What must I believe to be saved?

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.

When the question, "What must I do to be saved?" rang from the agonised lips of the prison warder at Philippi, the inspired answer did not bid him pray, or strive, or make vows, or anything of that sort. He was told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. 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 the appropriation of the results of His mighty work by simple faith.

Dear friends, I warn you tonight. Do you ask, What must I do to be saved? I say again that there is nothing for you to do — it has all been done — but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, take Him at His word, rest on His finished work, His sin-cleansing blood. You may be sure He will be true to what He says. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

Again, when an alarmed and sin-convicted man cried out, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul's reply was, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house;" but 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. Jesus is not only Son of man in the glory, but has been there made "both Lord, and Christ." (Acts 2:36.) If the question of the troubled heart be, 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 inquiry be, Is He able to save me? The answer is, Yes; He is "LORD of all," and has all power in heaven and in earth; and His being the CHRIST, the anointed One in heaven, consequent upon His finished work on the cross, is the unquestionable proof that every one that has come as a sinner to Him the Saviour, is forgiven and blessed. How perfectly accurate, therefore, was the Apostle's reply, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

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.

When speaking to the anxious jailer of Philippi, in whose soul a work of repentance was already proceeding, he said only, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). There "only believe" was quite in place, and to have "demanded good works" would have been worse than vain. It is recorded, however, that within one short hour of conversion the jailer performed his first good work, the fruit and proof of his faith (see verse 33). He did it not in order to be saved, but as the result of the change that grace had wrought within.

Of old God brought His commandment very near to Israel that they might do it. He has brought His word even nearer to us in Christ. It is now not a word of what we ought to do, but of what Christ has done, and of what He Himself has done in raising Christ from the dead. On our part the word only demands that we believe with the heart that God has raised Him from the dead, and that we confess Him as Lord with our mouths. When heart and mouth thus go together there is of course reality. Real subjection to Jesus as Lord carries with it salvation.

It is the testimony of the Lord. I must stress that first of all. What does the title mean? It means His authority, His absolute rights over us; He is sovereign Lord. And we are not faithful to the colours if we are not owning that and carrying it out in practical living. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thy heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." That means open and definite subjection to His will, and rallying to the colours. It was what Saul of Tarsus did when he cried: "Lord, what will Thou have me to do?" But who would not be subject to Him whose love for us surpasses all our knowledge and whose will and way for us is our greatest blessing?

Who then can mistake the blessed simplicity of verse 9? It is a clear statement of “the word faith” — “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” It is the mouth and the heart that have the important place here — not the hands and the feet. The mouth is the index of the heart, and there will be no personal confession of Jesus as Lord unless there is belief in the heart. There may be something that appears like such a confession, but there is no simple, forth-right confession of Him as personal Lord, without faith. But the two go together. If I believe, I therefore speak.

Thus the soul's salvation is based, not upon man's doings, such as obedience to the law, nor even upon God's unconditional promise, such as Abraham was given, but upon fully established facts: the Son of God has come: He has died, and risen again. This is sound, settled truth, appropriated and clearly understood by honest faith. What more can be desired to prove the perfect settlement of the sin question? What more sure and perfect ground for the eternal salvation of every soul who trusts Him?