How do I get to heaven?

329–373 · Athanasius of Alexandria, Festal Letters 43

But for us the Lord has consecrated a way through His blood, and has made it easy. (And again:) For not only has He afforded us consolation respecting the distance, but also in that He has come and opened the door for us which was once shut. For, indeed, it was shut from the time He cast out Adam from the delight of Paradise, and set the Cherubim and the flaming sword, that turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life—now, however, opened wide. And He that sitteth upon the Cherubim having appeared with greater grace and loving-kindness, led into Paradise with himself the thief who confessed, and having entered heaven as our forerunner, opened the gates to all.

c. 1350 · John of Ruysbroeck, The Book of Supreme Truth Chapter XIV

But if the Prince of all the angels was cast out of heaven, because he set himself up against God and would be like unto the most High; and if the first man was driven from Paradise because he would be as God: how then shall this wretched sinner—that is, the faithless Christian who would be as God without likeness to God in grace and virtue—ever rise from earth into heaven? For through his own power no man has ascended into heaven, save the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. And therefore we must unite ourselves with Him, through grace and virtue and Christian faith: so we shall ascend with Him whither He has gone before us.

1563 · John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah, part 4 (chapters 30-47) 32.19

This passage is turned by Papists for the support of merits by works; but it is a frivolous attempt; for when Scripture declares that it shall be rendered to every one according to his works, it does not exclude the gratuitous mercy of God; and when God renders a reward to the faithful, it depends on gratuitous pardon, because he forgives them whatever would otherwise vitiate their good works: and to speak more exactly, God does not render to the faithful according to their works, except as he gratuitously pardons them and forgives whatever they have done amiss. Reward then depends on the free mercy of God only.

1605–1610 · Johann Arndt, True Christianity 2.8

Is it not a very high degree of folly, to prefer a short perishing pleasure to an eternal joy; and a worthless trifle, to the glorious presence of God? Now none shall enter into this, but he who has thoroughly washed himself, and “made white his robes in the blood of the Lamb.”

1650 · Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest (abridged by Benjamin Fawcett) 2

The passage of paradise is not now so blocked up as when the law and curse reigned. Wherefore finding, beloved Christians, a new and living way consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, the flesh of Christ, by which we may with boldness enter into the holiest, I shall draw near with fuller assurance; and, finding the flaming sword removed, shall look again into the paradise of our God.

1674 · John Owen, Pneumatologia, or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Books I-V) 4.1

God requireth not any thing of us whereby we should purchase or merit for ourselves life and salvation: for “by grace are we saved through faith; not of works, lest any man should boast,” Eph. ii. 8, 9. God doth save us neither by nor for the “works of righteousness which we have done,” but “according to his mercy,” Tit. iii. 5: so that although, on the one side, the “wages of sin is death,” there being a proportion in justice between sin and punishment, yet there is none between our obedience and our salvation; and therefore “eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” Rom. vi. 23. God, therefore, requires nothing at our hands under this notion or consideration, nor is it possible that in our condition any such thing should be required of us; for whatever we can do is due beforehand on other accounts, and so can have no prospect to merit what is to come.

1692 · Thomas Watson, The Lord's Prayer 2

Heaven is not only a kingdom which God has promised, but which Christ has purchased; it is called a purchased possession. Eph 1: 14. Though this kingdom is given us freely, yet Christ bought it with the price of his blood; which is a heaven procuring blood. ‘Having boldness to enter into the holiest (i.e., into heaven) by the blood of Jesus.’ Heb 10: 19. Crux Christi clavis paradisi [The cross of Christ is the key of paradise], Christ’s blood is the key that opens the gates of heaven.

1692 · Thomas Watson, The Lord's Prayer 2

Acts 16: 31. Faith touches Christ; and can he miss of heaven who touches Christ? Faith unites to Christ; and shall not the members be where the head is? All have not the same degree of faith; we must distinguish between the direct act of faith and the reflex act of affiance and assurance; yet the least seed and spark of faith gives an undoubted title to the heavenly kingdom. I am justified because I believe, not because I know I believe.

1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Luke 23.32-43

] The extraordinary grants of Christ's favour to him: Jesus said unto him, in answer to his prayer, "Verily I say unto thee, I the Amen, the faithful Witness, I say Amen to this prayer, put my fiat to it: nay, thou shalt have more than thou didst ask, This day thou shalt be with me in paradise," v. 43. Observe, First, To whom this was spoken: to the penitent thief, to him, and not to his companion. Christ upon the cross is like Christ upon the throne; for now is the judgment of this world: one departs with a curse, the other with a blessing. Though Christ himself was now in the greatest struggle and agony, yet he had a word of comfort to speak to a poor penitent that committed himself to him. Note, Even great sinners, if they be true penitents, shall, through Christ, obtain not only the pardon of their sins, but a place in the paradise of God, Heb. ix. 15. This magnifies the riches of free grace, that rebels and traitors shall not only be pardoned, but preferred, thus preferred. Secondly, By whom this was spoken. This was another mediatorial word which Christ spoke, though upon a particular occasion, yet with a general intention to explain the true intent and meaning of his sufferings; as he died to purchase the forgiveness of sins for us (v. 34), so also to purchase eternal life for us. By this word we are given to understand that Jesus Christ died to open the kingdom of heaven to all penitent obedient believers.

1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on John 17.1-5

The Christian religion shows us the way to heaven, First, By directing us to God, as the author and felicity of our being; for Christ died to bring us to God. To know him as our Creator, and to love him, obey him, submit to him, and trust in him, as our owner, ruler, and benefactor,—to devote ourselves to him as our sovereign Lord, depend upon him as our chief good, and direct all to his praise as our highest end,—this is life eternal.

c. 1714 · William Tong, Commentary on Hebrews 10.19-39

It is a living way. It would be death to attempt to come to God in the way of the covenant of works; but this way we may come to God, and live. It is by a living Saviour, who, though he was dead, is alive; and it is a way that gives life and lively hope to those who enter into it.

1738 · Jonathan Edwards, Five Discourses on Important Subjects Nearly Concerning the Great Affair of the Soul's Eternal Salvation 1

If we suppose that not only higher degrees of glory in heaven, but heaven itself, is in some respect given in reward for the holiness and good works of the saints, in this secondary and derivative sense, it will not prejudice the doctrine we have maintained. It is no way impossible that God may bestow heaven’s glory wholly out of respect to Christ’s righteousness, and yet in reward for man’s inherent holiness, in different respects, and different ways. It may be only Christ’s righteousness that God has respect to, for its own sake, the independent acceptableness and dignity of it being sufficient of itself to recommend all that believe in Christ to a title to this glory; and so it may be only by this that persons enter into a title to heaven, or have their prime right to it: and yet God may also have respect to the saints’ own holiness, for Christ’s sake, and as deriving a value from Christ’s merit, which he may testify in bestowing heaven upon them.

1740 · Jonathan Edwards, The Portion of the Righteous 1.app

You must be brought entirely to renounce all hope of obtaining heaven by any thing that you can do by your own strength, that you cannot do it either directly or indirectly. Many are sensible that they cannot get to heaven by their own strength directly, but yet they hope to do it indirectly; they hope by their own strength to bring themselves to a disposition to close with Christ, and accept of him for a Saviour; they are hoping to bring themselves to a compliance with the terms of salvation. You must be brought off from all confiding in your own strength; and you must also be brought to renounce your own righteousness as the price of heaven.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: 1 John 2.25

No one can show that any "promise" of heaven is made to the mere possessor of beauty, or wealth, or talent; to the accomplished or the "happy"; to those who are distinguished for science, or skill in the arts; to rank, or birth, or blood; to courage or strength. Whatever expectation of heaven anyone may entertain on account of any of these things, must be traced to something else than a "promise," for there is none in the Bible to that effect. The "promise" of heaven to people is limited to those who repent of their sins, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who lead a holy life; and if anyone will base his hope of heaven on a "promise," it must be limited to these things. And yet what well-founded hope of heaven "can" there be, except that which is based "on a promise?" How does anyone know that he can be saved, unless he has some assurance from God that it may and shall be so?

1857 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 3 (1857) 126

“There,” says another, “I like that; I shall go and believe in Christ, and live as I like.” Indeed you will not! For if you believe in Christ he will not let you live as your flesh liketh; by his Spirit he will constrain you to mortify its affections and lusts. If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterwards. If he gives you faith, he gives you good works afterwards.

1860 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 6 (1860) 330

I proclaim I never could enter Heaven, even if I might, if it were not of Divine Grace! I dare not in common honesty enter. Neither you nor I could claim a reward, or could ever dare to take it as a merited recompense. It must be given simply of God's free Love and Covenant faithfulness, or else, indeed, when given we should seem like robbers who had taken to ourselves what was not ours, and should always feel that the possession was not safe, because the title was not sound. It is of Grace, then.

1865–1868 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings jan-30.pm

You have no right to heaven in yourself: your right lies in Christ. If you are pardoned, it is through his blood; if you are justified, it is through his righteousness; if you are sanctified, it is because he is made of God unto you sanctification; if you shall be kept from falling, it will be because you are preserved in Christ Jesus; and if you are perfected at the last, it will be because you are complete in him. Thus Jesus is magnified—for all is in him and by him; thus the inheritance is made certain to us—for it is obtained in him; thus each blessing is the sweeter, and even heaven itself the brighter, because it is Jesus our Beloved “in whom” we have obtained all.

1870 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 16 (1870) 942

Receive Christ, for "unto as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on His name." There are no legal conditions of salvation laid down anywhere. I know it is sometimes said that repentance and faith are conditions—from one point of view, and in one aspect, I might tolerate the term—but truly and really there is no bargain made between God and a sinner. It is never you do this and I will do that. It is always, "I will do this for you, and then you shall believe and repent as the result." If faith, is, in one respect a condition, it is in another respect a gift of God, and though we are commanded to repent, yet Jesus is exalted on High to give repentance. So you poor sinners who have no repentance, or anything of your own, I bid you come to Jesus Christ for everything. He is the way, and the whole way.

1883 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 29 (1883) 1741

The way into the kingdom is opened for all Believers. He passed through death to Resurrection and Ascension to remove every obstacle from our path. He went from us, also, to fulfill every condition, for it was absolutely necessary that all who entered Heaven should wear a perfect righteousness and should be made perfect in character—no sin can enter the Holy City! The saints could not be perfected without being washed in His precious blood and renewed by the Holy Spirit. And so the Savior endured the death of the Cross—and when He arose, He sent us the sanctifying Spirit that we might be fitted for His rest.

1897 · John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ Part II

Many Christians say: "I should like to go to Paradise, but my sins will not let me;" but those who speak thus have no idea of Christian hope: they look upon sins as a kind of indestructible wall. No; I say that our Saviour, Jesus Christ, has destroyed this very wall by His cross and death, and has opened God's Paradise to all those who repent.

1905–1910 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: John (chapters 1 to 14) 7.33

Be that as it may, ‘the Forerunner is for us entered.’ He has gone before, because He knows the great City, ‘His own calm home, His habitation from eternity.’ He has gone before to make ready a lodging for us, in whose land He has dwelt so long, and He will meet us, who would else be bewildered like some dweller in a desert if brought to the capital, when we reach the gates, and guide our unaccustomed steps to the mansion prepared for us. But the power to enter there, even when He is there, depends on our union with Christ by faith. When we are joined to Him, the absolute ‘cannot,’ based upon flesh, and still more upon sin, which is a radical and permanent impossibility, is changed into a relative and temporary incapacity. If we have faith in Christ, and are thereby drawing a kindred life from Him, our nature will be in process of being changed into that which is capable of bearing the brilliance of the felicities of heaven. But just as these friends of Christ, though they loved Him very truly, and understood Him a little, were a long way from being ready to follow Him, and needed the schooling of the Cross, and Olivet, and Pentecost, as well as the discipline of life and toil, before they were fully ripe for the harvest, so we, for the most part, have to pass through analogous training before we are prepared for the place which Christ has prepared for us. Certainly, so soon as a heart has trusted Christ, it is capable of entering where He is, and the real reason why the disciples could not come where He went was that they did not yet clearly know Him as the divine Sacrifice for theirs and the world’s sins, and, however much they believed in Him as Messiah, had not yet, nor could have, the knowledge on which they could found their trust in Him as their Saviour.

1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 1 to 8) 7.13-14

If there were anything else required of a man than simply self-distrust and reliance on Jesus Christ, then this great Gospel that I am feebly trying to preach would be a more sectional and narrower thing than it is. But its glory is that it requires nothing which any man is unable to bring, that it has no invitation for sections, classes, grades of culture or intelligence or morality, but that in its great cosmopolitanism and universality it comes to every man; because it treats all as on one level, and requires from each only what all can bring—knowledge of themselves as sinners, and humble trust in Jesus Christ as a Saviour. It is narrow because there is no room for sin or self-righteousness to go in; it is wide as the world, and, like the capacious portals of some vast cathedral, ample enough to receive without hustling, and to accommodate without inconvenience, every soul of man.

1932 · Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 23

Grace and works are mutually exclusive; and as well might we try to bring the two poles together as to effect a coalition of grace and works in salvation. As well might we talk of a "purchased gift," as to talk of "conditional grace," for when grace ceases to be absolute it ceases to be grace. Therefore when the Scriptures say that salvation is of grace we are to understand that it is through its whole process the work of God and that any truly meritorious works done by man are the result of the change which has already been wrought.

1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 17

There are many, says Augustine, could be content to go to heaven, but they are loath to take the way that leads thither. They would have the glorious vision but neglect the gracious union. There are several sorts of eyes which shall never see God the ignorant eye, the unchaste eye, the scornful eye, the malicious eye, the covetous eye. If you would see God when you die, you must be purified persons while you live; ‘We shall see him as he is; and every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself’ (1 John 3:2, 3).

1675–1680 · Stephen Charnock, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God 11

We must purify ourselves “as he is pure,” if we expect to “see him as he is,” in the comfortable glory and beauty of his nature (1 John iii. 2, 3), else the sight of God would be terrible and troublesome: we cannot be satisfied with the likeness of God at the resurrection, unless we have a righteousness wherewith to “behold his face” (Ps. xvii. 15). It is a vain imagination in any to think that heaven can be a place of happiness to him, in whose eye the beauty of holiness which fills and adorns it, is an unlovely thing; or that any can have a satisfaction in that Divine purity which is loathsome to him in the imitations of it. We cannot enjoy him, unless we resemble him; nor take any pleasure in him, if we were with him, without something of likeness to him.

1693 · Thomas Manton, Works, vol. XX Sermons on Several Texts of Scripture, Sermons upon Philippians iii. 7-21, Sermon VII. Phil. iii. 11

Certainly we must die unto sin; we must ‘crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts;’ for if pride, worldliness, and sensuality live, we die; for every one of these turneth us to another happiness, and we have our heaven elsewhere than in the habitation of the blessed: Luke xvi. 25, ‘Son, in thy lifetime thou receivedst thy good things.’ The pleasures, honours, and profits of the world, whilst we make these things our felicity and scope, we discharge God from giving us any other reward. The covetous have their portion in this world, and the voluptuous sell their birthright for one morsel of meat, and the ambitious and vainglorious are not contented with the honour which cometh from God only. We shall have pleasures enough, and riches enough, and honours enough, if we can be contented to tarry God’s leisure, and will continue with patience in well-doing. But when we will be our own carvers, and set up sense instead of faith, and an imaginary and corrupting felicity instead of the real and sanctifying felicity which is offered to us in the promises of the gospel, we can blame nothing but our perverse choice; and no wonder if God deny to us the happiness we contemn. Flatter not yourselves; there is no leaping from Delilah’s lap into Abraham’s bosom; no hope to get to heaven at last, when all our care hath been to heap up treasure to our selves here in the world; no such connection between vainglory and eternal glory, that after we have served the one, we should obtain the other. No; the scripture is peremptory with us: Rom. viii. 13, ‘If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if through the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live;’ Gal. vi. 8, ‘He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.’ If the world present to the flesh the bait, faith should show it the hook, and set our loss against our gain. God will not give us two heavens, here in our passage, and hereafter at the end of the journey.

c. 1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Acts 20.17-35

Note, [1.] Heaven is an inheritance which gives an indefeasible right to all the heirs; it is an inheritance like that of the Israelites in Canaan, which was by promise and yet by lot, but was sure to all the seed. [2.] This inheritance is entailed upon and secured to all those, and those only, that are sanctified; for as those cannot be welcome guests to the holy God, or the holy society above, that are unsanctified, so really heaven would be no heaven to them; but to all that are sanctified, that are born again, and on whom the image of God is renewed, it is as sure as almighty power and eternal truth can make it. Those therefore that would make out a title to that inheritance must make it sure that they are among the sanctified, are joined to them and incorporated with them, and partake of the same image and nature; for we cannot expect to be among the glorified hereafter unless we be among the sanctified here.

1771–1772 · George Whitefield, Selected Sermons 13

I suppose, I may take it for granted, that all of you amongst whom I am now preaching the kingdom of God, hope after death to go to a place which we call Heaven. And my heart's desire and prayer to God for you is, that you all may have mansions prepared for you there. But give me leave to tell you, were you now to see these heavens opened, and the angel (to use the words of the seraphic Hervey clothed with all his heavenly drapery, with one foot upon the earth, and another upon the sea; nay, were you to see and hear the angel of the everlasting covenant, Jesus Christ himself, proclaiming “time shall be no more,” and giving you all an invitation immediately to come to heaven; heaven would be no heaven to you, nay it would be a hell to your souls, unless you were first prepared for a proper enjoyment of it here on earth.

1820 · John Tillotson, Works, Volume 5 109

(Heb. xii. 14.) “Follow holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” (1 John iii. 3.) The apostle there, speaking of the blessed sight and enjoyment of God, tells us what we must do if ever we hope to be partakers of it: “Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 4 20

Nay further, purity and holiness does not only fit us for heaven, so that without it we can have no entrance or admittance there; but it also so fits us, that if it were possible for us to enter into heaven void of it, heaven would be no place of happiness to us in that condition, but a place of trouble, torment, and vexation. As for instance, it is impossible for a beggar in his rags to be admitted to the society and converse of princes and noblemen; but put the case that he were, yet his beggarly condition would never suffer him to enjoy himself in that company, in which he could be nothing but a mock and a derision.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Hebrews 12.14

We may have many things else - many things which are in themselves desirable, but without this one thing we shall never see the Lord in peace. We may have wealth, genius, learning, beauty, accomplishments, houses, lands, books, friends - but without religion they will be all in vain. Never can we see God in peace without a holy heart; never can we be admitted into heaven without that religion which will identify us with the angels around the throne!

1861 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 7 (1861) 358

Is it not written, "The captain of our salvation brings many sons unto Glory"? They come not there as servants; no servant has any right to the inheritance of his master; let him be ever so faithful, yet he is not his master's heir. But because you are sons—sons by God's adoption, sons by the Spirit's regeneration—because by supernatural energy you have been born-again—you become inheritors of eternal life, and you enter into the many mansions of our Father's house above! Let us always understand, then, when we think of Heaven, that it is a place which is to be ours, and a state which we are to enjoy as the result of birth—not as the result of work. "Except a man is born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God;" that Kingdom being an inheritance, but until he has the new birth, he can have no claim to enter it.

1879 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 25 (1879) 1507

There must be a new nature implanted in us by the power of the Holy Spirit or we cannot be saved. We must be as much new creations as if we had never been—we must come a second time as fresh from the hand of the Eternal God as if we had been molded today by Divine wisdom as Adam was in Paradise! The Great Teacher's words are, "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound thereof, but you cannot tell where it comes nor where it goes; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." "Except a man is born again from above he cannot see the kingdom of God."

1884 · Dwight Lyman Moody, The Way to God and How to Find It 2

You may look upon the beautiful mansions of earth, but bear in mind the mansions which Christ has gone to prepare you shall never see unless you are born again. It is God who says it. You may see ten thousand beautiful things in this world; but the city that Abraham caught a glimpse of—and from that time became a pilgrim and sojourner—you shall never see unless you are born again (Heb. xi. 8, 10-16).

1905–1910 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Colossians 1.12

Heaven would be no heaven to you if you could go there and be thus minded. But you could not. God Himself cannot carry men thither but by fitting them for it. It is not a place so much as a state, and the mighty hand that works on one side of the thick curtain preparing the inheritance in light for the saints, is equally busy on this side making the saints meet for the inheritance.

1608 · Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 1.17

Consider that you are most truly standing between Hell and Paradise, and that both the one and the other are open to receive you, according to your own choice. 2. Consider that the choice you make in this life will last for ever in the next. 3. Consider too, that while both are open to receive you according to your choice, yet God, Who is prepared to give the one by reason of His Justice, the other by reason of His Mercy, all the while desires unspeakably that you should select Paradise; and your good Angel is urging you with all his might to do so, offering you countless graces on God’s part, countless helps to attain to it.

1655–1662 · William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour Part 9. Division Second.—The Assailants described Positively. ‘But against

One fitly compares holiness and happiness to those two sisters, Leah and Rachel. Happiness, like Rachel, seems the fairer—even a carnal heart may fall in love with that; but holiness, like Leah, is the elder and beautiful also, though in this life it appears with some disadvantage—her eyes being bleared with tears of repentance, and her face furrowed with the works of mortification; but this is the law of that heavenly country, that the younger sister must not be bestowed before the elder. We cannot enjoy fair Rachel—heaven and happiness, except first we embrace tender-eyed Leah—holiness, with all her severe duties of repentance and mortification. Now, sirs, how like you this method? Art thou content to marry Christ and his grace; and then—serving a hard apprenticeship in temptations both of prosperity and adversity—enduring the heat of the one and the cold of the other—to wait till at last the other be given into thy bosom?

1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Matthew 7.12-14

Conversion and regeneration are the gate, by which we enter into this way, in which we begin a life of faith and serious godliness; out of a state of sin into a state of grace we must pass, by the new birth, John iii. 3, 5. This is a strait gate, hard to find, and hard to get through; like a passage between two rocks, 1 Sam. xiv. 4. There must be a new heart, and a new spirit, and old things must pass away. The bent of the soul must be changed, corrupt habits and customs broken off; what we have been doing all our days must be undone again. We must swim against the stream; much opposition must be struggled with, and broken through, from without, and from within.

1726 · William Law, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection 13

Christians often hear these words, and perhaps think that they have enough fulfilled them, by believing in Jesus Christ. But they should consider, that when Jesus Christ saith he is the way, his meaning is, that his way of life is to be the way in which all Christians are to live, and that it is by living after the manner of his life that any man cometh unto the Father. So that the doctrine of this passage is this, that however we may call ourselves Christians or disciples of Christ, yet we cannot come unto God the Father but by entering into that way of life which was the way of our Saviour’s life. And we must remember, that there is no other way besides this; nothing can possibly bring us to God but that way of life which first makes us one with Christ, and teaches us to walk as he walked. For we may as well expect to go to a heaven where Christ is not, as to go to that where he is, without the spirit and temper which carried him thither.

1733 · Jonathan Edwards, The Christian Pilgrim; or the True Christian's Life a Journey towards Heaven 1

We ought to seek heaven, by travelling in the way that leads thither. This is a way of holiness. We should choose and desire to travel thither in this way and in no other; and part with all those carnal appetites which, as weights, will tend to hinder us. “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race set before us.” However pleasant the gratification of any appetite may be, we must lay it aside, if it be a hinderance, or a stumbling-block in the way to heaven. We should travel on in the way of obedience to all God’s commands, even the difficult as well as the easy; denying all our sinful inclinations and interests.

1749–1750 · William Law, The Spirit of Prayer 2.1

Lastly, there is and can be only one salvation for the fallen soul, and that is heaven opened again in the soul, by the birth of such a life, Light, and Spirit, as is born in angels. For Adam was created to possess that heaven from which the angels fell; but nothing can enter into heaven, but the angelic life, which is born of heaven. The loss of this angelic life was the fall of Adam, or that death which he died, on the day he did eat of the earthly fruit; therefore the regeneration, or new birth of his first angelic life, is the one only salvation of the fallen soul. Ask not therefore, whether we are saved by faith, or by works? for we are saved by neither of them. Faith and works are at first only preparatory to the new birth; afterwards they are the true genuine fruits and effects of it. But the new birth, a life from heaven, the new creature, called Christ in us, is the one only salvation of the fallen soul. Nothing can enter into heaven, but this life which is born of, and comes from heaven.

1754 · John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on Matthew 7.13

The strait gate - The holiness described in the foregoing chapters. And this is the narrow way. Wide is the gate, and many there are that go in through it - They need not seek for this; they come to it of course. Many go in through it, because strait is the other gate - Therefore they do not care for it; they like a wider gate.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Matthew 7.13

Multitudes are in it. It is the great highway in which people go. They fall into it easily and without effort, and go without thought. If they wish to leave that and go by a narrow gate to the city, it would require effort and thought. So, says Christ, "diligence" is needed to enter life.