some interesting things and then died like the rest of us. We need God to tell us that Jesus’ death paid the penalty for our sin and that he will credit that payment to our accounts if we put our trust in Jesus. On our own we’d have no idea that was God’s plan.
That’s why the Bible is essential for salvation. God’s plan of salvation is not something we could figure out on our own apart from what he has revealed. On our own we’d be lost. God’s word, however, not only reminds us of the danger we’re in, it tells us exactly what we need to do about it.
Reflection Questions:
Do you have friends or family who are not believers? Do you think they have any sense of just how big a problem sin is?
Challenge:
Over the next few months, focus on one or two friends or family members. Ask God to give you an opportunity to help them take at least one step closer to him.
Want to Dig Deeper?
The Bible is necessary for salvation because it points us to Jesus. His death and resurrection are what save us. But many question whether Jesus really could have risen from the dead. An earlier Digging Deeper topic addressed the issue of whether we can have confidence in the historical reliability of the Bible. But many skeptics argue that, even if the Bible gets some historical details right, it has to be wrong about the miracles it records, especially the resurrection. We take a closer look at that issue in the Digging Deeper topic titled “What About the Resurrection and All the Other Miracles?”
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