In last night’s blog, I emphasized the importance of hearing the message about Jesus Christ.  While that is the first step in being saved, it is not nearly enough.  One must accept the truth about Jesus to become a child of God.  Without believing in Jesus there is no hope of eternal life.

John 8:24 (ESV)
will die in your sins.”

This is a universal truth.  Most people think it is a narrow-minded way of thinking, but it is the truth.  I like how James Burton Coffman put it in his commentary on the book of John.

“This was another of the “hard sayings” (John 6:60) of Jesus, especially so for the Pharisees. Here is a dogmatic affirmation that forgiveness of sins is possible only for them that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Refusal to believe in him is forfeiture of eternal life. Jesus is the unique source of salvation. It was the battle cry of the early church that “There is none other name under heaven given among men” wherein we must be saved. No other system, philosophy, ethics, morals, or anything else can provide the tiniest ray of hope apart from Christ. Everlasting life is “in him”; it is nowhere else” (James B. Coffman, Commentary on John).

What is it that we must believe about Jesus to be saved?  Put simply, we must believe that He is the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah promised by God.  The truth, however, is deeper than that.  A part of believing in Jesus is accepting who He really is, that is—a divine member of the Godhead.  In other words, we must believe that He is God.  This is the significance of John 8:24.

In the original text of John 8:24, the word “he” is not present.  So, what Jesus simply said was, “…unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”  The words “I am” come from the Greek “egō eimi,” which is often used as a title of deity (Exodus 3:13-14).  In the New Testament, this is the case when the expression stands alone without a proper completion.  Sometimes “egō eimi” is simply the first part of a revelatory formula that has an appropriate completion.  For example, “I am the bread of life,” or “I am the good shepherd,” etc.  In such examples, Jesus being “the bread of life” and “the good shepherd” are the most important points.  However, when we read an “I am” statement that stands alone without a proper completion, we can be sure that Jesus is making a statement about His deity.  The Jews always got the point when He did so and would want to kill Him for committing blasphemy.

John 8:58–59 (NRSV)
⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”  ⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

They picked up stones to kill Jesus because when He referred to Himself as “I am” they recognized it as an affirmation of His deity.

What does all this mean to us today?  It means that we must believe in the deity of Christ if we want to be saved.  We must accept that Jesus is God, that is, that He is a part of the Godhead.  He is, after all, the Son of God, and how could one be the Son of God without having the same nature as God?

Believing in Jesus is a part of God’s plan of salvation.  We must believe not only that Jesus was a real historical person, but also that He is the Christ, the divine Son of God.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.