How J. P. Morgan Got To Heaven

How J. P. Morgan Got To Heaven

“God our Savior ... saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.” Titus 3:5  NIV

J. P. Morgan (1837-1913) was one of the greatest financiers in United States history. His financial backing was largely responsible for launching such major corporations as U. S. Steel, International Harvester, American Telephone and Telegraph, and General Electric. After the 1893 financial panic, he financed the reorganization of five major railroads. In 1895, he personally negotiated the sale of $62 million in government bonds to end the U. S. Treasury’s gold shortage. During the panic of 1907, he granted loans from his vast personal fortune to keep many banks from closing. In addition to all this, he was a significant philanthropist to America’s libraries and museums as well as the church he attended.

With all this to his credit, one might think J. P. Morgan would rely on his good works to get him into heaven. Not so! The following statement from his will is evidence of his trust in Christ as his Savior: “I commit my soul into the hands of my Savior, full of confidence that, having redeemed it and washed it with His precious blood, He will present it faultless before the throne of my heavenly Father ... I entreat my children to maintain and defend ... the blessed doctrine of complete atonement of sin through the blood of Jesus Christ once offered, and through that alone.”

Of all the wealth J. P. Morgan passed on to his heirs, it is striking that he made the redemptive work of Christ the most important. He did not tell them to use their vast fortune to work their way to heaven, but rather to trust the Savior. If one of the richest men in the world trusted Christ, not good works, for salvation, shouldn’t we, who have nothing in comparison, do the same?

By Larry Ondrejack