And suddenly
there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were
shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were
loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the
prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself,
supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 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. And they spake unto him the word of
the Lord, and to all that were in his house (Acts 16:30-31).
ARMINIANISM / WELL-MEANT OFFER
ARGUMENT:
1) The jailer’s question is very specific: “What must I do … to be saved?” Some read the jailer’s question as, “What condition must I fulfill, or what deed must I perform, in order to acquire or obtain salvation?” The apostles’ response is “Believe!”: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ … and thou shalt be saved.” This response is interpreted to mean faith is a “condition,” as if Paul is saying, “Fulfill the condition of faith and you will obtain salvation.” How is this passage not teaching that faith (or believing) is a “condition to obtaining” salvation?—something on our part that “we must perform” before God saves us—us doing our part in a “synergistic” work?
2) Advocates of a “general conditional promise” use the passage to support how they address men with the gospel. They see it as saying, “God promises all of you here that if you believe you will be saved …”, or, “God promises salvation to all of you here if you first of all believe …”
3) On the other end of the spectrum, hyper-Calvinists see this entire passage, including the command to repent, as being addressed only to the regenerate [i.e. sensible sinners].
4) Arminians
appeal to this text (a text that speaks of a command to believe), arguing that fallen
man must have the ability to believe in Jesus Christ, otherwise the command
itself is nonsense and makes no sense … For “why would God command man to do
something unless man had the ability to do it?”
(I)
Prof. David J. Engelsma
Regarding Acts 16, the following.
The reply of Paul to the jailor has two important aspects. First, the way of salvation is not human works by which to merit or accomplish one’s salvation. Believing is the implicit rejection of human working. Believing is *not* working.
Whereas in all other religions than the Christian religion the way of salvation is “doing” something—working!—in the genuine Christian religion the way of salvation is not “doing,” but *believing*, because all the doing is the working of God in Jesus Christ.
Do not miss this: the way of salvation is not working, but believing.
Second, with regard to the apostle’s reply in Acts 16, the God-ordained and God-worked way of salvation is the activity of believing by the elect, but born again, sinner. There is an activity of the sinner by which he receives salvation. This activity is believing, that is, knowing Christ as the Savior and trusting in Him. In Acts 16, Paul calls the jailor to put his trust in Jesus Christ. By this trust, he will be saved in the sense that he will receive Christ and His salvation and will have the experience of this salvation.
This knowing and trusting is not another human work, because it is the efficacious work of God the Holy Spirit in the jailor. It is a spiritual activity of the born again elect, but not a work, that is, an act by which he either merits salvation or accomplishes his own salvation.
This believing is not a condition, because a
condition is a work of the sinner himself, upon which his salvation depends. On the contrary, believing is the means of
salvation and this means is the gift of God (see Ephesians 2:1-10, especially
vv. 8-10). The “means” by which God
accomplishes salvation in the sinner is essentially different from a work of
the sinner himself upon which his salvation depends.
As for the notion of a general, conditional promise, the promise in Acts 16 is to one who *believes*, not to all humans generally. To every one who believes the promise is that he will be saved. It is one thing—false doctrine—to teach that God promises every one who hears the gospel that He will save him on condition that he believes. It is quite another thing to promise that “every one who believes” will be saved. The former is a general, inefficacious, conditional promise that depends for its fulfillment on the will of the sinner: Arminianism. The latter is a particular, efficacious, gracious promise that depends for its fulfillment on the election and will of God: the Reformed faith.
The former teaching makes the salvation of the
sinner depend on the sinner. The latter
makes the salvation of the sinner depend upon the grace of God. This is the difference between the gospel of
grace and the false doctrine of salvation by the will of the sinner (see Romans
9:16). (DJE, 23/11/2021)
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(II)
Rev. Martyn McGeown
[Source: An Answer to Phil Johnson’s “Primer on Hyper-Calvinism”]
Acts 16 records one of the most dramatic conversions in the New Testament, the conversion of the Philippian jailor. Awoken from his sleep by a miraculous earthquake, and knowing that Paul and Silas were men of God, the terrified jailor cries out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v. 30). Again, I ask the question of my hyper-Calvinist reader, “What would you say to a person who asked you that question?” What ought a preacher today respond to a person who asks such a question? Will we respond, “Do not be foolish! There is nothing you can do. You must stand still and see the salvation of God”? That is not what Paul and Silas responded. “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (v. 31).
Grammatically, again, the verb “believe” is in the imperative—it is a command. The words “thou shalt be saved” constitute a promise. That presents a problem to my hyper-Calvinist reader. Is Paul declaring to the jailor, whose eternal destiny (elect or reprobate) and whose spiritual state (regenerate or unregenerate) are unknown to the apostle that, if he believes, he shall be saved, that is, is Paul preaching a conditional promise to the jailor? Then may the preacher today declare to any unbeliever, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and, if you believe, God promises you salvation”? We answer in the negative. Paul commands the jailor, and we command everyone to believe. The promise (“and thou shalt be saved”) pertains only to believers. The jailor can only become partaker of the promised salvation through faith. However, salvation does not depend on the jailor, for Scripture everywhere proclaims that repentance, faith and salvation are gifts of God (Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 1:29).
Therefore, in answer to my hyper-Calvinist reader, I can and will preach to any person, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.” I can and must do that without any embarrassment or hesitation. I can and must urge upon the audience to which I speak (whether to an audience of thousands or to an audience of one) the command to believe, and I can and must proclaim to that same audience that God graciously promises salvation to believers and to them only.
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(III)
British Reformed Journal
[Source: Issue 9 (Jan – Mar 1995), p. 27]
In logic, a conditional proposition is an “if … then …” statement. Take, for example, the sentence, “If you cut yourself, then you will bleed,” which says that the second part of the sentence (the bleeding) will come about if the first part of the sentence has been fulfilled (the cutting). This seems all very well, but the problem comes when the conditional proposition is applied to theological issues, primarily because of the element of causation between the first part of the sentence (called the antecedent) and the second part (called the consequent). To apply this theologically, let us consider Acts 16:31, which basically says, “If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then you will be saved and your house.” This is a conditional proposition, and it is in this simple sense that the Westminster divines meant it to be taken, for example, in the 32nd Question of the Larger Catechism. Now the problem arises when we seek consistently to apply this causal explanation to the verse, and come to the erroneous conclusion that we are saved because we have believed, rather than the Calvinistic conclusion that we believe because we have been saved, as the Catechism itself goes on to show (all Calvinists agree that Acts 16:31 does not mean, “If you believe, then this act will cause you to be saved,” but rather, “If you exercise the gift of faith, then you have the promise that God has saved you”). It is because of this confusion that conditions in salvation have been validly denied by some theologians who are zealous to maintain the status of faith as an effect of salvation rather than cause.
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(IV)
Prof. Ronald Cammenga and Rev. Ronald Hanko
[Source: Saved By Grace: A Study of the Five Points of Calvinism, p. 45]
The command to believe does
not imply that all men who hear that command have the ability to obey or that their believing depends upon their choosing
whether or not they will do it. Ephesians 2:8-10 emphatically says that faith
is a gift of God, not man’s own work.
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(V)
More to come! (DV)
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