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How good does one have to be to go to heaven? These four biblical truths are discussed below: 1. No human is perfect, but God is. 3. The ten commandments reveal our imperfection. 4. Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem.
1. No human is perfect, but God is. Therefore, no person can enter God’s presence on his or her own merit. No person is good enough to go to heaven.
It is sometimes difficult to understand why people we think of as "good" are not good enough to go to heaven. In reality, though, even a person who does many good things is still far from God’s holiness and perfection. Say that each person in the world was challenged to swim across the Pacific Ocean. Those who could not swim would drown close to shore. Olympic swimmers may make it several miles, but would also drown. Even the very best endurance swimmer could not come close to making it across the Pacific Ocean. Likewise, even the person who does more good deeds than anyone else, is far from God’s perfection. 2. Sin separates us from God. It keeps us out of heaven, and prevents us from having a relationship with Him, robbing us of joy and contentment.
3. The ten commandments reveal our imperfection. God gave the ten commandments—the Law—so that we would see that we fall short of His perfection and, therefore, need mercy and forgiveness instead of being judged on our thoughts, words, and actions. Consider, for example, the commandment Do not covet. Most people will admit that at some point in their life, they have wanted something that someone else had—their car, house, jacket, hair color, spouse, job, financial status, friends, body, education, parents. In God’s eye, the discontentment itself is sin, even if it does not lead to wrong words or actions.
4. Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem. Jesus did not abolish truth in bringing forgiveness to man. On the contrary, He fulfilled the Law. Picture God's perfect righteousness and justice on one side of a huge canyon, and human sinfulness on the other. Somehow each person needs to get to God, but gravity stands in the way--nobody can fly across the canyon. In this analogy, the Law serves to reveal to people that a huge canyon exists between God and man. Without the Law, we do not realize that we are sinful and thus separated from God. Jesus Christ is like a bridge extending across the canyon. The absolute truth of gravity still exists, but if we entrust our lives to Christ (walk across Him, the bridge), each of us can have access to God, be accepted by Him, and receive spiritual life. Jesus is God’s gift of life to us. He not only provides the way to forgiveness for sin, but also gives us spiritual life, satisfying the discontentment of our hearts. All of us are guilty before God. The charge is sin. The penalty is death—separation from God forever. We can plead either guilty or innocent. If we plead innocent, we are judged on our thoughts, words, and actions. If we plead guilty, and ask for mercy through Christ, Christ’s death on the cross is accepted by God the Father as payment of our death penalty. We go free because Christ bore the penalty for us; He paid our debt. This is why the Bible describes Christ as a gift. Like any gift, we do not need to earn it; indeed we can’t. We merely receive it and say "thank you."
Could any person have died on a cross as a sacrifice for the sin of the human race? No. Only God Himself is a sufficient sacrifice. Although Jesus lived as a man on the earth, He was still God, and thus a sufficient sacrifice for our sin. Jesus Christ, the bridge, is the only way across the canyon:
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