Bible Question: I have a question as to how and when a person is saved. What exactly must a person do inorder to be saved? Some people tell me that you must go before the chruch alter and profess Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour. I've also been told that making this profession where 3 or more gather in his name, will also save someone. Also, what about if one was Catholic from birth and went through the various practices of the Catholic religion up until adulthood. Then began practicing another religion. Was that person saved as a Catholic or were they never saved? I find this all very confusing. There is nothing worse than someone calling you a non-Christian when you thought you were. |
Bible Answer: You ask: "What exactly must a person do to be saved?" In the book of Acts, the Philippian jailer asked the same question. The Bible gives a clear and straightforward answer. AMPLIFIED Bible Acts 16:30 And he brought them out [of the dungeon] and said, Men, what is it necessary for me to do that I may be saved? Acts 16:31 And they answered, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ [give yourself up to Him, take yourself out of your own keeping and entrust yourself into His keeping] and you will be saved... John 3:16 For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. "Belief in the N.T. denotes more than intellectual assent to a fact. The word (Gk. pistis, noun; pisteuo, verb) means *adherence to, committal to, faith in, reliance upon, trust in* a person or an object, and this involves not only the consent of the mind, but an act of the heart and will of the subject. "Whosoever believeth in him" is equivalent to "whosoever trusts in or commits himself to him [Christ]." Belief, then is synonymous with faith, which in the N.T. consists of believing and receiving what God has revealed" (New Scofield Reference Bible, Oxford, 1967). "Salvation is conditioned solely on faith in Jesus Christ. Nearly 200 times faith, or belief, is stated as the single condition in the N.T. (John 1:12; Acts 16:31). That faith must be placed in Christ as one's substitute for and Saviour from sin" (p. 1950, Ryrie Study Bible, Moody Press, 1978). |