I am sure you have heard this cry before from many Christians, that to enter the Kingdom of God, his salvation is for free, meaning there is no work that can be done to obtain it because it is a free gift from God.

How can I determine if that claim is true? After all, there are so many Christian denominations, over 38,000 of them across the world and all of them have different claims about salvation. So how can I test this claim? Well, other Christians say that by comparing it to the Bible, a person can “try the spirit” of something and determine if it is biblical. In all fairness then, I will do the same to determine if salvation is truly a free gift.

Alright, I have done that. I used the King James Bible and made a comparison. I did not use the Joseph Smith Translation, I used the actual King James Bible version. I checked out the claim to see of salvation is really for free.

When I made the comparison to the Bible, I began to wonder about the validity of the “Free Salvation” claim, which said that there is no work involved, no duties to perform and all I need to do is believe in Jesus Christ and take him into my heart and all is done. I wondered about this because as I read in the Bible, Jesus clearly said that unless we enter into “baptism of repentance“, also called “baptism by water” and “baptism by the Spirit“, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God. This alone questions the “free” part of salvation. Entering into baptism by water means that we must do something, doesn’t it? The Bible says so, but let us look some more.

A Bible verse in Luke said that “except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish“. A passage in Acts clearly said that we must “do works meet for repentance“. Another passage in Acts said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted that your sins be blotted out” and another passage in Acts said that where God “commandeth all men every where to repent“.

OK, free is not so free anymore. There seems to be contradictions between these Christian claims of free salvation – no works – faith and grace only, against the Bible passages that clearly say the contrary. Who is right? Is it the word of God or these other Christian creeds? I am comparing all this with only the Bible and asking serious questions.

So far the Bible does not fit the claim that “salvation is free”, without work or duties. The Bible reads that we must fulfill requirements in order to gain salvation,…but I am willing to give this a chance and to see more, so I researched the Bible further.

A Bible passage in John said that we are to worship God “in spirit and in truth“. The Bible also said in Revelations they who “worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast“. This is a scary statement. It seems here, we are to do more than just hang around waiting for the gift of salvation to come into effect. I do not want to worship the beast nor give power to it, my goodness No. What worried me more was the passage in Matthew, where God had said, “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” There are many vain worships going on because of the doctrines of men. Is the doctrine of free salvation a vain doctrine not worthy of God? It is certainly showing that it is not such a gift after all, not so free, as I understand the word “free” as used by those other Christians.

Let us be fair on this. Beliefs are suppose to be as God teaches it, not as men choose to believe it. I know we are free to believe as we choose, but what the Bible says so far is that unless we believe as God teaches, our personally chosen and designed beliefs will be in vain, which means that to gain salvation, entrance into the Kingdom of God will then be in vain as well.

The Bible seems to show much more than what these other Christians claim. My goodness, our lives are surely not so easy once we accept Christ into our hearts and lives. As many Christian’s dance around waving their arms in the air praising God, the book of Matthew in the Bible said, “tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word“. So this free salvation is not so free since we are to suffer tribulation and persecution. This gift, as they claim it to be is different than what the Bible reveals.

What was most surprising was when Jesus said, ” Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven“. This tells me that even if I accept the claim that salvation is for free, a gift of grace for no works and no duties to perform, I may not make it to the Kingdom of God! To enter the Kingdom I must “DO” God’s will. That sounds like duties and works to me.

So here it is, I gave the claim a fair chance. I followed their beliefs of how to try the spirit of something since many false prophets have gone out into the world. I “compared it to the Bible” and that is what I found.

We are to do things to gain salvation. There are duties to perform and works to complete, that we cannot be idle. Is it not true that Jesus warned against idleness and frivolous works? After all, to do the will of God is a clear statement of duties and works. I am sure that doing the will of God did not mean we can play in the sand on the beach or go skiing or go for lunches on Sunday, he said that he wants us to perform and do things that “worship” him and serve others unto salvation. Am I wrong in this? I do not believe so, because there is at least one place in the Bible, Philippians, where it clearly said, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling“. Yes, work out my own salvation with God. Hm-mm, this says that salvation requires our work. So why is salvation called a gift if it is something to earn?

Here is the clincher. The Bible does indicate that salvation is free, but the Bible also says what we must do to gain it. One has to seriously ask good intelligent questions to overcome the apparent and clear contradiction between free and works. Common sense then says the idea of “free salvation” in the Bible must hold a different meaning than what these other Christians make it to be. There must be a reconciliation between the statement of “free salvation” and the required effort and works. A contradiction says that we are either wrong in our understanding or God is wrong, which do you think is likely? What then is that meaning?

The Bible teaches that our efforts alone cannot succeed salvation so we needed the atonement from Jesus Christ. We needed help and that help came from God.

The work done by Jesus Christ, his atonement, the sacrifice, were done for free, meaning we do not owe God for it. By his eternal grace, God’s work (yes God does work) paid for the ransom to open the door for our salvation. That is where the word “free” refers.

To overcome the payment for sins, which was a huge bill of costs, an impossible ransom for us to overcome, it was paid for “Free” by Jesus Christ. To obtain this advantage for ourselves, to go and make the claim to use it, to enter the Kingdom of God, requires effort on our part. To enter the Kingdom means we must be clean and righteousness, nothing dirty and unrighteous can enter, so there is work ahead of us and required of us, but this work is not to make salvation, this work is make the salvation work of us. To work “on ourselves” (repentance and work out our salvation) and “work for God” (worship, abide in the commandments and perform his ordinances). In this way, our efforts, beliefs and works will not be in vain.

You still disagree? How then can we look at this to understand it better?

Well, here is an analogy to consider. Any gift given by someone, the person gives the gift for free, at no charge for us, but a gift that is suppose to provide something to us is useless unless we do something to access the benefit of the gift. There must be an effort on our part, to do what is necessary. What we are to do is relative to what the gift can give. Makes sense. A gift is useless if we do nothing to access what the gift has to give. It just sits idle for us. How many gifts did you receive that still sit in boxes unused and sit idle?

Since God gave this gift, he knows what is needed to make it of great value for us. We do not tell God what is proper or not, he tells us and we are to obey. Who are we to know better than God? Sure, we can dance and sway, hold hands in the air and sing hallelujah, but that is all in vain if we ignore his teachings and directions as clearly said in the word of God. Making up our own beliefs on this is useless to say the least. God made the instruction booklet, we are to follow it or suffer the loss. A very simple concept.

The free gift of salvation is useless to us unless we obey the commandments, directions and teachings of God to make the power of salvation accessible. What is the benefit of this gift if we obey and do the work necessary? – Entrance into the Kingdom of God.

You are free to do nothing and find it is in vain, but I choose differently, I choose to obey the word of God, not make up my own ideas about it.

Amen to that.

(Note: word for word quotations or excerpts from the King James Bible and are in dark red).