Month: March 2009

What Must I Do To Be Saved?

Salvation is one of the most important words in any human language. It means deliverance or rescue from harm. The most dreadful harm in this world is the treacherous result of sin.

Being saved is equal with having one’s sins remitted. John the Baptist was commissioned, “To give knowledge of salvation unto his people in the remission of their sins” (Luke 1:77). John was not the Savior. When asked if he were the promised Messiah, he emphatically said, “I am not the Christ” (John 1:20).

The very name Jesus is salvation. Before our Lord was born, his name was already determined. The angel of God announced to Joseph, “And she (Mary, his wife) shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Only in this name is salvation possible (Acts 4:12).

Salvation from sin is a gift sinners receive by the grace of God. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). No man has either the power or knowledge to give salvation to anyone. Nor can a man save himself. Salvation is “not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:9).

Long ago a prophet articulated this plainly. “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). Dear reader, this not only means you personally cannot save yourself, it also means no mere man can save you.

Man-made methods of salvation fall into the class of human works. Men who cry, “Salvation is not by works,” are the most inconsistent offenders when they repeat man-made ways of seeking salvation. The “Prayer Altar” and the “Mourner’s Bench” are of men and not of God. You will never read in your Bible where God told sinners to seek an experience of salvation. That is what you hear repeatedly by mere men.

Since salvation is the gift of God it is a gift sinners receive on the terms of the giver. There are conditions the giver of salvation has attached to being saved. Paul said sinners receive the gift of salvation “by grace through faith.” The grace is God’s willingness to save; faith is man’s response.

Faith in Jesus Christ and his precious blood is the comprehensive condition upon which sinners can be saved. Jesus is set forth “to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3:25). Propitiation means appeasement. Only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ can appease the wrath of God against sin (Please read 1 John 2:1-3).

Hear and Believe…

Faith is man’s response to God’s will. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Therefore to the word of God we must look to know what saving faith is. Those who come to God by faith please him (Heb. 11:6). Coming to God in faith means coming with “a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).

… Repent and Confess…

The true heart of a sinner who would be saved is a heart that turns from sin in deep remorse – that is repentance (Read Acts 17:30). A true heart of faith eagerly confesses with the mouth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (Rom. 10:10; Acts 8:27, King James Version).

… be Baptized.

Jesus said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned” (Mark. 16:16). Go back to Heb. 10:22 – a true heart in the full assurance of faith is the one whose body is “washed with pure water.” This washing is not merely a physical cleansing; it is a spiritual birth. The new birth is a birth of “water and the spirit” (John 3:5). Peter said Noah and his family were saved by water and said it compares with our salvation by water. He described water baptism as that “which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 3:21).

Dear friend, this short piece does not give you a humanly devised plan of salvation but one that is directly from the Lord Himself through His divine word. We urge you to study these scriptures and compare what you have understood salvation to be. Be saved today by faith in the great power of God through the gospel (Rom. 1:16).

If you have questions about this, please do not be reluctant to contact us.

~ Dudley Ross Spears