What does the Bible say about household salvation?

The answer to the jailor's question is simple in this case, an answer that can only be appreciated by one who realizes himself to be guilty or lost, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house" (v.31). The Lord had deeply worked in the man's soul to bring him to genuine repentance. This is always necessary if there is to be any desire for or knowledge of salvation. Faith in the Lord Jesus would save him, not only from his own guilt, but from the ungodly world with which he was identified, and would save his house from this situation too. The fact of his being brought to God puts his entire house in a sanctified (or separated) position, as 1 Corinthians 7:14 plainly teaches. In this way the house is saved, though it remains imperative that each individual in the house must personally receive the Lord Jesus in order to have eternal salvation.

In the first place, then, let it be very distinctly observed that it does not mean that the faith of the head of the household ensures the salvation of its members. No truth is more evident from the Scriptures than that there can be no salvation apart from individual faith. The examples of Ham, Esau, the sons of Eli and of Samuel, Absalom, etc., are solemn warnings that the faith of the parent cannot save his child. This should ever be repeated in most emphatic notes; for while, on the one hand, we dare not contract the circle of God's grace, on the other hand, we may not, must not, expand it. While earnestly contending for the unity of the household before God, we must as earnestly contend that every member of the household must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to salvation. Let there be no misconception or mistake on this point; for error here would be of the most fatal kind.

But now as to the closing words, "thou and thy house:" have they any special encouragement as to the family of a believer, or have they not? Do they mean only "thou, if thou believest, and thy house also, if they believe"? Or do they mean something more than this? Would there be need to assure the penitent here, that faith being the way of salvation, it was as open to his house upon their believing as to himself? It does not seem as if he would need to be assured of that.

On the other hand, there should not need to say, that if faith be, as it surely is, the way of salvation there is no exemption of the family of a believer from the necessity of faith. If there should possibly be any, as is sometimes stated, who with the plain word of Scripture before them can yet hold that for a believer's house there is even the possibility that without faith they may still please God, or that the father's faith can in anywise be proxy for that of the child, such a superstition needs only to be brought into honest daylight to be refuted. Quite a different thing it is to believe that there are special promises to a believer's house, not unconditional, and yet conditioned only upon his being in practical reality, and in relation to that which is in question, a believer. Such a belief has plenty to ground itself upon in Scripture, and is not a superstition but a faith.

Yet this is all only preparatory: we must have positive Scripture if we are to go further. Here, then, the baptism of households comes in to reassure us. In Acts 16 we have Lydia and her household, the jailer and all his, baptized. Of Lydia's household we have no certain knowledge; but the baptism of her house is put as if it were part of her own faithfulness, which she pleads: "A certain woman named Lydia heard us, whose heart the Lord opened; and when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house.'" From the point of view already indicated, one would certainly conclude that her household was baptized upon her faith.

In the case of the jailer, who asks, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas answer with the assurance, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Here the salvation of his house is clearly put as the normal result of his own believing. Nor have we any thing of their faith in what follows, but only of his; though we are told that "they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." He was baptized, he and all his, straightway; and he rejoiced greatly, with all his house, — but this is an adverb, panoiki, domestically," — having believed in God. It is "he" rejoiced, "he" believed.

But what is the jailer told to do? God's answer to man's query is exquisite in its simplicity. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house," falls on the ears of the awakened sinner. How divinely simple. 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 in order to get salvation. This is a gospel that exactly meets helpless sinners without strength, and no wonder the jailer believed at once. His conversion was a rapid one indeed. One minute asleep in his sins, the next awake and deeply anxious about these sins — and straightway thereafter he hears the gospel and believes it, and rejoices in God with all his house.

We often quote Acts 16:31, but too often we omit 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 embrace this fact in our faith? We have already had in the chapter the converted woman and her house: now we have the converted man and his house. This surely is most encouraging for all heads of houses who may be reached by the grace of God; since there is no respect of persons with God, and what He is to one He is to all.

The households of Cornelius and Lydia follow on in this remarkable line of households that we find all through the Old Testament. Great efforts have been made to prove that these New Testament households had no children, or that all were of an age to believe, and had done so. To raise such questions when the Holy Spirit deliberately and intentionally is totally silent as to them, is merely to show that he who raises them has entirely missed the object of the Spirit of God. To the one well acquainted with the Old Testament, the term "household" should have become thoroughly familiar, and what it implied should have been well understood. It is almost what we might call "a technical term." The meaning the Spirit of God has in using it, is to be found in the use He has made of it in earlier Scriptures: and we have seen that it means exactly what it says: all in the house. This might, or might not, include infants, children, or servants; and God did not upbraid Rahab when she stretched the meaning to include parents and brothers and sisters and their families. I suppose it is: "according to your faith, so be it unto you". Some have pressed that we never find infants or children baptized in the Bible, so we may not include these in the households we are now considering: but we have already seen that some half million or more households, including untold numbers of infants and children, were baptized, as pointed out in First Corinthians. If we are to understand aright these Scriptures we are now looking at, we must accept these households in the way in which the Spirit uses this word, or its representative, as family, little ones, etc., in the earlier portions of the Word: and we must receive these Scriptures as they stand without adding to them.

But we must look further at the households that the Spirit is bringing before us. After Lydia, in the same chapter, verses 25 to 34, we find the household of the jailor at Philippi. Notice the jailor's question, and the answer: "What must I do to be saved? … Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Reader, this is for us also. Accept it, believe it, rejoice in it, and thank God for His grace that has given us such a promise for our households. Notice that it is almost the same word as to Cornelius by the angel: but notice also that it does not say: "Believe on Jesus and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." No doubt every one who truly believes on Jesus will be saved: but the promise "and thy house" is for one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. This involves bowing to His Lordship, and seeking by His grace to keep His word, and put Him first in our lives.

The "house" being included in the head of it, Paul and Silas spoke unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And the account continues: "And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house." (Acts 16:33-34). One would suppose from this that all in the jailor's house believed when Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to them: but the Greek New Testament, in the words uttered by the Holy Spirit, does not say this. The Revised Version renders it: "He rejoiced greatly with all his house, having believed in God." The New Translation by Mr. Darby has "he laid the table for them, and rejoiced with all his house, having believed in God." The Greek word "having believed" is nominative, singular, masculine, and can refer only to the jailor. We have seen a very similar example of the rejoicing in the case of the wives and the children in Nehemiah's day: and some of these "children" were almost surely too little to understand the cause of the joy, yet they rejoiced in the joy of their parents. Again we see that the Scripture is totally silent as to who composed the household, and as to their spiritual condition. The faith, conversion and baptism of the jailor are unquestionable, but the verbs rejoiced and believing are both in the singular, and apply to the jailor: though the household rejoiced with him, or "as a household", or, "householdly", if we could use such a term. Do not think it is an accident that the Spirit of God is silent in these cases as to the faith of the households, or who composed them. This silence is intentional, to bring home to us Gentiles, that God's great principle of external blessing for the household on the ground of the faith of its head, also applies to us.

And what was the result? Did the Lord tell her that she asked too much? Did He say, "No Rahab, you may be saved: but your house cannot be saved on your faith." Indeed He said no such thing: His promise was to "all thy father's household." (Joshua 2:18). It reminds us of the wonderful promise to the jailor at Philippi: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Acts 16:31). Let none suppose there must not be individual faith for salvation. Surely there must. But God's Own way is that the individual may put in his claim, by faith, for all the household: and that is just what Rahab did. She did not interpret that word household in the narrow way some of our friends try and interpret it today, going to endless trouble to prove, what cannot be proved, that there were no little children in the households of the New Testament. (Acts 16:15; Acts 16:31, 33, 34; 1 Cor. 1:16; 1 Cor. 16:15). They hope thus to prove that today we may not copy Rahab, and bring our little ones with us into the external place of blessing which we enjoy. But all such labour is directly opposed to the current of Scripture and the free grace of God.

Again, parents often adopt too Calvinistic a view as to their children’s salvation, and consequently fail to maintain that prayerful solicitude and earnest watchfulness that is so needful. It is true that by virtue of their relationship the unconverted partners and the children of believers are relatively “holy” (1 Cor. 7:4), and that a principle runs through Scripture that households are more or less bound up with the heads thereof for blessing or for judgment. In Acts 16 the whole household, wakened no doubt by the earthquake, would in all probability be present when Paul and Silas gave their memorable answer to the jailer’s question. The way of salvation was presented to them all, and all believed. We are surely not to understand that the parent believed, and could then hold God to that verse for the salvation of his household. Such an interpretation is too mechanical. Nor is it justified by facts, else the converted descendants of Christian parents would increase by arithmetical progression. But that this is not so, we know, alas, too well.

What joy to these servants of the Lord to proclaim, in answer to the jailer's question, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Here in one short sentence is the only way of salvation. That this, however, is a compact summary of what Paul said to him is clear, we judge, from what follows, that "they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." Whether it be so or not, these words of the apostle are fraught with instruction, containing as they do the truth of the Lord's claims, of His person, and of His work. Salvation is in, and through, the Lord Jesus Christ alone. The reader will notice that Paul says, "Thou shalt be saved." This is because salvation in its full sense goes on to the resurrection of the body of the believer, and comprises his being conformed to the image of God's Son. (Romans 8:29.) The "house" of the believer was also to be included in the blessed circle of grace; and hence it is that the households of God's people become spheres of light amidst the moral darkness of this world, though this is only the case where the truth is known, and the Lord's claims and authority are maintained.