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.
And they spoke to him the word of the Lord, with all that were in his house.
The jailer asked how to be saved and got a one-sentence answer. Then the preaching kept going — at midnight, in the house of a man who had shown Paul and Silas no kindness. This verse shows what more they said, and how far the message reached.
Paul's reply to the jailer was one line. This verse shows it was not all he said. One writer notes that the man had no background for the words he had just heard.
But you might say to me: what did this man know about the Lord Jesus Christ? I do not think he knew anything at all about Him up to that moment. That is why the next verse is so important. They did not stop at merely saying, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." They unfolded the gospel to him. They brought out the glorious truth of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The same writer fills in what that preaching likely contained.
But this was not all the jailer heard. From the words "they spoke the word of the Lord to him," I have no doubt Paul brought out the account of the birth of Jesus, and of His holy, gracious life. He told the story of His death on the cross when men put Him there, and how at that moment He completed the work of redemption, which He alone could do. He told how God laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and how He who knew no sin was made sin for us. After His suffering ended in His atoning death and the shedding of His blood, He was laid in the grave for three days. After the third day He rose from the dead, and was received up into glory at the right hand of the Father.
The promise of verse 31 included the jailer's house. This verse shows how the word got there. One writer treats the wording as deliberate on the Holy Spirit's part.
Some assume that the jailer's house held only children, too young to be responsible. But Scripture lets us press the disproof to the very end. Verse 32 adds that they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house, as if the Holy Spirit had planned in advance to leave no possible excuse for such strange teaching. Only those who could hear the word were concerned at that moment. The call itself brought no one else within the terms of the blessing, whatever grace might do afterwards.
Commentators differ here. Some read the joy of the following verses as shared faith throughout the household.
So here the jailer rejoiced, but not as a stand-in for his family. They too rejoiced, as truly in their measure as he did. Only his joy, as one who had believed in God, is named. We are meant to understand the joy of faith in the case of all. It is a beautiful picture of how real and active God's grace is in this world, and this in the whole house of a hardened pagan.
Others point out that the verbs stay with one man, even while the whole house is in view.
Here the salvation of his house stands as the normal result of his own believing. In what follows we hear nothing of their faith, only of his — though we read that they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. It is "he" rejoiced, "he" believed.
One writer reads what the jailer did next as proof that the word had done its work.
They sang praises with their feet in the stocks. They had kept the jailer, who had shown them no kindness but the opposite, from the guilt of suicide. Now we learn how grace worked in him. He displayed the fruits of the divine nature. He took them that same hour of the night and washed their wounds. He confessed the Lord and was counted as His disciple, along with his household, for all of them were baptized at once. He set food before Paul and Silas, who no doubt needed it. He showed thought, love and concern for these two men — surely the fruit of that divine nature which he had just come to share.
The word came to the whole household. One writer draws out what that means for any believer's home.
The "house" of the believer also came inside the blessed circle of grace. So the households of God's people become spheres of light in the moral darkness of this world. But this only happens where they know the truth, and hold to the Lord's claims and authority.
- Word. Paul and Silas did not leave their one-line answer bare. They unfolded the Person and work of Christ to a man who knew nothing of Him.
- House. The word travelled as far as the promise did — spoken to the jailer and to everyone in his house together.
- Hearing. Only those who could hear the word were included by the call itself, whatever grace might do later.
- Faith. Commentators differ on whether the whole house believed or only the jailer. All agree the word reached them all.
- Fruit. Washed wounds, baptism and a shared meal show grace at work, turning that household into a place of light.
And he took them the same hour of the night and washed [them] from their stripes; and was baptised, he and all his straightway.
The night ends where it began — in the prison — but the roles are reversed. The man who locked Paul and Silas in the inner cell now kneels over their wounds with water, and this is his first act after believing.
One writer contrasts what the jailer was with what he has become, and weighs what would have been lost had Paul walked out of the open door.
What a marvellous change! The ruthless jailer has become the generous host! "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." How clearly we can now see that Paul was right in not being guided by circumstances! How much better and higher to be led by the "eye" of God! What an eternal loss it would have proved to him had he walked out at the open door! How much better to be led out by the very hand that had thrust him in — a hand once the instrument of cruelty and sin, now the instrument of righteousness and love!
One commentator weighs the exact wording. He argues it stresses how awkward the hour was, then follows the jailer's movements — from the cell, to the water, to the room above. (Where older translations say "stripes," the ESV says "wounds.")
The jailer took them "that hour" of the night, however awkward the hour might seem. That is the force of the words, rather than "the same," which the text does not say, though of course that was true as well. But we must give exactly what was written and meant. After washing their stripes he and all his were baptized without delay, it would seem within the prison grounds. Then he brought them "up" into his house, apparently above the prisoners' quarters, saw to their food and comfort, and rejoiced with all his house, having believed in God.
The urgency is itself part of the testimony. A preacher applying the scene notes that the man's confession came before daybreak:
The jailer heard the gospel: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." He believed, and he was saved. Clearly he believed with his heart and confessed with his mouth… He did not wait till the morning.
One writer treats the washing as the test of whether the jailer's faith was real.
He is born again by the word of truth, and his whole way of life is changed… A few hours before, he saw nothing more in Paul and Silas to call out affection and sympathy than in the other prisoners. But now he sees everything with new eyes… This was a fine example of the fruit of the Spirit, and it proved that his profession was sincere. His love was not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
The same verse moves straight from the washing to baptism. One writer explains why that step felt like a privilege and not a duty.
But more than this, he carried out the mind of the Lord: "he was baptized."… He knew that the Lord Jesus Christ had saved him. He knew that he had redemption in Christ through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. So it was not a burden but a sweet privilege to take part in an ordinance where he would feel for himself what it means to be buried with Christ. Faith does not argue; it believes and acts on God's word.
Commentators differ over how much this clause proves. Some take it as a settled pattern of God dealing with a man and those belonging to him:
"And was baptized, he and all his." What an expressive phrase: "HE AND ALL HIS." Here we have our warrant for household baptism. "He and all his" represents, as briefly as could be wished, the divine and gracious principle that runs all through God's dealings with His people.
Others reply that the text never says who was in the house, and that preaching always came first:
Thoughtful men on all sides admit that the households of Scripture decide nothing about this. There may have been no infants… We never hear of Peter or anyone else setting out first of all to baptize. They set out to preach. Then those who received the word were baptized.
- Believing — the jailer heard, believed, and acted; faith did not argue, it simply took God at His word.
- Washing — the first fruit of that faith was love shown in deed, to the very men he had wounded.
- Baptism — he confessed Christ openly and at once, picturing burial with Him.
- Household — his whole house rejoiced in believing God; commentators differ on whether "he and all his" settles who may be baptized.
- Change — the hand once used for cruelty became the instrument of righteousness and love, in a few hours of one night.