Are You Saved?

Both belief and baptism are necessary for salvation

05/19/2020

Acts of the Apostles 16:22-34 About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened, there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.” He asked for a light and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.” So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house. He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once. He brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.

I have a surprising question for you this morning that you might not expect your Catholic pastor to ask: Are you saved? More often our evangelical or fundamentalist friends put Catholics on the spot with that uncomfortable question. How do most Catholics answer: “Uh, I don’t know. Ask Fr. John!” Well, this time it’s Fr. John who’s asking, so you have to supply your own answer. Our Protestant friends usually reply that you are saved by “accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” That is, belief leads to salvation, or in Latin, “sola fide” (faith alone). But I would suggest to you that the Bible teaches that belief alone is not enough. In addition to belief, the Bible insists that you must be baptized. Faith alone will not save you, you also need the sacraments.

I want to offer you five scriptures that show an intrinsic link between belief and baptism, that salvation requires the sacraments. The first is today’s reading from Acts 16. Paul and Silas are miraculously freed from prison and the jailer is about to kill himself. Paul preaches the good news to him and the jailer believes in Jesus. But does the story end there with the jailer's belief in Jesus, “and they lived happily ever after”? No, we read a few verses later: “Then he and all his family were baptized at once.” Belief and baptism go hand-in-hand, like the two wings of a plane they are both necessary for us to fly up into heaven.

Eight chapters earlier in Acts 8, Philip preaches to an Ethiopian eunuch, who’s reading Isaiah 53 about the “suffering servant.” Once the eunuch learns from Philip that the suffering servant is also his Savior, Jesus Christ, he exclaims: “Look, there is water. What is to prevent my being baptized?” Notice how effortlessly the eunuch’s belief led to his baptism, salvation runs through the sacraments.

The third passage is from our first pope, St. Peter. In the first encyclical, Pope Peter explains that Noah and his family in the Ark, floating on the waters of the flood, were a symbol of baptism. We read: “This (Noah and the Ark) prefigured baptism, which saves you now.” Did you catch how 1 Pet. 3:21 described how we are saved? We are saved by the sacraments, especially baptism.

The fourth scripture is from St. Paul, the great proponent of faith as a prerequisite for salvation (but not faith alone). Peter had connected baptism to the ancient flood in Gen. 6-9, and now Paul connects baptism with the ancient practice of circumcision in Gen. 17. He writes in Colossians 2:10-11, “In Christ you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by hand…You were buried with him in baptism.” Incidentally, in India babies are baptized exactly eight days after they are born, which was when male Jewish babies were circumcised. Baptism is the new “Christian circumcision.” Every baby that cries when he’s baptized should be warned: “Be glad I only have water in my hand, and not a knife.” Sacraments are necessary for salvation.

Last but not least is the teaching of our Lord and Savior himself in John 3:5. Jesus tells Nicodemus in no uncertain terms: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God (be saved), without being born of water and the Spirit.” That is the perfect description of the sacrament of baptism: being born again into new life (salvation) by water through the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus himself urges: “Don’t just believe in me as your personal Lord and Savior, but also be baptized!”

Now can you answer the question, “Are you saved?” The correct answer is: “You must believe in Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, AND you must also be baptized.” That is the constant teaching of the Scriptures and the teaching of our Savior. So, don’t ask me the answer to that question again.

Praised be Jesus Christ!