The primary reason Jesus came to this earth was to give His life a ransom in order to save souls by the Gospel. But He did save some people even while He was here. As the Savior, He could literally walk around and pronounce salvation to anyone. He could say, “Thy sins are forgiven…Thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 7:48-50). Perhaps, the most famous example is that of the thief on the cross, to whom He said, “This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:39-43). He had the power to do this just as He had the power to heal people or to raise them from the dead. But after He had risen to heaven, how would people be saved? Well, in His absence, Christ left us the Gospel. It is given in His stead as the means in the Christian era whereby souls can be saved (2Corinthians 5:18-20). Notice that when Jesus confronted Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road, He did not save him as He might have done while on earth. Instead, He directed Saul to go into the city where he would hear from Ananias as to what he should do. And Ananias gave Saul specific terms of salvation (Acts 9; 22:16).
The Gospel includes, not only teaching about the Person of Christ, but also what Jesus prescribed for Christian salvation based on His death, burial, and resurrection. This is evident from the Great Commission, which charges His called servants to preach and also assigns them what to preach. The Christian tenets of salvation are contained in the full-orbed Great Commission, which occurred over the forty-day, post-resurrection period leading up to the ascension of Christ. They are repentance, water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost (John 20:21-23; Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:45-47; Acts 1:4-8). Only Christ’s Word has power to save. And these tenets are what came from His lips to be employed by Christian ministers as the plan of salvation. They are what He committed to us for souls to be saved in His absence.
People easily confuse salvation examples during the ministry of Christ as being sufficient for our day and, thereby, dismiss the tenets of salvation prescribed by Jesus in the Great Commission and inaugurated on the Day of Pentecost. But they err in doing this. None of the examples of salvation in Christ’s ministry serve as an example of salvation today. Nothing that occurred in the way of salvation in the time of Christ can take away from the terms of the Gospel He prescribed for the Christian era. They supersede everything that preceded them and are the only means of salvation in the Church age (John 3:5; Acts 2:38-39; Acts 18:24-28; 19:1-6; Galatians 1:8-9).
In Christ’s absence, human agents with Gospel tenets of salvation are the means for saving souls. Some say “faith alone” saves. It’s actually the Gospel alone that saves. The Gospel is the three-tiered system of faith in Jesus.
1/ Faith in Him as the Messiah.
2/ Faith in His atonement.
3/ Faith in what He prescribed for salvation.
This is the enduring word of the Gospel (1Peter 1:23-25).