We’re thankful for the Bible. It is our sole means for obtaining salvation and having assurance that we’re saved. But sometimes people use the Bible recklessly, not giving heed to its full message. That can be a common error of fallen humanity, who are by nature resistant to full surrender to God, superficial in spiritual things, and hasty to claim salvation on the easiest of terms. These characteristics bear upon us all. It helps to know about them.
It’s satisfying to reference the Bible as an assurance of salvation. But the Bible admonishes us to rightly understand and administer its content (2Timothy 2:15). There are caveats to quickly grasping Scriptures that appeal to us to the neglect of others. With concern for my fellow man, for whom Christ died, I offer some of them here.
🔴 If you’re going to quote the Bible for salvation doctrine, please remember:
✔ That the Bible teaches there is only one plan of salvation (Ephesians 4:5; Galatians 1:8-9; Jude 3). If you consider logically the three Scriptures provided here, you must admit that they all refer to the Christian era and assert there can be no alteration of the Gospel’s saving message. And that must necessarily refer to Christianity from its very inception, which is the Day of Pentecost, when Peter did indeed reveal the plan of salvation and declared it to be for the entire Church age (Acts 2:37-39).
✔ Your view of salvation must be, not only highly defensible, but a refutation of all erroneous ideas. False doctrine is strongly condemned in Scripture.
🔴 If you’re going to quote Jesus, please include:
✔ John 3:5, where He said Christian salvation is limited to new birth by the elements of water and Spirit.
✔ John 7:37-39, where He said everyone is to receive the Holy Ghost.
✔ Matthew 7:13-14; 21-23, where He said that the path to eternal life is narrow and many who believe in Him will be lost.
✔ John 8:31-32, where He said that believers must continue in the full revelation of Christ to be saved.
✔ Jesus’ Great Commission, where He gave His ministers the tenets of salvation (John 20:21-23; Mark 16:15-17; Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:45-49). They include repentance, water baptism in Jesus’ name, and the infilling of the Holy Ghost.
✔ John 17:20 where He said in His High Priestly prayer that the word of faith would come through the Apostles. That occurred for the first time on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
✔ Matthew 16:17-19, where He invested Peter with the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Recall that Peter was the spokesman on the Day of Pentecost and what had he enjoined for salvation was immediately and universally accepted as Apostolic doctrine (Acts 2:42).
✦ Please notice that what Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost as the plan of salvation (Acts 2:37-39) was precisely what Jesus prescribed for the Church age. Christ’s Own words to His Apostles produced the evangelism of the book of Acts.
🔴 If you’re going to quote Paul generally, please remember:
✔ He repented on the Damascus Road when confronted by Christ, but he wasn’t saved there. He did not receive remission of sins, which is the chief component of justification, or the Holy Ghost, until three days later.
✔ The fact that his salvation experience involved baptism in Jesus’ name for the remission of sins (Acts 22:16).
✔ The fact that Paul did not immediately receive the Holy Ghost at his initial encounter with Christ but later when Ananias met him (Acts 9:17).
✔ The fact that, in ministry practice, Paul preached the same tenets of salvation that he received at conversion and which Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost. See Paul when he met believers in Ephesus who had not yet been Christian-baptized or filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 19:1-6). He even re-baptized them in Jesus’ name, emphasizing to us the importance of Christian baptism. And, at that time, they were filled with the Holy Ghost.
✔ Paul believed in distinct means of salvation that involved tenets of water baptism and receiving the Spirit. As we have pointed out, that was his own experience regarding personal salvation and when ministering to others. He often referenced these tenets theologically in his epistles (2Thessalonians 2:13-14; Titus 3:5; 1Corinthians 6:11).
🔴 If you’re going to quote Paul in Romans, please include:
✔ Romans 6 regarding baptism being the basis for our hope of resurrection.
✔ Romans 8:9-11 where he declares that, unless a person has the Holy Ghost, he does not belong to Christ and does not have the hope of being raised with Him.
🔴 If you’re going to quote Paul in Galatians, please include:
✔ Galatians 1:6-10, where he cites the immutability of the Christian message of salvation. He admits that even he himself could not alter any of its tenets.
✔ Galatians 3:24-27, where he makes it clear that being justified by faith in Christ is effected by being baptized into Christ. That is the force of verse 27.
🔴 If you’re going to quote Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9, please include:
✔ Acts 19:1-6, where you can get the context of the church’s founding by Paul and see the doctrines of salvation he emphasized. I’m always amazed at how this important history of the founding of the Church in Ephesus gets overlooked. It parallels with his letter to them. Baptism in Jesus’ name and receiving the Holy Ghost are the referenced grace of God received by faith that we read about in Ephesians 2:8-9.
🔴 And whoever you quote in the Bible, please remember The Law Of Greater Demand*.
*See more on this definition in Post 18. The Law Of Greater Demand is stated in Matthew 23:23.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
Jesus essentially said that giving heed to lesser requirements of the Word of God does not relieve a person from doing the greater. And the lesser cannot be left undone either.
When you quote someone in the Bible, you can’t just select their easy-sounding references. You must regard all their sayings and, in fact, all the sayings of the Bible (e.g., James 2:19-20). Give heed to the demanding verses, too. Jesus did.
🔴 And remember, whatever you claim as the plan of salvation, it must be provable by examples in Acts, where Christian salvation occurred.
And it must be observable from the beginning point of Christianity, which is the very Day of Pentecost. That was the point Peter cited as proving authenticity of experience (Acts 11:15).
🔵 If you can experientially claim the salvation of Acts, rejoice!
Your name is written in heaven. And Christ is coming back soon for you.