And having asked for lights, he rushed in, and, trembling, fell down before Paul and Silas.
Midnight in a Philippi prison: an earthquake has opened the doors, and the jailer has drawn his sword on himself. A voice from the dark stops him, and this verse shows what he does next.
He had just faced ruin and death without flinching. What he could not stand was kindness from the men he had mistreated.
This was irresistible. A hardened sinner could meet an earthquake; he could meet death itself; but he could not withstand the mighty melting power of love. The hardest heart must yield to the moral influence of love... And surely there was love in those words, "Do yourself no harm," coming from the lips of one to whom he had done so much harm a few hours before.
Paul had spoken in the dark. How did he know what the jailer was about to do?
It was in the darkness that Paul had spoken, and the jailer must have thought to himself: "How could that prisoner know I was going to kill myself? How could he know what I was doing in the dark?" He had a sense in his soul that God was there. He called for a light. When a man begins to think seriously about the concerns of his soul, he always wants light. And I will tell you another thing. Every soul I have known come out of nature's darkness into the light of the gospel said the same thing as the truth dawned on it: "I begin to see it."
Another light had already reached him before the lamps arrived.
But imagine how this overwhelmed his conscience. The apostle stopped his hand from suicide by calling out loud that all the prisoners were still there! Light from God penetrated his dark heart on the instant, with a deep desire for mercy, before he got the lights he called for. He needed no more hint about where to turn for the truth he wanted... The depths of his soul were broken up. As his sins rose from every hiding place, he felt instinctively that now was the moment to find God.
The trembling was the sign of something starting inside him.
He called for a light, sprang into the inner prison, and trembled with fear. There he was, at the feet of Paul and Silas — the last place he had ever expected to be. Then he brought them out. Was it pity only that now took possession of him, or remorse for his treatment of them? There was more than that. Conscience-work had begun in his soul. He was now fully awake. He felt a need so urgent that it would not wait, and would not let him hide it.
The man with the keys goes down at the feet of his own prisoners.
In that instant the voice of God had spoken to him. The keeper and his captives had changed places. Those words breathed perfect authority, and with them came great mercy to him. That mercy set aside everything self-concern prompts, to care for a careless and hardened persecutor. This struck him with the conviction that God was with these men. He was in their hands, and not they in his. Conscience and heart woke in him together — the sense of sin, and the goodness that drew him after it.
Where he fell matters. It shows who was at work in him.
Light had entered his soul, and it showed him his hopeless condition. We can see the Spirit of God at work here. He was drawn to the feet of men whose mission was to open blind eyes. They were sent to turn people from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.
Everything that went against Paul and Silas at Philippi ended up serving God's purpose.
But God makes use of all this to direct the progress of His own work and to give it the form He pleases. There is the jailer to convert, and the magistrates themselves must confess their wrong... Paul and Silas sing instead of sleeping quietly. The doors burst open. The jailer himself is converted, and his family too... The enemy was mistaken here.
- Light first. God's light reached his heart before the lamps reached his hand. Calling for a light is the outward sign of a soul that has begun to see.
- Love, not terror. The earthquake shook the building; the words "Do yourself no harm" shook him. Hardness yields to kindness from the person it has wronged.
- Conscience, not just pity. The trembling marks conscience-work begun — a need too urgent to postpone and too real to hide.
- Places swapped. The keeper ends up on the floor before his captives, convinced that God is with them and that he is in their hands.
- Enemy outwitted. The attack that put the preachers in prison ended with the jailer and his whole family saved. The enemy was mistaken.
And leading them out said, Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?
A few hours earlier, this man had locked Paul and Silas in the inner prison. An earthquake has now opened every door, and he asks them how to be saved — but saved from what, and why will the answer say nothing about doing?
So what did he want saving from? One writer weighs the dangers of that night and finds none of them big enough.
Salvation in any lesser sense is not to be thought of. The earthquake was soon over, the prisoners were all safe; what had he to fear from Roman justice? But God had awakened his soul, and his sins troubled him. He was not facing death from man, but divine judgment at the close of everything. God's servants were there to tell him the way of salvation — the men for whom He had just stepped in with a miracle. Learned men may think what they like. They have never felt the burden of their sins; they catch at words and waste time on doubtful questions. But the jailer's burning anxiety was about the salvation of his soul.
Something shook the building, and something else shook him. One writer separates the two.
I do not think it was the earthquake that converted the jailer. There were two great quakes that night. The earthquake woke the jailer from his sleep. The second one — I had better call it a soul-quake — woke him up to his state before God. It was not the physical danger that did that... That is a picture of what the gospel does. I tell you, it produces a moral earthquake in a man. When you come under the power of the gospel, you collapse. God lays hold of you and reduces you to nothing.
The title he uses is startling from a man who had shown these two no courtesy at all.
The Philippian jailer was awakened to a deeper sense than that of being undone in the eyes of men. He called out to the apostle Paul and his companions, "Sirs" (the word means "Lords"), "what must I do to be saved?" This once brutal ruffian, who had treated them shamefully, now approached them with the greatest respect.
So what finally broke this hard man? One writer says it was not the shaking walls.
This was irresistible. A hardened sinner could face an earthquake; he could face death itself; but he could not stand against the mighty melting power of love. The hardest heart must yield to the moral influence of love... Love can break the hardest heart. And surely there was love in those words, "Do not harm yourself," coming from the lips of a man he had harmed so much a few hours before.
Does the word do show a man still trying to earn his way? A reader put that question to one writer.
We would say, No. It is the cry of an awakened soul. He sees his danger. He has just seen the power of God displayed, and he knows he is exposed to it. He wants to be rescued from it. This is not a cool theological question, like the one the Pharisees asked in John 6:28. It is like the awakened cry of those convicted by the Spirit under Peter's preaching at Pentecost: "Brothers, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). At the same time, the anxious man little dreams of the fulness of the precious answer... Nothing to do, for all has been done.
One writer turns the jailer's question into a question for the reader.
Are you recognising that you can bring nothing to God? That even the things which might be a gain to you among men are worthless before Him? That you are a sinner, and as such lost and undone? That you can therefore do nothing towards your salvation, and that if you are saved it must be by the work and grace of another? If you are, then we can unfold to you the blessed truth in these words: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."
Nothing else came out of him that night — no bargaining, no religious offer.
It was salvation that filled the jailer's whole soul, nothing less than salvation — not religious ceremonies, but salvation. This is also the anxious question of every truly enlightened soul. And we need not go to commentators or learned doctors for the right answer, for the Scriptures tell us plainly.
- Shaken — the earthquake opened doors; a second, inward shaking opened this man to his state before God.
- Awakened — every prisoner was safe, so Roman law was no threat. What troubled him was God's judgment at the end of everything.
- Melted — he could face an earthquake, but not the love in "Do not harm yourself," spoken by a man he had harmed.
- Asking — his cry is not cool theology but the cry of an awakened soul, the same cry heard at Pentecost.
- Answered — the honest question "what must I do" meets the answer nothing, for all has been done. Salvation comes to the one who can bring God nothing.
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.
A jailer in Philippi, minutes from suicide, asks the one question that matters, and the answer asks nothing of him but faith. Everything hangs on what "believe" means, on Paul's three titles for the Saviour, and on how far the promise to his household reaches.
The jailer asked what he must do. The answer gave him nothing to do, and one writer shows how well that suits a man with no strength left:
But what is the jailer told to do? God's answer to man's query is beautiful in its simplicity. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house," falls on the ears of the awakened sinner. He had only to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he would be a saved man. There is no word of anything that he must do to get salvation. This gospel exactly meets helpless sinners who have no strength. No wonder the jailer believed at once.
Another writer names the reason: Christ had already done the work.
Nothing that he could do could secure God's salvation. The doing had all been done by Christ. All that is left for the sinner is taking hold of the results of His mighty work by simple faith.
Paul does not just say "believe on Jesus." Each name meets a different fear in an awakened conscience:
Why does he here repeat all these titles of the Saviour? Because he is presenting Him to this anxious soul as the Object of faith, and in such a way as to fully satisfy his awakened conscience... If the question of the troubled heart is, Is He willing to save me? The answer is, Yes; He is JESUS, and came into the world for the very purpose of saving sinners. If the question is, Is He able to save me? The answer is, Yes; He is "LORD of all," and has all power in heaven and on earth. And He is the CHRIST, the anointed One in heaven, following on His finished work on the cross. That is the unquestionable proof that everyone who has come as a sinner to Him the Saviour is forgiven and blessed.
The writers quoted here use an older translation, which reads "the Lord Jesus Christ." The ESV reads "the Lord Jesus."
The jailer's response shows what believing looks like. He took God at His word:
The Scripture says this, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." It is not enough to know that the Bible says so. The devils know that well enough, and so does the unbeliever. But do you know that God says so — that it is God speaking to us in the Bible? Now, if God says so, is it not true?... The jailer understood it to mean just what God said, and he was baptized at once. He raised no questions. "He rejoiced, believing in God with all his house." If he believed and rejoiced, why should you doubt?
The last words are the ones most often dropped. One writer treats that habit as a real loss:
We often quote Acts 16:31, but too often we leave out the last three words. God loves to identify a man's house with himself and include them in His offer of blessing. Why do we not more often take hold of this fact in our faith?... This is surely most encouraging for every head of a house whom the grace of God reaches. God shows no partiality: what He is to one He is to all.
Commentators differ on how far the promise carries. One writer separates what the jailer's faith gave his house from what each member must still do:
His being brought to God puts his whole house in a sanctified (set apart) position, as 1 Corinthians 7:14 plainly teaches. In this way the house is saved. Yet each person in the house must still personally receive the Lord Jesus to have eternal salvation.
Within the hour, the man who had bolted them into the stocks was washing their wounds:
There "only believe" was quite in place, and to have "demanded good works" would have been worse than useless. Yet within one short hour of conversion the jailer performed his first good work, the fruit and proof of his faith... He did it not to be saved, but as the result of the change that grace had worked within.
- Asked — the question assumed doing; the answer named believing, because Christ had already done it all.
- Answered — the titles carry the weight. Jesus means He is willing, Lord means He is able, Christ means the work is finished.
- Assured — the jailer raised no questions and rejoiced at once, because faith rests on what God says.
- Applied — the promise reaches past the man to his house and sets it apart, though each person in it must still believe personally.
- Attested — within one hour he did his first good work; works follow salvation, they never buy it.