A story is told that one year at the Summer Olympics, three men hoped to get into the stadium as spectators: an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman. Standing outside the stadium with no tickets in hand, the three noticed a construction site nearby and got creative.
Neville Atkinson, the Englishman, found a piece of piping that had been part of the scaffolding. He approached the stadium gate, pipe in hand, and said, “Neville Atkinson, United Kingdom, pole vault.” The gatekeeper responded, “Wonderful, come on in.”
Intrigued, the Irishman, Sean O’Leary, looked around and found a manhole cover. Carrying it under his arm, he reported to the gatekeeper: “Sean O’Leary, Ireland, discus.” “Fine,” he said, “right this way.”
And then there was the Scotsman, a man named Jack MacTavish. Searching for his ticket to entry, he dragged some roles of barbed wire to the gate entrance: “Jack MacTavish, Scotland, fencing.”
This humorous anecdote reminds us that the place and conditions of entry are important—and nowhere more so than at the entry into the kingdom of heaven. The New Testament tells us that much. Jesus, teaching His disciples in Matthew 7, says that we should “enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (vv. 13–14).
When Jesus talks about entering by the narrow gate, He has our salvation in view. But what does it look like for a person to obey His instruction and lay hold of eternal life? How can a person be saved?
Conditions of entry are important—and nowhere more so than entry into the kingdom of heaven.
There is probably no better passage to answer this question than Paul’s instruction in Ephesians 2:1–10. Here, the apostle teaches that by nature, we are dead and cannot make ourselves alive; by nature, we are enslaved and cannot free ourselves from the handcuffs of sin; and by nature, we are blind, having no remedy in ourselves to see (vv. 1–3). “But God,” on account of His mercy and love, makes dead men and women spiritually alive. He saves us not because of our works but for good works. Our salvation, Paul stresses, is by grace through faith in Christ (vv. 4–10).
Simply put, Ephesians 2 describes the Christian experience as a personal experience to be laid hold of by repentance and faith. We must be those who enter by the narrow gate. It’s a personal decision for which everyone is responsible.
Objections to Our Need
Ephesians 2:1–10 shows men and women to be in a dire predicament. The apostle Paul states clearly that we need to be saved from our sin—an unpopular truth in today’s economy of ideas, no doubt. In response to biblical teaching, people raise a number of objections.
For example, someone might say, “It’s abhorrent for Christians to suggest that anybody needs to be saved!” This line of thinking argues that people don’t need to get saved because humanity is already on agreeable terms with God. But John, writing in his first letter, responds, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (5:12).
God saves us not because of our works but for good works.
Others say something like “Won’t I be accepted by God if I simply try my best and clean up my act?” Attend church, be a good neighbor, and pay the bills on time—that’s what the Lord requires, someone says. But like the first objection, this one doesn’t square with Scripture. Isaiah, writing in an earlier time, teaches that even “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” before Almighty God (Isa. 64:6). The radiance of God’s purity is so great that even when we are at our best, we still look dirty.
Plenty of other objections and arguments abound. But better education, social welfare, medical care, etc., do not resolve humanity’s predicament before God. Those things are like bandages, only temporarily covering up the bleeding. But these can never be permanent solutions. Since sin is a personal problem that has spread to all mankind, salvation must be a personal experience.
Personal Repentance and Faith
The only way a person can be saved is by turning from sin and turning to Christ. We are either on the wide path or on the narrow path, to borrow Jesus’ language from Matthew 7. We’re heading toward either everlasting destruction or eternal life. There is no neutrality with Jesus. The call of Christianity is “You are on the broad path that leads to death. Turn around and follow Christ, and there you will find life.”
To repent means to turn from sin. It’s to do an about turn, determining to live in light of Christ and His mercy rather than for self and for our own selfish ends.
The only way a person can be saved is by turning from sin and turning to Christ.
As Ephesians 2:1–3 makes clear, we are by nature going in the wrong direction. Those of us who are honest for more than five minutes know that we’ve turned our backs on God and His design. We aren’t the husbands and wives we ought to be. We aren’t the kinds of employees we ought to be. We think bad thoughts and resent others. In short, we know what it is to sin, because we’re sinners. Jesus calls us to forsake all of that.
Having turned from sin, we then turn toward Christ. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, both part of the one act of conversion. When we turn to Christ, we receive from Him all that He purposes to give us. Jesus died on the cross to take our sin, bearing it Himself so that we might be forgiven. This gift is given to us not because of what we’ve done but on account of what Jesus has done for sinners on Calvary.
In receiving Christ with repentant and faith-filled hearts, we acknowledge Him to be the ruler of our lives. He saves us not to ride along in the back seat of the car but to take the driving seat. We reorient our lives around Him and His priorities, saying no to old friendships and habits that dishonor Him.
Make no mistake: Christianity is a personal matter—but it’s not a private one. To follow Christ on the narrow road is a choice everyone must make. For every one of us, there is a crossroads decision concerning the claims of Christ.
If you’re asking the question “How can I be saved?” you need not overcomplicate it. The same is true if you’re trying to explain the answer to an unbeliever. While not everything in the Bible is easy to understand, the path to eternal life is crystal clear: Turn from sin, and look to Jesus. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” says Jesus; so “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
This article is adapted from the sermon “How Can I Be Saved?” by Alistair Begg.