What must I do to be saved?
The scene is a prison in Philippi at midnight: an earthquake, an open jail, and a hardened officer who springs in with a light and falls down shaking before two of his own prisoners. His question is the most urgent one a person can ask, and the answer he gets is startlingly short.
The question of a man who knows he is lost
The jailer did not ask this out of curiosity. Something had already broken in him before a word of preaching reached his ears.
Leslie M. GrantThe jailer called for a light, and springing (rather than just walking) into the prison, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. This was an unusual attitude for a hardened prison official! But God was working in his heart, so that he was brought under the solemn conviction that he was a lost man.
That place is where the answer can be received. Writers point out that the same answer cannot help a person who has not yet come to the same position.
Edward DennettAre you then, beloved readers, recognising, not only that you can bring nothing to God, that even the things that might be a gain to you among men are worthless before Him, but also that you are sinners, and as such lost and undone; that therefore you can do nothing towards your salvation, and that if you are saved, it must be by the work and grace of another? If you are, we can then unfold to you the blessed truth.
"Do" is answered by "believe"
The man asked what he must do. Notice that the reply never supplies him with a task.
W. T. P. WolstonBut what is the jailer told to do? God's answer to man's query is exquisite in its simplicity. "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household," falls on the ears of the awakened sinner. How divinely simple. He had only to believe in 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.
Religious activity is often offered in place of this, and it is ruled out directly:
A. J. PollockDo! Prayers and tears, and giving to the poor, and taking the sacrament, and Bible-reading and good works, will never do. There is no atonement in these things.
Believing on a Person, not merely accepting facts
The command is not to believe about Christ but to believe on Him — and that difference is the whole thing.
Numerical Bible NotesIt is faith in a personal Saviour that is preached to the convicted man — a committing of himself to One mighty to save; a believing on, which is trusting, leaning on. It is not simply a doctrine that he is to accept, but a living Person who is to be trusted.
Kelly presses the same point by noting what Paul did not say to the jailer:
William Kelly"Believe" not in the blood, not in the work, not in the cross — that is not the message of the apostle Paul to the enquiring jailer — "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." That blessed Person brings in His blood, brings in His work, brings in His death and resurrection.
What makes faith safe is its object
People often examine their faith and wonder whether it is strong enough. That is the wrong measurement.
George CuttingIt is not a question of the amount of your faith, but of the trustworthiness of the person you place your confidence in. One man takes hold of Christ, as it were, with a drowning man's grip. Another only touches the hem of His garment; but the sinner who does the former is not a bit safer than the one who does the latter. They have both made the same discovery: that while all of self is totally untrustworthy, they may safely rely on Christ.
When salvation happens
The jailer was not put on probation. The timing is built into the wording of the promise.
A. J. PollockWhen am I saved? The moment I believe on the Lord Jesus. It is a very wonderful thing that such a simple word as "Believe" at the beginning of the text should be followed by such a wonderful word as "Saved" at the end of it, but we can understand it when the name of "The Lord Jesus Christ" lies midway between the two words.
Works come after, as fruit
Good works are not deleted from the story — they are relocated to the other side of it.
F. B. HoleThere "only believe" was quite in place, and to have demanded good works would have been worse than useless. 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. He did it not in order to be saved, but as the result of the change that grace had worked within.
The last three words
The promise did not stop at the jailer himself.
F. B. HoleWe often quote Acts 16:31, but too often we leave out the last three words. God loves to link 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?
Summary
- Lost — the question is answerable once you admit you can do nothing towards your own salvation.
- Believe — the reply removes doing altogether; prayers, tears and good works contain no atonement.
- On Him — not accepting a doctrine, but leaning on a living Person who is mighty to save.
- Now — you are saved the moment you believe, because the name of the Lord Jesus stands between the word "believe" and the word "saved".
- After — works follow within the hour as the fruit of grace, and the offer reaches your household too.