How To Be Saved
Perhaps the most important question you can ever find the answer to is how to attain the salvation of your eternal soul.
Jesus Christ came to this world because man had a problem, which is summed up in Romans 3:23:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
And that sin separated us from God, yet He loved us, as the scripture expresses in John 3:16-17:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...that the world should be saved through him."
This event was prophesied for many centuries. One of those prophecies from the prophet Joel reads,
"And it shall be, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32)
How does one "call on the name of the Lord"? This is and has always been a very important question to those who care about their souls. The following article points out the scriptures that answer that question.
HEAR
The apostle Paul addresses this question directly in Romans 10:13-14. After quoting the prophet Joel, he says,
"How then shall one call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?"
It is clear then that to "call upon the name of the Lord" we must first hear about him, but what exactly are we to hear? We can answer this by examining what Jesus told his disciples to preach in Mark 16:15:
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."
The word gospel means "good news" or "glad tidings". The apostle Paul outlines exactly what this gospel was in a letter to the church in Corinth in I Corinthians 15:1-4:
"Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that 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."
Many people have the mistaken idea that one needs to have a great level of knowledge about the Scripture before one can "call on the name of the Lord". However, according to these verses, there is very little that must be understood, namely the gospel, the story of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.
BELIEVE
When people hear the gospel, they either believe it or not, and this decision has a profound effect on their soul. Jesus said just before leaving this earth in Mark 16:16:
"He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned."
Clearly, we must believe and accept this gospel. Additionally, we must have faith in God. The word faith means "a conviction based upon hearing" (from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words). The scripture also says in Hebrews 11:6:
"And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him."
An example of those who heard the gospel and believed is found in Acts 2:37-38, which chronicles the beginning of the church. Peter preached a sermon in Jerusalem after Jesus' death and the people who heard it
"were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brethren, what shall we do?'"
Notice that the biblical idea of faith doesn't simply stop with belief. They asked, "What shall we do?" True faith impels a person to act. This subject is discussed in the book of James. That author writes:
"What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?.... Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, 'You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works'....a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.... For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:14,17-18,24,26)
Though belief in the gospel and in God is necessary, it is not all that is required for salvation. It is certainly possible to believe and yet be condemned, for James also says in James 2:19:
"the demons also believe, and shudder.
REPENT
We should notice Peter's answer to those people that asked him, "What shall we do?" He said to them in Acts 2:38:
"Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..."
So the first thing the apostle tells these people to do is to repent. Repentance is defined as "a feeling of remorse or regret for past conduct" and "a turning away from sin, disobedience, or rebellion and a turning back to God" (from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary). This turning away from sin and turning towards God is the difference between those devils who believe and Christians who do. For those that chose to follow Jesus, there is a change in their heart and actions which is required before a person can be acceptable to God. The apostle Paul in a sermon to the Greeks at Athens said in Acts 17:30:
"therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent."
We should be careful to note that even though repentance is an internal change of attitude, it is characterized by actions--abstaining from former sin and doing good works. This same apostle when describing his preaching of the gospel says he taught people in Acts 26:20:
"they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance."
CONFESS
One of the things we must be willing to do after changing our heart is to confess our belief in Jesus. The scripture says in Romans 10:9-10:
"that if 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."
Jesus himself promised in Matthew 10:32-33:
"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."
In his famous sermon on the mount, Jesus said of his disciples, in Matthew 5:14-16:
"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Having found the truth of the gospel, believed and changed our lives, it behooves the follower of Jesus to show other men the way to salvation and tell them about Jesus.
BAPTISM
If we refer back to Peter's sermon in Acts 2:38 we see that the apostle's answer to the question "What shall we do?" contained another important element. He told them:
"let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..."
Up until this point, though we may believe, have repented and even actively confess Jesus as Christ, we still have all those past sins staining our souls. The reason Jesus came to this earth was to remove those stains.
"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God..." (I Peter 3:18)
But what does baptism have to do with this? And what is baptism? The word baptism is really an anglicized Greek word that means "the processes of immersion, submersion and emergence" from water or, used as a verb, "to immerse, submerge; to make overwhelmed (i.e. fully wet)" (from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words). The bible makes an analogy between baptism and how God saved Noah during the flood, saying, in I Peter 3:21:
"And 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"
The reason baptism is important and the way in which it cleanses and saves us from sin is by connecting us with Jesus' death.
"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 be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (Romans 6:4-5)
When we are baptized, we go into the water with our sins and come out of it cleansed of them. At that point, we receive all the blessings Jesus promised us and are reconciled to God as new creatures--believing in Him, having turned from sin to good works, confessing Christ to other men around us, and washed of our past sins by His blood.
CONTINUE
By no means do things end with baptism. This is only the beginning of a person's service to Christ, but at this point one can be counted among the saved. But to maintain that place, a person must keep following the teachings of Jesus. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28:20 to teach people to:
"observe all that I commanded you"
Each of the above points have aspects that a Christian must continue in. For instance, studying and eventually teaching the word of God, growing stronger in faith, continuing to confess Jesus and be an example to those around you, and so on. The life of a Christian is one of constant effort to try and please God and attain the standards he has set for us in the bible. Jesus says in Revelation 2:10:
"Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life."
We hope that these scriptures have helped to outline what the bible teaches about how to be saved, and we hope that, after careful study and consideration, they will be accepted into the heart. God's invitation is always there, to come and be reconciled.
"...The present heavens and earth by His word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:7-9)
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