Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Acts 16:31
To the Philippian jailer’s clear-cut question: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v.30), Paul and Silas answered with the clear-cut answer above. He had only to “believe upon”[i] the Lord Jesus Christ as the only object of trust. The clear-cut promise: “You will be saved.” This is the gospel way of salvation.
Acts consistently reveals that salvation is by believing. By the instrument of believing we are “saved by grace” (15:11; 18:27), have “forgiveness of sins” (10:43), are “justified” (13:39), receive “the gift of the Holy Spirit” (11:17; 19:2), and are “added to the Lord” (5:14). Christ is the object of saving belief (16:31; 19:4). We are also warned of the spiritual danger of not believing (13:40-41). Acts also gives a definition of believing: “I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me” (27:25). Believing, or faith, is taking God at his word.[ii]
How does one come to believe? What does it take to believe? Acts reveals seven things that result in believing. Believing involves:
Receiving of the Scriptures
Acts 4:4 states that “many of them which heard the word believed.” One must have something to believe, someone to believe in. This demands knowledge of the object of believing. Paul expresses this in Romans 10 when he asks, “How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (v. 14). God’s instrument to accomplish this is his word.
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Romans 10:17
Note Paul’s word to the Ephesian church: “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (1:13).[iii] When they heard, when they believed, they were saved. No one can believe without hearing the gospel of salvation.
In the same chapter as our text (16:14) we see that while Lydia “was hearing”[iv] Paul, “the Lord opened her heart”[v] with the result that she took heed[vi] to the word spoken.
What must be heard and believed is the gospel. Jesus preached: “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Peter told the Jerusalem council that “God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe” (Acts 15:7). The gospel is the “good news” concerning the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Romans 1:1-4), who “died for our sins . . . was buried, and . . . rose again the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Men are “born again . . . by the word of God. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:23-25).
The saving message is of grace not human works (Ephesians 2:8-9). To the Galatian churches Paul asked the question: “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:2). In other words, “Were you saved by doing works the law commanded or by believing a message you heard?” See the answer in the record of Paul’s preaching in Galatia:
Through this man [the Lord Jesus Christ] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And through him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
Acts 13:38b-39
It is the responsibility of the NT church to proclaim the gospel to every creature so that they may hear, believe, and be saved (Mark 16:15-16). “The gospel of Christ . . . is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).
Realizing of the Supernatural
Chapter 9 reveals that the raising of Dorcas from the dead by Peter was “known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord” (v. 42). Peter’s miraculous ministry resulted in many who “turned to the Lord” (vv. 32-35). Miracles generally are given in scripture to attest revelation (revelatory and sign gifts), as seen in Jesus and his apostles (Mark 16:20; Hebrews 2:3-4; 2 Corinthians 12:12). It was believing on the Lord that brought salvation, not the miracles. The miracles confirmed the word that was believed.
Miracles are not necessarily a part of evangelism (John the Baptist performed no miracles), and faith based of miracles can be suspect (John 2:23-25; Matthew 12:39; 7:22-23), yet miracles can aid to believing (John 10:37-38; 20:30-31).
With the completion of the canon the revelatory and sign gifts are no longer in operation, but this does not mean the supernatural operations of God have ceased. Salvation is a supernatural experience, and the sinner must come to a sense of the supernatural and see the need of the intervention of a supernatural God to save him. How does this come about? God has his ways to bring men to believing.
Often it is the supernatural transformation of the lives of those he saves. For instance, the conversion of a spouse has often resulted in the salvation of the mate (1 Corinthians 7:14-16; 1 Peter 3:1-2). This is the testimony of Lee Strobel, one of the leading apologists for Christianity in our day. He and his wife were atheists, settled in their naturalism, when he was confronted with the supernatural in the conversion of his wife:
It was my agnostic wife’s conversion to Christianity and the ensuing positive changes in her character that prompted me to use my legal training and journalism experience to systematically search for the real Jesus.[vii] After two years of searching the “real Jesus” found him.
This can be true of children raised in homes where God is real to the parents. In our churches sinners should sense that “God is in you of a truth” and be convicted and converted. This is where the word in proclaimed clearly in power and not in fanatical emotionalism (1 Corinthians 14:23-25) or dead orthodoxy (2 Timothy 3:5). Sadly this reality is lacking in most churches, evidenced by the scarcity of genuine conversions. The need is for reformation and revival.
The Bible itself has a supernatural self-attesting power:
For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh in you that believe.
1 Thessalonians 2:13
Give it out!
Christianity is a supernatural faith based on the foundation of the supernatural resurrection of the supernatural person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God (1 Peter 1:21).
Reviving by the Spirit
The supernatural element in bringing men to believing is the power of the Holy Spirit, operating through the preaching of the gospel. We see this is Acts 11:21: “And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.” The divine history relates that scattered persecuted Jewish believers (Acts 8:1, 3) had moved beyond the borders of their homeland, even as far as Syrian Antioch (11:19-20), preaching first to Jews only (v. 19), but then to Grecian Gentiles (v. 20). Acts 1:8 was being fulfilled, and the gospel was advancing into the world. The result was the founding of the church in Antioch, that was to become the new center of missions to the Gentile world (vv. 22-25; 13:1-4).
A great number believed and turned to the Lord Jesus. This is the first time the two responses to the gospel, believing and turning, are noted together.[viii] We saw the two in 9:35 and 42. Believing and turning are parts of one spiritual movement, conversion. Conversion involves a radical change: repentance, turning from sin, and faith, turning to Christ. In this verse turning means repentance. In 3:19, “repent ye therefore, and be converted [turn],[ix] turning means believing. Repentance and faith are twin graces that cannot be separated. You cannot turn to without turning from, and you cannot turn from without turning to. You cannot have faith without repentance, and vice versa (Mark 1:15; Matthew 21:32; Acts 20:21).
This radical change is wrought by “the hand of God.” This anthropomorphic image speaks of divine transforming power (Acts 13:11; 1 Samuel 5:6, 9; Isaiah 59:1). Just as in war the greatest displays of military power are concentrated on the front line battlefield, so is the power of God displayed where the gospel is advanced. This can be on the distant mission fields, our evangelistic outreaches by our local churches into our communities, or by our individual efforts to reach souls for Christ.
If the “Arm of the Lord” is the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ (Isaiah 53:1), then the “hand of the Lord” speaks of the working of the Holy Spirit. Notice the prayer meeting of the early church when the first persecution arose, aimed at stopping their preaching (Acts 4:18-28). See their prayer request:
And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, By stretching forth thine hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus (vv. 29-31).
Note now the answer to this request for the extending of God’s hand:
And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness (v. 31).
There was a repeating of the effects of Pentecost (v. 32), and the apostles had “great power” upon their testimony of the risen Lord, and “great grace” was upon them all (v. 33).
“The hand of the Lord” means revival power. Take the case of Ezra in the OT. In his “revival prayer” in Ezra 9, he called the restoration of the Jews to the land after 70 years captivity a “little reviving” (vv. 8-9). When describing God’s working in his life in raising him up and leading his returnees to the land, he repeatedly speaks of it being accomplished “according to the good hand of the LORD his God upon him” (7:6, 9, 28; 8:18, 22, 31). Revivals come by the hand of God.
Men will only be brought to believing through the preaching of the gospel empowered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). See the two exemplified by Paul. To the Corinthians he wrote that he came determined to know only the person and work of Christ, “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2). He was dependent, not in himself (v. 3), nor in human eloquence or worldly wisdom, but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (v. 4). His desire was for those whose belief would be the result of the power of God, not man (v. 5; cf. again 1 Thessalonians 2:13).
For an example of NT revival evangelism see Paul’s description of the church in Thessalonica:
Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance (1 Thessalonians 1:4-5).
Through Paul’s missionary ministry the Holy Spirit raised up a dynamic missionary center, “trumpeting out the word” throughout all of Greece and beyond (vv. 6-8). This Spirit empowered working in their midst had resulted in the fact that they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven” (vv. 9-10).
If we want to see souls become genuine believers, may we unceasingly pray for God’s hand upon us and our churches in renewing, reviving power! Intercede for sinners that the Holy Spirit’s hand may touch them in convicting converting grace. (Romans 10:1).