JD Vance Gives Himself A 7 Out Of 10 Chance Of Heaven - What Would You Say?

Vice President JD Vance was recently asked a question that has nothing to do with elections, economics or foreign policy.

"On a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that you would go to heaven?"

Vance paused before answering.

"It's high, but it's not a 10. I mean, it's a seven or it's an eight."

The question came during an interview with young Christian evangelist Bryce Crawford. Vance explained that part of his uncertainty comes from occasional doubts about whether Christianity is actually true and whether there really is something beyond this life. A year earlier, he said, his answer might have been only a five or six.

Vance nevertheless made something else very clear: "I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe he's my Savior."

For Christians, his answer raises a question far more important than what the vice president believes.

What would you say?

And perhaps more importantly: Why?

Crawford explained that he once would have answered the same question with a six because he was looking at himself.

He knew his failures. He knew his sins. He wondered whether he had done enough.

Then a pastor challenged his thinking with a simple question: Did Jesus die for only 60 percent of your sins?

That gets remarkably close to the heart of the Protestant understanding of the Gospel.

Our confidence before God does not rest upon how well we have performed. It rests upon what Christ has already accomplished.

Paul writes that we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24). Ephesians 2:8-9 declares that salvation is by grace through faith, "not of works, lest any man should boast."

Philippians 3:9 makes the distinction even clearer. Paul wanted to be found in Christ, "not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law," but possessing the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ.

In other words, the question isn't ultimately:

How confident are you in yourself?

It is:

How confident are you in Christ?

This becomes particularly interesting because Vance is Catholic. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019 after having earlier identified with evangelical Protestantism.

The Catholic Catechism describes justification as a freely given act of God and grace as God's gratuitous gift. It specifically teaches that no person can merit the initial grace that brings conversion and justification.

But that isn't the end of Catholic teaching.

The Catechism also teaches that justification involves man's cooperation with grace and that, after receiving grace, Christians can acquire "merit" through their union with Christ. It goes so far as to teach that, moved by the Holy Spirit, believers can merit graces necessary for sanctification and "the attainment of eternal life."

This is precisely where Protestants should stop and examine Scripture carefully.

The issue isn't whether good works matter. They certainly do.

The issue is what role those works play in our standing before God.

Romans 4 gives us an extraordinarily simple distinction:

"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt."

A wage is something owed.

A gift is something received.

Paul continues by describing the person who "believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly" and says that his faith is counted for righteousness.

That was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation. Salvation isn't Christ doing most of the work while we complete the transaction. Nor is justification something Christ begins that our subsequent merit must eventually make sufficient.

Christ is sufficient.

"For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14).

Jesus' words from the cross were not, "I have begun it."

They were:

"It is finished."

Absolutely.

This is where Protestant teaching is sometimes caricatured in the opposite direction.

Biblical salvation does not mean that someone can profess faith in Christ, continue happily living in rebellion against God and assume that nothing matters because he once "accepted Jesus."

James famously declares that "faith without works is dead."

Jesus warned that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. Scripture repeatedly teaches that genuine faith produces fruit.

But there is an enormous difference between saying works are the evidence of salvation and saying works contribute merit toward obtaining eternal life.

The Protestant understanding has historically insisted on keeping those categories separate.

We aren't saved by good works.

We are saved for good works.

The works are evidence of what God has done within us, not additional payment for what Christ supposedly left unfinished.

Some might hear someone say he is 100 percent certain he is going to heaven and immediately think the answer sounds arrogant.

Perhaps it can be.

If someone says, "I'm definitely going to heaven because I'm a good person," that is extraordinary confidence in oneself.

But biblical assurance says something very different.

"I know I'm a sinner. I know I cannot save myself. I know my righteousness cannot satisfy a holy God. Therefore my entire hope rests upon Jesus Christ."

In that sense, answering "10" doesn't necessarily mean believing you are a 10.

It can mean believing Christ is.

That is not confidence in human performance. It is confidence in a Savior.

John wrote his first epistle to believers and explicitly explained why: "that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:13).

Not hope.

Not calculate the odds.

Know.

Imagine someone asking you tonight:

"If you died before morning, would you go to heaven?"

Maybe your answer is yes.

Maybe it's probably.

Maybe it's seven out of ten.

But now comes the more revealing question:

Why?

"I've tried to be a good person."

"I've done more good than bad."

"I go to church."

"I was baptized."

"I give to charity."

"I take Communion."

"I haven't done anything really terrible."

Notice what every one of those answers has in common.

They begin with "I."

The Gospel begins somewhere else.

Christ.

Christian assurance doesn't come from finally reaching the point where we believe we've accumulated enough goodness. In fact, the closer we come to understanding God's holiness, the more absurd that proposition should appear.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

There isn't a religious ladder tall enough to bridge that gap.

That is why Christ came.

JD Vance's seven-or-eight answer may ultimately prove more useful than a confident ten because it forces Christians to think about something we too easily take for granted.

Where does our assurance come from?

Vance himself correctly emphasized that salvation isn't about what we have done to deserve it. "It's ultimately about him," he told Crawford.

On that point, Protestants should enthusiastically agree.

And then take the statement to its biblical conclusion.

If salvation is ultimately about Christ—His righteousness, His sacrifice, His blood and His finished work—then our hope cannot simultaneously rest upon accumulating enough merit of our own.

Good works should follow salvation.

Obedience should follow salvation.

A transformed life should follow salvation.

But none of those things can improve upon the finished work of Jesus Christ.

So perhaps Crawford's question deserves to be asked in every church:

On a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that you are going to heaven?

But don't stop with the number.

Ask the question that matters infinitely more:

What are you trusting in when you give your answer?

Because if the answer ultimately comes back to what you have done, there will never be enough reason for certainty.

If the answer is Jesus Christ, however, the question changes entirely.

The Christian's hope isn't that one day he will finally become good enough for heaven.

It is that Jesus Christ already is.