What Must I Do to Be Saved? A Plain Answer (Acts 16:30–31)
The Question Asked at Midnight
Paul and Silas came to Philippi, a Roman colony in Macedonia, because the Lord had called them there in a vision. Within days they had been dragged before the magistrates, stripped, beaten with many stripes and thrust into the inner prison with their feet fast in the stocks. The jailer had been charged to keep them safely, and he did. At midnight, sore and bleeding, the two men prayed and sang praises to God, and the other prisoners listened.
Then the earth shook. The foundations of the prison moved, every door opened, and every prisoner's bands fell loose. The keeper of the prison woke, saw the doors standing open, and drew his sword to kill himself, because a Roman jailer who lost his prisoners could expect to pay for them with his life. Paul stopped him with a loud cry: "Do thyself no harm: for we are all here." The man called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before the two prisoners he had locked away a few hours before.
Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Acts 16:29-31
KJV
John Chrysostom (407) noticed how straight the man went to the point: "he does not ask, How is this? What is this? but straightway he says, What must I do to be saved?" He had been one stroke of a sword from death, and he knew that something worse than a Roman penalty waited on the other side of it.
He may already have known whom to ask. For many days a girl with a spirit of divination had followed Paul through the streets of Philippi, crying that these men "shew unto us the way of salvation" (Acts 16:17). Matthew Henry thought "It is probable that he had heard what the damsel said of them". Now he asked for that way himself. The full account of that night is in Paul and Silas in Prison at Philippi; what follows here is the answer he was given, opened up one phrase at a time, for anyone asking the same question today.
Saved From What?
The word the jailer used, saved1, means to rescue, deliver and keep safe; the King James translators also rendered it heal and make whole. Jesus used it of the woman who had washed his feet with her tears: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luke 7:50). Rescue only makes sense where there is danger, and Scripture names the danger plainly.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:23
KJV
Sin is more than a list of mistakes. It is falling short of the glory of God: of what we were made for, which is to know God, to love him and to live under his word. The verse says "all", and it means all. It takes in the jailer, who had locked innocent men in the stocks, and it takes in Paul, who had once dragged believers off to prison himself. Henry noted the likeness: Paul "had been once a persecutor of good men, as this jailer was". It takes in every reader as well.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:23
KJV
Wages are what work earns. What sin earns is death: the death of the body, and beyond it the separation from God that Scripture calls the second death (Revelation 21:8). Jesus said it in so many words: "he that believeth not is condemned already" (John 3:18). That is the danger. But the same verse in Romans that names the wage also names a gift, and the gift is the whole reason the jailer's question has an answer.
What Christ Has Done
Paul's answer points to a person, not to a programme. Before the jailer could believe on Jesus, he needed to know who Jesus was, and so the apostles "spake unto him the word of the Lord" (Acts 16:32). Henry observed that he "was, for aught that appears, an utter stranger to Christ, and therefore it is requisite he should be told who this Jesus is, that he may believe in him". Paul gives the substance of that word himself, as the message he delivered first of all wherever he went.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
Christ died for our sins: he took on himself the penalty that our sins had earned. He was buried: his death was real. He rose again the third day: God accepted the sacrifice, and death could not hold him. All of it happened according to the scriptures, as the prophets had said it would. Another verse sets out the exchange at the centre of it.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
The one who knew no sin was made sin for us. Our guilt was laid on him; his righteousness is counted to everyone who is in him. That is why Paul's answer can be one sentence long. The work that saves is not left for the jailer to do. It was finished on the cross and sealed when the tomb was emptied. For how the cross accomplished this, see The Atonement: What Happened on the Cross?, and for the word that names the whole message, The Meaning of "Gospel".
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ"
To believe2 is to have faith in someone and to take him at his word, and the lexicon adds its fuller sense: to entrust, especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ. It is more than agreeing that certain facts are true. It is handing yourself over to him, as a sick man puts himself into the hands of a physician he trusts. Henry called Paul's reply "the sum of the whole gospel, the covenant of grace in a few words", and he put the point as plainly as it can be put: "No other way of salvation than by Christ, and no other way of our being saved by Christ than by believing in him".
Each of the three names carries weight.
- He is the Lord: the risen King, with every right to rule the one who trusts him.
- He is Jesus: the man of Nazareth who was crucified, named before his birth "for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).
- He is the Christ: the anointed one God promised through the prophets.
When Luke records the end of that night, he says the jailer rejoiced, "believing in God". Henry drew the conclusion: "His believing in Christ is called believing in God, which intimates that Christ is God".
The jailer asked what he must do, and the answer is something he could do that same hour. Jesus had answered a crowd who asked him, "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" His reply was: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:28-29). The one thing required is to trust the one who has done everything.
Faith that turns: repentance
About seven weeks after the resurrection, a crowd in Jerusalem asked Peter nearly the same question: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter answered, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins"3 (Acts 2:37-38). Peter said repent; Paul said believe. They were not preaching two gospels. Paul himself joined the two words when he summed up all his years of preaching for the elders of Ephesus.
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 20:21
KJV
The word for repentance4 means to think differently about something afterwards: sorrow for guilt that carries a change of life with it. Repentance and faith are not two separate steps, one after the other. They are one turning seen from two sides: away from sin, toward God, and onto Christ. No one can trust Christ to save him from his sin while holding on to that sin as something he means to keep. Yet repentance is not cleaning yourself up first so that God will have you. It is agreeing with God about what you are, and coming to him as you are. For a fuller treatment of both, see Conversion: Faith and Repentance.
Not by works
The jailer's question took for granted that there was something to do. The answer took away every kind of doing that earns.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:8-10
KJV
Salvation is by grace5: God's favour, given freely and never paid for. It is received through faith, the empty hand that takes what is offered. Romans 6:23 already drew the line: death is a wage, but eternal life is a gift. Ambrose of Milan (397) gave the same counsel to the newly baptized: "presume not from your own works, but from the grace of Christ". Good works do have their place, and verse 10 gives it to them. They are what God created his people for, the fruit of being saved and never its price. Henry described the person who has seen his sin clearly as one who "will be glad to have Christ upon his own terms, Christ upon any terms". Those terms are grace. For the doctrine at the heart of this, see Justification by Faith Alone.
Knowing That You Are Saved
A person who has trusted Christ is not left to hope and wonder. Jesus spoke of the believer in three tenses.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
John 5:24
KJV
He has everlasting life now. He shall not come into condemnation later. He is passed from death unto life already. John wrote one of his letters so that believers would be sure of this.
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
1 John 5:13
KJV
That ye may know. Assurance does not rest on the strength of your feelings on a given day, which rise and fall. It rests on the promise of God, which does not. The jailer rejoiced that same night, before he had seen anything change but his own heart. Chrysostom marked it: "And rejoiced, it says: although there was nothing but words only and good hopes". The words were God's, and they were enough. For more on this, see The Assurance of Salvation.
What Followed That Night
And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
Acts 16:33-34
KJV
Paul had promised that the jailer would be saved "and thy house". That was not a promise that one man's faith would save others in his place. The apostles spoke the word of the Lord to everyone in the house, and Luke records that the whole household believed. Henry put it simply: "they are all welcome to Christ upon the same terms."
The same hour, the man who had locked Paul and Silas in the stocks washed the blood from their backs. Then he was baptized, he and all his, straightway. Chrysostom saw the two washings side by side: "those he washed from their stripes, himself was washed from his sins". Baptism was the first thing faith did, and it was not put off until morning.
Faithful Christians have long differed over how baptism and salvation are joined. Some churches, reading verses such as Acts 2:38, teach that God gives the forgiveness of sins in the water of baptism. Others hold that baptism is the sign and seal of a forgiveness already received by faith, and point out that Jesus says "he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:16) without adding a word about baptism there. The reading followed here is the second, because Paul's answer to the jailer names believing as the one condition of being saved, and baptism follows as faith's first obedience. On either reading, a believer is not meant to delay it. See Understanding Baptism: Who and How?
And then there was a new life. The jailer brought the apostles into his house, set food before them and rejoiced. Henry's comment catches the change in a sentence: "Now nothing was thought good enough for them, as before nothing bad enough." This is what Ephesians 2:10 means by being God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. The change comes from God, who gives new birth to everyone who believes; see Regeneration: Being Born Again. Henry summed up the night: "Believing in Christ is rejoicing in Christ."
If You Are Asking the Question
If you came here because you want to know what you must do to be saved, the answer given to the jailer is the answer given to you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. You do not need to make yourself better first. You do not need to wait for a feeling, or to understand everything, or to find the right words. The jailer had been cruel to the very men who answered him, and Henry wrote of the promise made to him: "Though a great sinner, though a persecutor, yet thy heinous transgressions shall be all forgiven through the merits of Christ".
You can answer God now, where you are, in your own words. Tell him that you have sinned against him and that you are turning from it. Tell him that you believe Jesus died for your sins and rose again, and that you are trusting him, and nothing of your own, to save you. Scripture promises that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13). Then do what the jailer did next: be baptized, join yourself to a church where the word of the Lord is preached, and begin to read it for yourself. The Gospel of John was written for exactly this, so that its readers would believe and have life through his name (John 20:31).
No one who comes to Christ in earnest is turned away. He said so himself.
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
John 6:37
KJV