How do we get into Heaven? (How can I be saved?)

How do we get into Heaven? (How can I be saved?)
By: Rev. Dr. Timothy H. Maschke

I heard a cute joke a few years about about a Sunday School teacher who was asked this question. One child said you had to be good all the time in order to get to heaven. Another said that Jesus died and opened heaven for her. A little boy was quiet throughout the conversation until the Sunday School teacher asked him, "Jordan, what do we have to do to get into heaven?" The little boy, not missing a beat, said, "Die!"

Heaven is a perfect place. God says that "nothing impure will ever enter it" (Rev.21:27). In one way, then, no one can get into heaven, because the Bible also tells us "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Yet, that is the very purpose for which Christ came. Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6).

Jesus has lived a perfect life, but He does something very unusual. He makes a marvelous exchange—he takes our sinful lives and gives us His perfect life in exchange! St. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians (8:9): "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

Our baptism connects us to Jesus' life and death. St. Paul explains this when he says, "Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Romans 6:3-4).

Faith in Jesus is what gets us into heaven. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16) We have to be careful, however, in not having faith in our faith, but rather we have faith in Jesus. Faith is best understood as a relationship with Jesus. Because we have a relationship with him, we trust Him. We believe His promises of loving us and dying for us and preparing a place for us. Jesus is the reason we can go to heaven.

The simplest way of saying this it that we are saved by grace (God's love) through faith (God's gift of a spiritual relationship) because of Jesus.