William BoothActs 16 : 31 - Glenn Conjurske

 

Acts 16:31

by Glenn Conjurske

Acts 16:31 is one of the most abused texts in the Bible. It is constantly quoted to prove that faith is the only condition of salvation, directly against the testimony of Holy Scripture. And the worst of it is, the “faith” which is thus made the only condition of salvation is usually not the faith of the gospel at all. It is not the faith which purifies the heart—-not the faith which worketh by love—-not the faith which overcomes the world—-but only a dead belief of a few facts, such a faith as the devils themselves possess. It is a faith which leaves most of its professors yet “in the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity,” which leaves them yet enslaved to sin, and in fact yet without God in the world.

The text, with its preceding context says,

“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).

This text is heavily relied upon by all antinomians, and it is often triumphantly quoted to prove that belief is the only requirement for salvation. If there had been any other condition, Paul must certainly have mentioned it, unless he meant to mislead the poor jailor. No matter what the rest of the New Testament says. No matter what Christ or Peter or John say. No matter what Paul himself says elsewhere. Nay, no matter even what he said in the next breath. All of this is ignored, while Acts 16:31 is confidently appealed to as the standard of orthodoxy. And this text, as we are repeatedly reminded, was spoken in answer to the explicit inquiry, What must I do to be saved? “Believe,” we are told, is all that Paul replied.

A popular hymn says,

“What must I do?” the trembling jailor cried,
When dazed by fear and wonder,
“Believe on Christ!” was all that Paul replied.

But as a simple matter of fact, this is false. This is not all that Paul replied. We might point out that Paul’s words actually call for a belief in Christ as Lord, for what he said was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” but even that is not all that Paul replied. The thirty-first verse has been so universally quoted, and the thirty-second verse so universally ignored, that people have mistakenly assumed that “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” was all that Paul said to the jailor. They are ignorant of the existence of the thirty-second verse. Can you, reader, without looking at your Bible, tell the next words which follow verse thirty-one? If you cannot, perhaps you had best step back a little and reconsider your doctrine.

Verse 32 says, “And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.” Now “the word of the Lord” is a broad and general term, and doubtless included many things. What all of those things were we need not inquire. Of one thing, however, we are absolutely certain, namely, that so far as the state of the jailor (or of his household) required it, Paul preached repentance, and works meet for repentance. Our authority for this statement is Paul himself. He says, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” (Acts 26:19-20). Paul is being led as a prisoner to Rome, where he is to suffer imprisonment and eventual martyrdom. And here he tells us in a few words what was the great theme of his preaching everywhere he went, from the beginning to the end of his career. As a new convert in the city of Damascus he preached “that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” His years in the back side of the desert in Arabia, his years of “taking root downward” in Tarsus, changed nothing. He went out to “Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea,” and preached to the Jews “that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” All of the “abundance of revelations” which he subsequently received—-concerning salvation by grace, or justification by faith, or redemption through the blood of Christ—-altered this message not one iota. He went abroad “to the Gentiles” still preaching none other thing than “that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” And all this in obedience to the heavenly vision.

Now I do verily believe that Paul fully understood the nature of grace, of faith, and of the gospel—-understood it better than any of our modern teachers do, who deny or explain away or ignore the necessity of repentance. Yet there he is on Mars Hill, preaching that “God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” There he is, in all of his travels, in every city and country, from his first message in Damascus to the end of his Christian life, preaching “that men should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” And can any honest, unprejudiced man suppose that when Paul “spake the word of the Lord” to the jailor and his household, he failed to preach repentance, but preached “only believe”? Such interpretation is dishonest and foolish.

This, however, is not the whole story, for I do certainly believe that there is moral fitness—-yea, eternal truth—-in the answers of Scripture to individuals. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” is just the message which convicted, penitent souls need to hear. The Philippian jailor was obviously a penitent man, as both his words and his actions indicate. He who had only a few hours before handled these men of God with careless brutality, is now on his knees at their feet. He says to them, “What must I do to be saved?”—-not in a sudden fit of fear, as sermons on the text usually imply. He did not ask “What must I do to be saved?” when he was “dazed by fear and wonder,” as the hymn says, but after he had brought them out of the prison, after (as we may surely suppose) he had taken the time to secure the other prisoners, after the occasion of fear for his life was past, and he had had a little time for calm reflection.

Observe, he had first brought them out of the prison (vs. 30), whom he had been charged to keep safely, evidently on pain of his own life (vs. 27). Thus did he “do works meet for repentance,” with his own hands and at his own peril, reversing the unrighteous sentence of his superiors against the harmless men of God. Then, when that was done, he asked, “What must I do to be saved?” Such a question, asked under such circumstances, plainly indicates a repentant man—-a man who is resolved to do whatever may be required of him to be saved. To such an obviously convicted and penitent man, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” was just what was needed. Yet Paul and Silas did not stop there. They were preaching to more than merely the jailor, and “they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house,” and in so doing it is absolutely certain that they preached repentance.

It is also absolutely certain, by the way, that the repentance which Christ and his apostles preached consisted of the forsaking of sin.

But to return, if “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” is the proper message for a penitent man, it does not follow that this is the proper message for every careless and impenitent sinner. Peter gave no such answer to Simon, when he perceived him to be “in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.” Simon was certainly unconverted, yet it were quite wide of the mark to preach faith to him, for he had already believed. “Then Simon himself believed also.” (Acts 8:13). According to the antinomian plan, which hinges salvation upon a mere belief of facts, Simon Magus was as saved as Peter himself, yet Peter says to him, “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.” (vs. 21). And the message which Peter preaches to him is, “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee” (vs. 22). But Peter’s words are as universally ignored as Paul’s are universally quoted. Our modern theologians know very well that “the present truth” (II Peter 1:12) is to be learned only from Paul, and they know better than to quote poor bungling Peter, who never did quite understand the gospel. They are wiser than he. Of course, when it suits their purpose, they are wiser than Paul also, and they ignore Acts 17:30 and 26:20 as well as they do Acts 16:32. In all this I speak the simple truth.

And while they ignore those scriptures, they misapply Acts 16:31. Its message is preached indiscriminately to all, even though they show no signs of conviction or repentance such as the jailor showed. The result is just what we would expect—-a multitude of shallow, false conversions, filling the churches with worldly and unholy “believers,” who are no more saved than Simon Magus, or his master the devil. Many of the greatest of preachers and evangelists have recognized this erroneous use of Acts 16:31, and have spoken explicitly against it.

D. L. Moody recognized the limited application of this verse. Writing of the Pharisee and the publican, he says, “But we will pass on now to the other class with which we have to deal. It is composed of those who are convinced of sin and from whom the cry comes as from the Philippian jailer, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ To those who utter this penitential cry there is no necessity to administer the law. It is well to bring them straight to the Scripture: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ (Acts xvi. 31).”

C. H. Spurgeon very clearly enunciates the same principle, though not speaking particularly of this text: “THOSE WHO HAVE EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE ARE PERMITTED TO BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST. Paul says that he testified of ‘repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ’; and, therefore, where there is repentance, faith is allowable. O penitent sinner, you may believe in the Saviour!” To this we only need add that by repentance Spurgeon certainly means the forsaking of sin, as is clear from many of his own statements.

Charles Wesley writes in the same vein, “I preached at Marybone on, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ The opposers had threatened me hard; but all they now could do was to curse and swear. I only invited them to Christ. But I am more and more persuaded, that the law has its use, and Moses must bring us to Christ. The promises to the unawakened are pearls before swine. First the hammer must break the rocks; then we may preach Christ crucified.”

Gipsy Smith was long troubled over the common shallow abuse of this text, and he studied it for fifteen years before he dared to preach from it. When he did preach from it, he strongly and explicitly objected to its indiscriminate use. He says, “We have dragged this text, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ and the other, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ out of their setting, and we have made them like a great classic, like that other great text in the third chapter of John: ‘God so loved the world.’ We have treated that and several texts in the same way, and we have blazoned them everywhere. We have hurled them at everybody, and we have said, ‘Believe! Believe! Believe!’ until believing does not mean very much. I say we have dragged these words out of their context and we have not dealt with them justly.”

But here lies a grand difficulty. Most of our modern preachers are unable to understand or appreciate the application of this text to convicted and penitent souls for the simple reason that they have seldom or never seen such souls. Their preaching produces no such conviction, and they have no conception of the great difficulty involved in bringing a thoroughly convicted, trembling, perhaps despairing soul to faith in Christ. But it is to such souls that this text, and all of the great and precious promises of the gospel, have their proper application. Applied so, the promises of the gospel are all fitting and beautiful. Then there is no danger of pearls before swine. Then let all the precious promises of the gospel be preached in all their fulness and freeness and sweetness, for they are just what a convicted, penitent soul stands in need of, and he will not abuse the precious promises, nor wrest them to his own damnation.

William Taylor, who preached the gospel with great success on every continent of the earth, lays hold of this exactly, and writes concerning Acts 16:31, “What was St Paul’s advice to the Philippian jailer? Did he say, ‘You have been a very bad man, sir, and now you must reform and lead a new life. Here is a copy of the holy Scriptures for you to read and study. You must also pray in secret, and set up your family altar, and pray for your neglected children, attend the public means of grace, and let your private life and your conduct toward the prisoners be such as to show to the world the genuineness of your repentance?’ That is just the kind of advice many modern teachers would give to such a case. Did St. Paul give such advice? Not a word of it. He understood his business. He clearly perceived that the poor jailer was pierced with the sword of the Spirit, and was willing then to submit to any terms of mercy. Submission to the will of God is the end or object of repentance. If the sinner, by the power of the awakening Spirit, can reach that point by five minutes’ repentance, he is ready just then to receive mercy, as much so as if he had repented five years. The apostle, seeing that the trembling sinner had reached that important point, would not trouble his head with questions and doctrines which would delay the onward action of his penitent heart, or divert his mind from the essential point already reached. Why turn his feet right away from the gate of mercy, ‘to go about’ in the dreary paths of formality ‘to establish his own righteousness,’ instead of at once submitting himself to the righteousness of God—-to God’s righteous method of saving the sinner by faith, without works?”

Most of our modern preachers will doubtless highly approve of most of this, precisely because Taylor is here objecting to the opposite kind of preaching from that which prevails today. He is objecting to legal rather than antinomian preaching. But this only serves to make his testimony the stronger. He contends that Paul’s message to the jailor is to be preached to men who have already been brought to repentance, who are willing to submit to any terms and to do the will of God; and this he calls “the essential point.” He writes further, “St. Paul knew that the poor jailer’s heart was corrupt, and that ‘a corrupt tree would necessarily bring forth corrupt fruit.’ He knew that no works of righteousness which he could ever perform would better his condition a single iota. But he saw his willingness at once to submit to the will of God—-to give up every thing opposed to his will—-all sin—-sins of the life and of the heart, and acquiesce heartily in all God’s decisions concerning him, and hence directed him at once to the great Physician who alone could cure him.”6

Now I believe this to be exactly the proper use of Acts 16:31. Christ and his apostles preached, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Their first business was always to bring sinners to repentance. When that was done, they could administer the promises of the gospel to bring the penitent soul to faith in Christ. It was to a penitent soul that Paul preached “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Paul never had any such notion as that men could be saved by the mere belief of a few facts, or even the mere trusting of Christ for salvation, without any moral commitment to holiness. His constant preaching throughout his whole life stands in direct contradiction of any such notion.

But where are Paul’s disciples today? Where is the modern evangelist who spends his whole life preaching “that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance”? Yet if they do not preach this, they do not preach the gospel of Christ, and all their constant indiscriminate preaching of Believe! Believe! Believe! is nothing more than a gross perversion of the gospel.

Worse still, the faith which they usually preach is not the faith of the Bible at all, but only the belief of a few facts, or a presumptuous acceptance of Christ as Saviour, while rejecting him as Lord. And those who thus dilute faith do the same with repentance also. It is a mere change of mind. So the difference between the godly and the ungodly is not a moral one at all, but only an intellectual one. The message which entails such a conclusion—-and produces such fruit—-is not the gospel of Christ at all. It stands directly against the whole Bible, New Testament as well as Old.

Glenn Conjursk

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