Believing and Salvation

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

and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

(Acts 16:31)

Many quote this verse as a proof text to support their notion that believing is a condition for being saved. 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 palatable to natural logic, nothing could be further from the Truth. 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 but 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.

Notice 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 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 your heart, as in the case of Lydia [Acts 16:14] HE makes you, the sinner, attentive unto the Gospel and causes you to believe on Christ alone as your Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30. He makes salvation effectual, NOT us.

There are many today who have made professions based on this Scripture, whose hearts the LORD has never opened, they are still ignorant of the One True Righteousness of God imputed in Christ by His shed blood. 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 ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how you can be saved?’ It is a very subtle error but nonetheless 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’ to be effectual in the hearts of His elect ones, causing them to come to Christ and be persuaded of their redemption and justification by His Son’s shed blood and righteousness imputed alone. Notice also the verse following in Acts 16:32 that Paul did not simply say believe: “He spake unto him and his household the word of the LORD...” teaching them those things that pertain to Christ’s honor and glory and 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, resting in the finished work of Christ alone.