The Way to Heaven

How would you answer the question, “What do you have to do to get to heaven?” Probably the most common answer is, “Be a good person.” Is that true? And is that what Jesus taught?

This may be more complicated for people to answer than it should be – and that includes people who call themselves Christians – or who even go to church. In fact, that’s the reason they go to church in the first place – to try to be a “good person.” What confuses this issue even more is that according to a September 2022 article in The Christian Post, one third of all pastors teach that being a good person is the way to get to heaven.

Yet being a good person as the way to heaven is a distinctly non-Christian belief. It is a form of what the ancient Greeks would refer to as, “Virtue Theory.” What we might call today, “moralism.” It ironically is more aligned with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. It is ironic in that none of these world religions believe in heaven!

By contrast, Jesus taught clearly in Matthew 5:20 that no one can be “good enough” to get into heaven. Throughout the Gospels, and very clearly in John’s Gospel, He makes it clear that believing in and trusting in Him is the ONLY way to heaven (John 3:16; 14:6). The New Testament clearly teaches that it is by accepting Christ’s gift of mercy and grace by which we are saved and receive eternal life.

What about you? What have you been taught? How would you respond to the statement, “The way to heaven is by being a good person”?