What must I do to be saved?

Question 7999

The question of what a person must do to be saved is the most important question anyone ever asks, and Scripture gives an answer so short that people often refuse to believe it. When the Philippian jailer asked it, Paul and Silas said, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).

That is the whole answer. But because it is so short, it needs unpacking rather than repeating, and it needs protecting from the additions we instinctively want to make to it.

The Question Assumes Something True

Notice that the jailer asked what he must do to be saved, not whether he needed saving. He had already been brought to that conviction by an earthquake, a prison door and the calm of two men he had beaten. Nobody asks this question until they have grasped that there is something to be saved from.

So the first thing to be clear about is the danger. Scripture says all have sinned, that the wages of sin is death, and that there is a judgment appointed. This is not a scare tactic; it is a diagnosis, and no one seeks a remedy who does not believe they are ill. Anyone who does not yet feel the weight of it should read what sin actually is before going further.

What Must Be Believed

Faith has content. To be saved a person must believe something in particular, and Paul sets it out: Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, He was buried, and He was raised on the third day. Take away the death in our place and there is no remedy. Take away the resurrection and there is no evidence the remedy was accepted.

Paul adds in Romans that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). So the content is a Person and an event: Jesus, crucified and risen, Lord of all. It is not a formula but it is not vague either.

What Believing Actually Means

The Greek word is pisteuo, and it means to entrust yourself, not simply to accept a fact as true. James makes the point sharply when he says the demons believe that God is one and shudder. Intellectual agreement is not faith, and a person is not saved by conceding the historical accuracy of the crucifixion.

Think of it as the difference between believing a bridge will hold and walking across it. Saving faith is the walking. It transfers the whole weight of my hope from myself to Jesus, and it stops looking for anything else to stand on. Anyone unclear on this should read the difference between saving faith and intellectual belief.

Where Repentance Fits

The apostolic call was repent and believe, and the two belong together rather than standing as separate conditions. The word metanoia describes a changed mind that turns, and what it turns from is self, sin and every alternative confidence, towards God through Jesus.

It is important to be careful here. Repentance is not a probationary period of reform to be completed before God will receive you. Nobody cleans themselves up in order to be saved; that would be like scrubbing before a bath. Repentance is the turning that is inherent in genuine trust, and the power to change follows the new life rather than preceding it. There is more in how faith and repentance relate.

What You Do Not Have to Do

You do not have to be baptised in order to be saved, though every believer should be baptised in obedience. You do not have to join a church, keep the commandments for a probationary period, feel a particular emotion, cry, or pray a specific form of words. The thief on the cross did none of these and was told he would be in paradise that day.

You also do not have to understand everything. A dying man with a very thin theology can be saved by trusting the One who is able to save. What is required is not doctrinal sophistication but real trust in the real Jesus, and God is perfectly capable of judging the direction of a heart.

What About the Sinner’s Prayer?

There is no prayer in Scripture that saves anybody. Praying is a natural way to express trust, and I have led many people in such a prayer, but the words do not accomplish anything. The danger is that people come to rest on the memory of a prayer rather than on Jesus, which is why so many can point to a moment and show no sign of life afterwards.

If you want to come to Him, tell Him so in your own words. Admit the sin, ask for mercy on the ground of what He did, and put your trust in Him. That is not a formula to be recited but a transaction to be made, and the question of the sinner’s prayer is worth reading if you have been resting on a past recitation.

How You Can Know

Assurance does not come from the intensity of the experience but from the promise of God. Whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. John says he wrote his letter so that those who believe may know that they have eternal life (1 John 5:13).

Over time other evidences appear. A new affection for God, a distaste for what was once comfortable, love for other Christians, a Bible that has started speaking. These confirm rather than establish, and the ground of confidence remains what Jesus did rather than what I now feel. If you want to be saved, this is where the matter rests, and assurance is worth studying properly once you have come.

What You Must Do to Be Saved Today

Let me put the whole answer in one place. Recognise that you are a sinner under the just judgment of God. Believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died in your place and rose again. Turn from your own way and trust Him alone to save you. Ask Him to do so. That is everything, and there is no step you are missing.

Notice how much is absent from that list. No period of moral improvement. No ceremony. No fee. No qualification. Paul says it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of your own doing, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). You cannot contribute to a finished work, and attempting to do so is the one thing that will keep you out.

What Happens Next

The moment a person trusts Jesus, a great deal happens at once. Sins are forgiven, the record is cleared, the Spirit comes to dwell within, sonship is conferred, and eternal life begins immediately rather than at death. None of this depends on feeling; it depends on what God has promised to do for the one who believes.

Then the ordinary Christian life begins. Be baptised. Find a church where the Bible is taught and belong to it properly. Read Scripture daily, even briefly. Talk to God honestly. Tell someone what has happened. People who do these things grow, and people who do not usually struggle, whatever the strength of their initial experience.

Common Reasons People Hold Back

In years of asking people what is stopping them, the answers repeat. Some are waiting until they can stop a particular sin, which has the whole thing backwards, since the power to change comes with the new life rather than before it. Some are waiting for a feeling they have been told to expect. Some are worried about what a family member will say.

Others are held back by the fear that they will not keep it up. That fear is honest and the answer to it is good news: you are not being asked to keep yourself. The one who saves also keeps, which is why the believer’s confidence rests on God’s faithfulness rather than on his own. Nobody who comes to Jesus is turned away for being weak.

And some hold back because they think they have gone too far. Paul described himself as the foremost of sinners and was received. There is no category of sin that the death of the Son of God cannot cover, and anyone who wants to be saved should notice that the invitation in Scripture never carries a list of exclusions.

So, now what?

If you have read this far and have never come to Jesus, there is nothing further to prepare. You cannot be saved by getting ready; you are saved by trusting the One who did everything necessary. Tell Him now, in whatever words you have, that you are trusting Him. Then tell somebody else tomorrow, because faith that is never spoken tends to fade. What exactly are you waiting for?

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16:31