From Focus on the Kingdom Vol. 23 No. 1 / October 2020
What Must I Do to Be Saved?
by Wiley Jones, 1879, from The Gospel of the Kingdom in Ten Discourses (English slightly modernized)
“Then he called for lights and rushed 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?’ They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your household’” (Acts 16:29-31).
This thrilling piece of apostolic history contains the most important question that can be framed by human lips. It is not, What must I do to obtain health, or wealth, or fame, or some high position of human power and grandeur; but infinitely more than all these: “What must I do to be saved?” And in proportion to the importance of the question is the plainness of the answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Belief and faith are the same…
I have called this a very plain answer, because, with the Bible before us, it is easy to discover what is meant by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The subject is placed before us in the clearest light. For example, we know that a message sent makes him who brings it a messenger, and that to truly believe in the messenger is to believe the message which he brings. Now, among his other attributes, we find those of a messenger expressly attributed to Christ, and that he has been sent as the bearer of a message from God to man. Thus he is called “the messenger of the covenant” (Mal. 3:1); “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession” (Heb. 3:1). The word “apostle” here applied to the Lord Jesus, conveys the same idea, for it means “a messenger, ambassador.” And in the parable of the vineyard the Savior speaks of himself in the same way: “last of all he sent them his son.” Again he says, “I am sent to preach the kingdom of God”…The Father says, “This is My beloved Son; listen to him” (Luke 9:35). And Moses said, “To him you shall give heed to whatever he says to you. And it shall be that everyone who will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed” (Acts 3:22-23).
To make the subject still clearer, we find the Lord Jesus placed before us also as a witness bearing testimony. Thus he is called “the faithful and true witness” (Rev. 3:14). And he declares of himself, “For this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). Now the message or doctrine which he preached is “his testimony,” and the Scriptures assure us that “the one who has received his testimony has set his seal to this: that God is true,” but on the other hand, “the one who does not believe the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:33, 36).
We have now shown, by varied illustration and overwhelming proof, that to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,” in a true and Scriptural sense, is to believe and obey that message or testimony which he has proclaimed to men.
What then is that message or testimony which is so essential to salvation? Our eternal destiny depends on a truthful answer to this question; and the Lord be praised that we are not left in the dark on a subject of such vast importance. Peter has with great precision pointed out the path by which we can find what that message was. He says that “the word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ…throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached” (Acts 10:36-37). With such “great plainness of speech” as this, how is it possible for us to miss that word or message for which we are searching? We are told, 1st, Who sent it — “the word which God sent”; 2nd, to whom it was sent — “to the children of Israel”; 3rd, by whom it was sent — “by Jesus Christ”; 4th, in what region it was spread — “throughout all Judea”; 5th, from what point it began — “from Galilee”; 6th, at what time it began — “after the baptism which John preached.” Such plain directions take us directly to Mark 1:14, which says, “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.”
How accurately this corresponds to the language of Peter!...After John’s voice was hushed, the blessed Savior “began from Galilee” proclaiming “the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.” Another portion of Scripture informs us that he “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). Nor did he confine his ministry to that region, but proclaimed the same great message “throughout all Judea,” as we learn from Luke 8:1: “he went throughout every city and village, proclaiming and preaching the Kingdom of God.” When the people of Capernaum urged him to stay longer with them he refused, saying, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; that is the reason I was sent” (Luke 4:43). And even in that solemn interval between his resurrection and ascension his theme was still “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
Thus I have plainly and abundantly proved that “the Gospel of the Kingdom” is the great message or testimony which Christ has brought to men. It follows, therefore, that “the Gospel of the Kingdom” is what we must believe before we can be truly said to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” He has commanded us to believe that Gospel. “Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘Repent and believe the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15). Of course he did not command them to believe “another gospel” than the one that he was preaching. The language, therefore, proves that he commanded them to believe the identical gospel that he was preaching — “the gospel of the kingdom of God.” Does anyone imagine that it is not essential to keep his commandments? “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). “Whatever he says to you, do it” (John 2:5). “If you love me keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Keeping his commandments is a test of our loving him, and certainly no one can be saved who does not love Him, for the fearful penalty has been pronounced: “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be Anathema Maranatha,” i.e. accursed when the Lord comes (1 Cor. 16:22).
Because the Son of God has set us the example and made the Kingdom of God the great and constant theme of his discourse, we know this must be the wisest, noblest and best theme that can occupy the minds or tongues of men. But it is well known that multitudes of modern teachers, both in high and low positions, with a blind and fatal persistency, refuse to either believe or preach that blessed Gospel of the Kingdom. For all the world I would not be in the place of such teachers at the day of judgment.
A prominent member of a popular denomination once told me that be had been attending his church twenty-five years, but did not remember ever having heard that expression — the Gospel of the Kingdom — used there, or to have heard a sermon preached on it. A preacher of another large and popular sect told me that he remembered the expression, “the Gospel of the Kingdom” and he believed that it occurred “somewhere in the Epistles.” Another preacher who said he had studied Greek and Hebrew, had graduated in theology, and had been preaching six years; on being questioned by me as to whether the expression “the Gospel of the Kingdom” occurs in the Old or New Testament, said that he believed it occurred in the Old Testament, “perhaps in the Psalms,” and that he had never preached a sermon on the subject. But, according to Cruden's Concordance, that expression is not once found in the Epistles, the Psalms, nor in the Old Testament at all. Do not these incidents prove that a great apostasy has taken place in the world, and that men have “departed from the faith” and fallen into the pernicious practice of preaching “another gospel” than that which the Lord Jesus preached?
And not only did the Lord himself preach the Kingdom of God, but while his own personal ministry was going on, “He called his twelve disciples together and…sent them to preach the Kingdom of God…And they departed and went through the towns preaching the Gospel” (Luke 9:2, 6). Here we discover that in Scriptural phraseology, preaching the Kingdom is the same as preaching the Gospel. It follows, therefore, that those who do not preach the Kingdom do not preach the Gospel. So important is preaching the Kingdom that when a certain man requested leave to first go and bury his father, the Lord said, “Let the dead bury their dead; but you go and preach the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60)…
We must conclude that “the Gospel of the Kingdom” was preached everywhere the apostles went, for the words of the Master — “this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world” — most plainly required them to preach it…We have frequent allusion to the preaching of the Kingdom by the apostles. Thus we find Philip in Samaria “preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12). Also Paul in Ephesus, and other places, preaching “the things concerning the Kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8; 20:25). In Rome he lived two whole years, “preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:23, 31).
As the Bible teaches but one faith and one hope, so also it recognizes but one gospel, and pronounces a double curse on man or angel who shall dare to “preach any other gospel” (Eph. 4:5; Gal. 1:8-9). And now, after the preceding testimonies, can you doubt what is that one Gospel? Surely it can be none other than “this Gospel of the Kingdom” which the Savior said should “be preached in all the world”; and which was carried to one place “as” to another, for Paul tells the Colossians that it had to come to them “just as [kathos] in all the world” (Col. 1:6, 23). And since there is but one Gospel, it follows that it is “this Gospel of the Kingdom” of which the Bible says, “He who does not believe shall be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16). Behold then the awful penalty of either preaching or believing “any other gospel” than “this Gospel of the Kingdom.”
Of course, to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom is not to merely repeat that phrase again and again in the hearing of the people; for what information could they possibly gain by such a procedure? The word translated “gospel” (euaggelion) means “a good message, glad tidings, joyful news.” To preach the Gospel of the Kingdom therefore is to preach those things which constitute the good message, or “glad tidings of the Kingdom.” This is illustrated in the case of Philip who in Samaria preached the Gospel of the Kingdom by preaching “the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12). And we know that the preaching of Philip in Samaria harmonized with that of Paul in Corinth, and with that of all the apostles in all places; for there was but one Gospel preached by them all. As Moses did not give two or more opposite codes of law for the Mosaic dispensation; so neither did Christ give two or more opposite gospels for the present dispensation. But as anciently there were some who perverted the Law of Moses by their tradition, so now there are some who pervert the Gospel of the Kingdom by their tradition. Since, however, it was necessary for the Samaritans to believe “the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ,” it is just as necessary for us to believe the same things; for it is our duty to “hold fast the standard of sound words”; to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints”; to “ask for the old paths and walk in them” (2 Tim. 1:13; Jude 3; and Jer. 6:16).
We have now proved that the only way to preach or believe the Gospel of the Kingdom is to preach or believe those great truths of which that Gospel consists…[1]
[1] Read more at focusonthekingdom.org/books
To sign up for the "Focus on the Kingdom" newsletter visit their website here https://focusonthekingdom.org/
What Must I Do to Be Saved?
by Wiley Jones, 1879, from The Gospel of the Kingdom in Ten Discourses (English slightly modernized)
“Then he called for lights and rushed 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?’ They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your household’” (Acts 16:29-31).
This thrilling piece of apostolic history contains the most important question that can be framed by human lips. It is not, What must I do to obtain health, or wealth, or fame, or some high position of human power and grandeur; but infinitely more than all these: “What must I do to be saved?” And in proportion to the importance of the question is the plainness of the answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Belief and faith are the same…
I have called this a very plain answer, because, with the Bible before us, it is easy to discover what is meant by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The subject is placed before us in the clearest light. For example, we know that a message sent makes him who brings it a messenger, and that to truly believe in the messenger is to believe the message which he brings. Now, among his other attributes, we find those of a messenger expressly attributed to Christ, and that he has been sent as the bearer of a message from God to man. Thus he is called “the messenger of the covenant” (Mal. 3:1); “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession” (Heb. 3:1). The word “apostle” here applied to the Lord Jesus, conveys the same idea, for it means “a messenger, ambassador.” And in the parable of the vineyard the Savior speaks of himself in the same way: “last of all he sent them his son.” Again he says, “I am sent to preach the kingdom of God”…The Father says, “This is My beloved Son; listen to him” (Luke 9:35). And Moses said, “To him you shall give heed to whatever he says to you. And it shall be that everyone who will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed” (Acts 3:22-23).
To make the subject still clearer, we find the Lord Jesus placed before us also as a witness bearing testimony. Thus he is called “the faithful and true witness” (Rev. 3:14). And he declares of himself, “For this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). Now the message or doctrine which he preached is “his testimony,” and the Scriptures assure us that “the one who has received his testimony has set his seal to this: that God is true,” but on the other hand, “the one who does not believe the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:33, 36).
We have now shown, by varied illustration and overwhelming proof, that to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,” in a true and Scriptural sense, is to believe and obey that message or testimony which he has proclaimed to men.
What then is that message or testimony which is so essential to salvation? Our eternal destiny depends on a truthful answer to this question; and the Lord be praised that we are not left in the dark on a subject of such vast importance. Peter has with great precision pointed out the path by which we can find what that message was. He says that “the word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ…throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached” (Acts 10:36-37). With such “great plainness of speech” as this, how is it possible for us to miss that word or message for which we are searching? We are told, 1st, Who sent it — “the word which God sent”; 2nd, to whom it was sent — “to the children of Israel”; 3rd, by whom it was sent — “by Jesus Christ”; 4th, in what region it was spread — “throughout all Judea”; 5th, from what point it began — “from Galilee”; 6th, at what time it began — “after the baptism which John preached.” Such plain directions take us directly to Mark 1:14, which says, “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.”
How accurately this corresponds to the language of Peter!...After John’s voice was hushed, the blessed Savior “began from Galilee” proclaiming “the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.” Another portion of Scripture informs us that he “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). Nor did he confine his ministry to that region, but proclaimed the same great message “throughout all Judea,” as we learn from Luke 8:1: “he went throughout every city and village, proclaiming and preaching the Kingdom of God.” When the people of Capernaum urged him to stay longer with them he refused, saying, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; that is the reason I was sent” (Luke 4:43). And even in that solemn interval between his resurrection and ascension his theme was still “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
Thus I have plainly and abundantly proved that “the Gospel of the Kingdom” is the great message or testimony which Christ has brought to men. It follows, therefore, that “the Gospel of the Kingdom” is what we must believe before we can be truly said to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” He has commanded us to believe that Gospel. “Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘Repent and believe the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15). Of course he did not command them to believe “another gospel” than the one that he was preaching. The language, therefore, proves that he commanded them to believe the identical gospel that he was preaching — “the gospel of the kingdom of God.” Does anyone imagine that it is not essential to keep his commandments? “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). “Whatever he says to you, do it” (John 2:5). “If you love me keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Keeping his commandments is a test of our loving him, and certainly no one can be saved who does not love Him, for the fearful penalty has been pronounced: “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be Anathema Maranatha,” i.e. accursed when the Lord comes (1 Cor. 16:22).
Because the Son of God has set us the example and made the Kingdom of God the great and constant theme of his discourse, we know this must be the wisest, noblest and best theme that can occupy the minds or tongues of men. But it is well known that multitudes of modern teachers, both in high and low positions, with a blind and fatal persistency, refuse to either believe or preach that blessed Gospel of the Kingdom. For all the world I would not be in the place of such teachers at the day of judgment.
A prominent member of a popular denomination once told me that be had been attending his church twenty-five years, but did not remember ever having heard that expression — the Gospel of the Kingdom — used there, or to have heard a sermon preached on it. A preacher of another large and popular sect told me that he remembered the expression, “the Gospel of the Kingdom” and he believed that it occurred “somewhere in the Epistles.” Another preacher who said he had studied Greek and Hebrew, had graduated in theology, and had been preaching six years; on being questioned by me as to whether the expression “the Gospel of the Kingdom” occurs in the Old or New Testament, said that he believed it occurred in the Old Testament, “perhaps in the Psalms,” and that he had never preached a sermon on the subject. But, according to Cruden's Concordance, that expression is not once found in the Epistles, the Psalms, nor in the Old Testament at all. Do not these incidents prove that a great apostasy has taken place in the world, and that men have “departed from the faith” and fallen into the pernicious practice of preaching “another gospel” than that which the Lord Jesus preached?
And not only did the Lord himself preach the Kingdom of God, but while his own personal ministry was going on, “He called his twelve disciples together and…sent them to preach the Kingdom of God…And they departed and went through the towns preaching the Gospel” (Luke 9:2, 6). Here we discover that in Scriptural phraseology, preaching the Kingdom is the same as preaching the Gospel. It follows, therefore, that those who do not preach the Kingdom do not preach the Gospel. So important is preaching the Kingdom that when a certain man requested leave to first go and bury his father, the Lord said, “Let the dead bury their dead; but you go and preach the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60)…
We must conclude that “the Gospel of the Kingdom” was preached everywhere the apostles went, for the words of the Master — “this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world” — most plainly required them to preach it…We have frequent allusion to the preaching of the Kingdom by the apostles. Thus we find Philip in Samaria “preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12). Also Paul in Ephesus, and other places, preaching “the things concerning the Kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8; 20:25). In Rome he lived two whole years, “preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:23, 31).
As the Bible teaches but one faith and one hope, so also it recognizes but one gospel, and pronounces a double curse on man or angel who shall dare to “preach any other gospel” (Eph. 4:5; Gal. 1:8-9). And now, after the preceding testimonies, can you doubt what is that one Gospel? Surely it can be none other than “this Gospel of the Kingdom” which the Savior said should “be preached in all the world”; and which was carried to one place “as” to another, for Paul tells the Colossians that it had to come to them “just as [kathos] in all the world” (Col. 1:6, 23). And since there is but one Gospel, it follows that it is “this Gospel of the Kingdom” of which the Bible says, “He who does not believe shall be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16). Behold then the awful penalty of either preaching or believing “any other gospel” than “this Gospel of the Kingdom.”
Of course, to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom is not to merely repeat that phrase again and again in the hearing of the people; for what information could they possibly gain by such a procedure? The word translated “gospel” (euaggelion) means “a good message, glad tidings, joyful news.” To preach the Gospel of the Kingdom therefore is to preach those things which constitute the good message, or “glad tidings of the Kingdom.” This is illustrated in the case of Philip who in Samaria preached the Gospel of the Kingdom by preaching “the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 8:12). And we know that the preaching of Philip in Samaria harmonized with that of Paul in Corinth, and with that of all the apostles in all places; for there was but one Gospel preached by them all. As Moses did not give two or more opposite codes of law for the Mosaic dispensation; so neither did Christ give two or more opposite gospels for the present dispensation. But as anciently there were some who perverted the Law of Moses by their tradition, so now there are some who pervert the Gospel of the Kingdom by their tradition. Since, however, it was necessary for the Samaritans to believe “the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ,” it is just as necessary for us to believe the same things; for it is our duty to “hold fast the standard of sound words”; to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints”; to “ask for the old paths and walk in them” (2 Tim. 1:13; Jude 3; and Jer. 6:16).
We have now proved that the only way to preach or believe the Gospel of the Kingdom is to preach or believe those great truths of which that Gospel consists…[1]
[1] Read more at focusonthekingdom.org/books
To sign up for the "Focus on the Kingdom" newsletter visit their website here https://focusonthekingdom.org/
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