“And they said, Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ,

and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16:31)

There are many who quote this verse as a proof text to support the notion that believing is a condition for salvation. It is taught as a condition and a promise, the condition being ‘believing’ and the promise being ‘thou shalt be saved’if only you believe.

While this may sound plausible to natural logic, it is contrary to what the Word of God teaches. Nowhere in Scripture is salvation conditioned on anything done in us, by us or through us: Titus 3:5; “Salvation is of the LORD.” (Jonah 2:9) The command to believe on Christ is not a condition. It is just that: a COMMAND! The salvation that is in the LORD Jesus and worked out by Him by His perfect obedience unto death, is revealed to the heart of those He redeemed causing them to believe, Romans 1:16-17.

In the context, it wasn’t Paul and Silas asking the Philippian jailer if he wanted to know what to do to be saved. It was the jailer asking the question and that out of a heart already regenerated by the Spirit of God which caused him to cry out, “What must I do to be saved?” If the Spirit of God has already opened the heart, as in the case of Lydia in Acts 16:14, HE awakens the sinner and makes him attentive unto the Gospel and causes him to believe on Christ alone as their “...wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” (1 Corinthians 1:30) He makes the salvation effectual, NOT the sinner.

There are many today who have made professions based on this Scripture, whose hearts the LORD has never opened and are still ignorant of the one true righteousness of God imputed in Christ by His shed blood when He died. Rather than them being brought by the Spirit to cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ it has been rather the preacher or ‘evangelistic worker,’ asking the question ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how you can be saved?’ It is a very subtle deceptive error, dangerous and deadly because it leaves the man, woman or child thinking that they have done something to make their salvation effectual.

Christ said in John 6:44: “No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” God makes His command to believe effectual in the hearts of His elect ones, causing them to come to Christ and persuading them of their redemption and justification by His Son’s shed blood and righteousness imputed at the cross alone.

In the verse following in Acts 16:32, Paul did not simply say, ‘Believe’ hespake unto him and his household the Word of the LORD, teaching them those things that pertain to Christ’s honor and glory in salvation fully accomplished by His death for them. It is just such a persuasion that the Spirit gives to those Christ redeemed, causing them to believe, in response to the command to believe and resting in the finished work of Christ alone.

Ken Wimer