Posted on February 8th, 2025

This is a very common question. This question has been asked since the very days of Jesus. Acts 16:30-31"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."

And depending on who you ask, you are likely to get slightly varying answers. For answers to biblical questions like this, it's best to turn to scripture for the correct answer and to verify the answer you might be given by another person.

The first passage we will look at is Ephesians 2:8-9 which says "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."

So what exactly does that mean? Well for starters, we are all sinners from birth. We are born into sin. Every one of us since the original fall of man into sin that took place when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, I recommend you read this story that is explained in Genesis Chapter 3.

And yet, by the grace of God, grace that we don't deserve at all but is given to us because we have put our faith in Jesus Christ, the Man, God on earth, and His finished work on the cross. It's not due to anything that we ourselves do. And because of this, we have no room to boast about our salvation because it is a gift from God Himself.

So how do we recieve the gift of salvation? Believe! In John 3:16 Jesus saysFor God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Did you catch that? "That whosoever believeth in Him". That's right, it really is that easy to understand. If you truely believe that Jesus is the Son of God, He came into the world and lived a perfect sinless life, willingly went to the cross and offered His own life as the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty of all your sins; past, present and future. And that He was burried in a tomb for three days and rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven. Then you my friend are saved. Romans 10:9 tells us "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Romans 5:8 tells us "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That means that even before you trusted in the promises of God and that Jesus fulfilled those promises Jesus was willing to lay down His own life so that you might have eternal life in Heaven. But the gift of salvation is only available to those who fully put their trust in the finishes work of Jesus.

There are many people, even churches that will tell you that there is more to it than that, like you have to be baptised, or you have to share the gospel with others, or you have to help other people in need. These are all what we call works, it's not possibe to earn your salvation through works.

Here, let me explain. Baptism is not a requirement to be saved, it is however an outward sign or a confession to fellow believers that you have put you trust and have complete faith that Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

Other works like sharing the gospel message with others, or helping those in need are works that you do for other people. These can't save you either. These are works (things that you do) that come as a result of your salvation. Many people do "good deeds" thinking that they are a good person and will make it into Heaven based on that, but they dont really believe in what Jesus did or who He is. These people are not truely saved they are decieved.

Let's look again in the book of John in chaper 3: verse 18 which says "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." So no matter who good a person someone thinks they might be, it's still not enough to earn salvation.

Isaiah 64:4 supports this fact saying"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.