Is knowing Jesus as the Son of God a requirement to have eternal life or not?

Webdog, great addition to the discussion, and it is important..

It seems that the Old Testament does make it clear that Jesus is God, take Zechariah 12:10 and John 19:36-37 for example.

With that said, even though the Old Testament made it clear Jesus is God, or even the Son of God, we must realize that many times the disciples didn't understand the Scriptures until Jesus taught them or after His resurrection (John 2, or Luke 24).

We might then ask, when were the disciples credited the righteousness of Christ?

I do think that while the big focus is Jesus as the Christ, and many knew that the Messiah was to come. I can't say for sure based on my knowledge that they linked the Christ to being God in flesh, but it very well might have been an obvious statement in Jewish teaching of the Christ. If that is the case, this is why many people who met Jesus confessed Him as the Son of Man, the Christ, or the Son of God without any in depth teaching from Jesus on those names.

What are your thoughts?

 

From pages 6 to present have started to get on the same page as my thinking, When I have time later I will compile all of the good posts and statements to keep the discussion on topic. Thanks

 

I wholeheartedly agree Jim. The question is: Would God save someone apart from the knowledge of the Gospel? The answer is no, He chooses to work through the Gospel of Jesus (1Peter 1:23, Romans 10). So Does God save apart from bringing a person the heart knowledge of who the Son of God is?

 

I found 2 things I wanted to bring back up:

1. What else do sinners have to know about Jesus to be saved? How comprehensive is the list?

When talking about what is the minimum that is needed to having "saving knowledge" Is it that we must learn that Jesus is the Savior, Lord, Messiah, Christ, God? What about sin within ourselves? What about repentance? What about God as Creator? If I go to Haiti and tell a person that Jesus is Savior, and thats it, is that enough to have saving knowledge? What aspects of the Word of God does God bring to a person before He saves the person? We all agree that it is the Gospel, but how do we define Gospel or enough? In the Gospel of John it shows me many aspects of Jesus in chapter 1 alone. It is essential to know Jesus saving work and what it was for, on this we agree.

But what information about Christ must enter our hearts before we can actually trust Him? Is He faithful? Does He lie? What does He want us to do? How can this salvation be imparted to me? Who is He? Why do I need to be saved? What is belief? Who is God? etc... I believe there are many factors.

So the person can be told that Jesus is Lord,the Son of God who died in their place for their sins, they need to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus and if they accept that they are saved. No prayer, no works, no baptism, no deep biblical knowledge, No Trinitarian knowledge needed. That will come later.

Do we need to hear words or is it the understanding that benefits? If I hear the name Jesus and do not understand what it means, what good is that? When I hear Son of God, and yet don't know what it means, what good is that?

I agree that salvation is by grace through faith, not works. Yet at the very same time if we produce no fruit/works then we say we are saved and belief apart from change.

I agree with you on much of what you said including no need for works or deep knowledge. I argue is your view on not needing to know much about Christ to trust Him a modern view? Do you say that because it is the norm, or do you believe that because that is what the Bible teaches? Why does John say that he wrote so we will believe Jesus is the Son of God? Did He write all of that just so we can hear the words "Son of God" and not understand them and then believe?

I find that much modern/false evangelism is a process, and many times it does not even include repentance and faith. I also see that people are in a hurry to get people saved, which I have that desire as well, but in that motive we skip important truth. It isn't that we need to load them with a certain amount of truth, but what about Jesus? Why would we just leave it at "He is Savior" (not to take away from the beauty of the Savior). I find that in our culture we need to give a clear message about the Person of Christ. It isn't that we try to do God's work in the process of teaching people, because we still fully rely in Him for the saving work. Our desire must be to glorify the Christ, and make sure that those who reside in America know who the Son of God is and what His name means.

When we are speaking to each other we speak in English, and if someone started speaking in Spanish I wouldn't understand. The Biblical language is a different language, and we must explain it so people can understand. Peopl eneed to be born again to understand spiritual language, but when we evangelize I believe we must inform then, genuinely, regarding who Jesus is. It is reality!