Question:
In Acts
16:31 the jailer of Philippi is told that he should believe in the Lord Jesus
then he and his whole household would be saved. Does that not contradict our
believe that every individual has to come to Christ himself,
there is no salvation by proxy.
Response:
Great
question! It is true that salvation is by faith, which each individual
expresses: “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved” (Romans 10:19). This is what happened with the jailer.
Acts 16: 29-34 reads: “Then he
called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And
he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he
had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household."
You can see from the passage that
the elements for salvation were present: Paul and Silas preached the gospel,
and the jailer and his family believed the message. In addition, their
faith was confirmed by their baptism.
It is
important to understand how religions and families operated in the ancient
world. The father was the head of the household with more authority than
what we are used to in modern society. The father’s religion was the
religion of the family. A father’s conversion to another religion was not
considered to be simply his own personal decision. In essence, the father
decided for the whole family. When the jailer showed that he wanted to be
saved, Paul was referring to this custom of familial conversion. We might
object, saying that perhaps one of the family members didn’t really believe and
was just going along.
That might
have been the case, but it is up to God to judge who truly believes in
Him. Paul was simply expressing his expectation and hope that the
father’s new faith in Christ would be shared by his family once they too heard
the gospel and the miracle that he had witnessed, and from what we can tell
from the passage, that is what happened.
