Can You Be Saved When You’re All Alone?
By Chad Dixon
Recently I was asked this question by a sister in Christ and felt compelled to give a written response to such a deep and all important question of the faith. The following is by no means an exhaustive study on the matter, but my written response back to her after a few hours of meditation and Bible study.
To answer this question I would ask you to think about whether baptism is an active experience or a passive experience. David [our preacher] actually addressed this in his sermon Sunday quite well. In other words, Can someone baptize their self? We certainly see no example of this in scripture. All conversions in the history of the church as recorded in the inspired book of Acts involved a submission to the Lord through immersion by another Christian. Even the Gentiles in Acts 10 that received the Holy Spirit before salvation “just as the Apostles had” were immediately instructed to be baptized. If they had already received the Holy Spirit as the Apostles had why could they not baptize themselves? Or why did they need baptizing at all if it weren’t essential unto salvation. The same man, Peter, that instructed this baptism had also instructed the Jews to be baptized in Acts 2:38. No Apostle ever disputed, questioned or contradicted this teaching. In fact the Apostle Paul, much more intellectually gifted and educated than the fisherman Peter, went to great lengths to expound upon the necessity of this command (See Romans 6; Gal. 3:27ff).
The very nature of baptism is passive; a submission to an ancient doctrine of faith delivered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), a body of believers (the church), and the Lord.
The much harder task would be to find an example or teaching in the scripture that states a person was saved when alone.
Another question for the argument that might suggest one can be saved alone would be to ask if this belief does not directly contradict Ephesians 2:8-9 or Titus 3:5-6?
These verses specifically state that salvation is not accomplished by or even accompanied by works of righteousness by man. Again suggesting the very passive nature of salvation on our part. God is very active in this process. We do nothing but receive and submit to, or swear allegiance to the very work that He has done and is doing in our salvation. And, yes we (you and me), as baptized Christians, are saved and are still being saved (Hebrews 10:10, 14).
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:11 that at baptism we are sanctified and justified at the same time. We know he is referencing baptism because of the wording he uses, “you were washed,” not unlike that used at the time of his conversion (Acts 22:16) (by another Christian, Ananias, by the way).
But what do these words, sanctified and justified, mean? The Bible always serves as its own best commentary. Remember Heb. 10:10, 14 suggested we are sanctified at the cross (before we were ever born), of which we had no part; and yet we are being sanctified, suggesting a process of which we do have a part. Titus 2:11-14 helps with this understanding. “The grace of God brings salvation … to all men,” (Justification) “teaching us … that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify” us “for good works” (Sanctification). Again, God does not bring salvation because of our good works (Titus 3:5), but our good works are our faithful response to His love and good work for our benefit. James 2:24 reminds us that we are justified only by the works of God, not just faith in a promise He has made. And thus our faith-response should be good works or we have a “dead” faith (James2:17). James is telling the brethren here that when we have been saved (justified) our faith should be dynamic, actively seeking opportunity for and accepting works of righteousness. It’s a little confusing because he used the word “justified” and most credit that to man doing the justifying. I don’t. I believe he is referring to the works of God already accomplished (the cross), and being accomplished through His body of believers.
The notion that someone can be saved when alone is unfounded in scripture. Not many try to make this argument that one can be baptized alone without someone administering the baptism. There were debates at the beginning of the restoration movement around whether a person needed to be baptized by someone already baptized. Remember there were backwoods communities were the message of reconciliation was being reached through printed publications where there were Bibles, but no baptized Christian. Some, convicted of the necessity to be baptized by another Christian per every example we see in scripture, traveled great, dangerous distances to be baptized by another Christian. Others, maybe more concerned about the immediacy of the response of believers seen in scriptures or a complete inability to travel, chose to be baptized by an unbaptized believer and maybe then baptize the person baptizing them. Either way this movement did not espouse a salvation by works but by submission. The only time we see a chance for someone to be saved alone is in Acts 8 when the Ethiopian Eunuch is reading the scriptures of Isaiah. Now through the scriptures he is reading, God could have given him revelation of understanding, but He didn't. He sent Phillip. Once the Eunuch became convicted from the scriptures God could have whisked Phillip away and left the Ethiopian to baptize himself, or say a special prayer. But He didn’t. When did God take Phillip away? After he had went down into the water with the Ethiopian and baptized him. (Acts 8:26-39)
Since the argument for being baptized alone cannot be made, the only logical conclusion is to argue against the necessity of baptism for salvation. Slide it over to the category of a work of righteousness by man rather than God even though Colossians 2:12 specifically states baptism is a “working of God.” Stop short of baptism and emphasize confession which man can do for himself, even to himself when no one is around. This false teaching is very deceptive because no one can argue against the necessity of confession in the process of salvation (Matt. 10:32; Rom. 10:9-10; 1 Jn 4:15). And once this is the emphasis and the agreed upon stopping point for salvation, who can question another’s salvation moment? Nobody can, except for one person. The one person is the individual who has hung his justification and sanctification moment on one prayer or one thought or one experience that he had within his own mind in a crowd or all by himself. 1 John 2:3 says, “We know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” John’s not indicating we are perfect on a do’s and don’ts list. He had just finished saying the blood of Jesus “cleanses [present-progressive, meaning it is continually happening; no need to continually happen if we don’t continually mess up] us from all sin.” (1 Jn 1:7) His commandments included baptism in order to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-19). Last words are important. He never meant any part of those words as a suggestion to His apostles. To say otherwise is a very shallow argument.
The very popular image of a sinful individual stepping into a closed closet and saying a prayer of his own timing and of his own wording (for their is no Biblical prayer for salvation) smacks to me of an individual work for salvation, directly contradicting Eph. 2:8-9 and Titus 3:5. Instead of telling one’s self that he was baptized for the remission of sins, for through his spiritual pilgrimage he will forever be telling himself and others, “I said a prayer for the remission of sins.” The baptized believer’s stopping point is a submissive experience that brings assurance to the believer. The other believer’s stopping point for salvation is a self-directed experience, again unfounded by example in scripture.
There is, however a flimsy argument for the notion of “asking Jesus into your heart,” based on Rev. 3:20. But a closer look at the context will show that in this passage Jesus is clearly speaking to those already saved/justified albeit not living as if they care that they are. These Christians were not allowing Jesus to sanctify them, to work through them as He was fully capable and desirous of doing if their will was for Him to do so. This passage is really more about the nature of our Lord rather than the nature of our salvation. It tells us that Jesus has a great desire for us to freely let Him in, but that it is our choice. He is accessible (at our door) persistent and desirous (knocking) and sees our relationship as mutually beneficial/satisfactory (dining together). But He will never force the door open. He only wants to dine with (assist, develop a relationship with) those who freely open the door to let Him in. Again, He is speaking to lukewarm Christians here, but He has the same nature with the lost. If they are unwilling to repent and obey the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7) He will not force His hand on them. As C.S. Lewis once famously wrote: “The gates of Hell are locked from within.” Our hell for eternity can be avoided if we unlock the door to our hell on earth, obey His gospel and let Jesus come in and rule our lives.