The Way of Salvation (part 4)

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

Until this eternally vital question is answered, the death of Jesus accomplishes nothing! The Biblical answer depends upon where one is in relationship to God at the time the question is asked. We may think of it like this: Suppose I were to call you and ask directions to your house. The first thing you’d need to know in order to help me would be my present location. It is impossible to give anyone directions from one location to another without first knowing where they are. That’s the way it is when someone wants to know what they must do to be saved.
What would you tell such a person if (s)he has never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? John 3:14-17 indicates that salvation is given by God at the cost of His only begotten Son. John 14:6 tells us in Jesus’ own words that there is no alternative. According to Peter, Acts 4:12, there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Paul underscores the absolute necessity of salvation when he says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Ephesians 2:5,8 leaves no room for discussion as to the source of salvation. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ for good works. We are not saved by good works
All this is doubly emphasized in I Corinthians 1:18, 21 where the same inspired writer says; “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Romans 10:13-14 states the logic behind God’s means of saving the lost; “for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then shall they call upon him in Whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

So, in the unlikely event that one who has never heard the gospel were to ask what to do to be saved, the answer is, “To be saved you must hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). This is why Paul considered the delivery of the gospel as of first importance (I Corinthians 15:3a). He left not doubt as to what he meant by “the gospel” when he wrote, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all He appeared to me also” (I Corinthians 15:3b-8). Jesus, Himself, said that those things which He accomplished were written about Him in the same Scriptures to which Paul refers (Luke 24:44-47).

Without the awareness of this message, there is no salvation. If someone who has only heard should ask, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer is found in the case of the Philippian Jailor written in Acts 16:22-34. The street preaching of Paul and Silas in the Roman colony of Philippi resulted in a riot. The chief magistrates ordered them beaten with rods, locked in stocks and chained to the walls of the local prison behind locked doors. (The Romans took such violations of Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, seriously. Without it, the far flung empire would soon come unglued. Any disturbance of the peace was dealt with swiftly and severely.)
Despite they extreme discomfort caused by their official abuse, Paul and Silas spent the sleepless night praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake. The prison was almost destroyed, everyone’s chains were broken and the doors swung open. The jailor, assuming that his prisoners had escaped, was about to fall on his sword and commit suicide, considering such a death preferable to what the Roman authorities would do to him for allowing the escape. He may have been in jeopardy of crucifixion.

Seeing that the man was about to do himself in, Paul called out for him not to harm himself because no prisoners had fled. The jailor called for lights, rushed in terrified, fell down before Paul and Silas and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved” (Acts 16:30)? Some have suggested that he was asking how to save himself from Roman punishment. If he was, Paul’s answer gave him more than he bargained for! It seems more likely that, earlier in the evening, he had heard what Paul and Silas had said and sung to the other prisoners. Paul’s answer was “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household” ( Acts 16:31).

Without waiting for first aid to their torn and bleeding backs, Paul and Silas “spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house” (Acts 16:32). The jailor took Paul and Silas, treated their wounds, and “immediately he was baptized, he and his household” (Acts 16:33). Luke’s last word on the subject is “he¼rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household” (Acts 16:34c).

America’s favorite Scripture verse, John 3:16 limits God’s gift of eternal life to those who
“Believe on The Only Begotten Son of God.” Mark 16:16 states plainly the fate of those who hear and do not believe; “he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” Jude 1:5 tells us that this has always been true; “Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.” Hebrews 11:6 shows that salvation apart from faith is impossible; “And without faith it is impossible to please Him [God], for he who comes to Him must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”

If someone who has heard and believed the gospel should ask, “What shall I do to be saved?” the answer is “confess.” This is not a confession of guilt. It is a spoken agreement with God concerning His Son. The Greek, homolego, confess, literally means “speak the same thing.” In Matthew 10:32-33, Jesus indicates the necessity of confessing Him before witnesses’ “Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess Him before My Father Who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in heaven.”

The content of this confession was first voiced by the apostle Peter on the mountain side overlooking Caesarea Philippi; “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16).” Paul reminded Timothy that Timothy had “made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” and that Jesus Christ had Himself “testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate”( I Timothy 6:12-13). According to Romans 10:9-10; “¼if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

When someone who has heard, believed and confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of The Living God asks, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer is “repent.” Acts 2:37-38 records such an incident. Three thousand Jews had just heard Peter prove by their own Scriptures and the testimony of twelve eyewitnesses that God had raised Jesus from the dead and that He, therefore, had been made Lord and Christ. Luke says that they “were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’” Their question constituted a confession of faith. In response, Peter answered; “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The word, Metanoia, translated repentance, literally means to change one’s mind or purpose. It is a change of the mind involving a resolve of the will. A native Greek girl, just recently arrived from Greece, once translated repentance from Acts 2:38 for me from my Greek New Testament; “Change your mind because you’re sorry and decide not to do it any more and be submerged so that your sins will be forgiven.” To repent is to exchange “Thy will be done” for “I want” as the controlling principle of one’s life.

II Peter 3:9 shows that repentance is essential to those who choose not to go on perishing; “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but for all to come to repentance.” In Luke 13:3 Jesus makes the same equation; “ . . . unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” In Luke 24:47, He sums up the entire gospel as follows: “repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His [Christ’s] name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Acts 17:30c-31 tells us that “all men everywhere should repent because He has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through the Man Whom He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through the Man Whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.”

When someone who has heard the gospel, believed, confessed their faith and repented asks, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer is “be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38) Paul wrote, in Ephesians 2:5-6, “even when we were dead in our transgressions, [He] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and He raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” In Romans 6:4-5 the same apostle tells us how He raised us up with Him: “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him that the body of our sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”
Peter wrote that, just as God saved Noah and his family through Noah’s construction of the ark, “...corresponding to that, baptism now saves you - not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” ( I Peter 3:21).
In the first Christian century, when a non-Jew became a believer in Jehovah, God, and wanted to become one of God’s covenant people, one of the acts by which his conversion was accomplished was immersion in water. The Jews believed that all non-Jews were “unclean” and the purpose of this proselyte immersion was to remove that uncleanness. Peter says that Christian immersion is more than that. It is not for the cleansing of the flesh but of the conscience before God. As he had said on Pentecost, in Acts 2:38, Christian immersion if for the removal of sin.

Paul’s favorite term for a saving relationship to Christ is “in Christ.” In Galatians 3:27, he tells us how this relationship is established; “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

When someone who has heard the gospel, believed, confessed, repented and been immersed into Christ asks, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer is, “be faithful to death” (Revelation 2:10). Hebrews 2:1 tells us; “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels [The Law of Moses] proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation¼?” Chapter six of this same New Testament epistle describes the guilt of those who fail to remain faithful to the Christ Who saved them: “For in the case of those who have been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

The danger of such unfaithfulness is spelled out in Hebrews 10:19-31: “Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, the fury of a fire which shall consume the adversaries. Anyone who set aside the Law of Moses dies without compassion on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him Who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.’ And again, “The ‘Lord will judge His people.’ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Such stern warnings against unfaithfulness sound as though remaining saved is virtually impossible. Martin Luther sang of the solution in his signature hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. “Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing.” John 14:18 record’s Jesus’ own answer to our dilemma; “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” In Matthew 28:20b is His promise, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Romans 8:9b- assures us of His constant presence, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet he spirit is alive because of righteousness.” The first promise to those who are baptized for the forgiveness of sin is, “you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself. (Acts 2:39).”

When a faithful Christian yields to temptation, (s)he has God’s promise of forgiveness: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9).” The key to the successful living of the new life we have in Christ was written by Paul to the church at Philippi: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both the will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).”