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“Morality Alone Won't Save You”
Categories: Baptism, Daily Living, SalvationMorality Alone Won’t Save You
Jarrod Jacobs
Many have the mistaken idea that so long as one is a good person, then he is in a right relationship with God. This is not true. While morality and honest, clean living is acceptable with God, that alone will not save. One man who understood this was Cornelius. Acts 10 and 11 record his conversion to the Lord. We find him described as a “devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, … gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway” (Acts 10:2). Was he saved? No, for an angel spoke to him in a vision telling him to send for Simon Peter, “who shall tell you what you must do” (Acts 10:6). Notice that the angel did not save him, nor tell him what to do. This angel merely got the sinner in contact with the preacher.
When Peter arrived, among other things he told Cornelius “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34-35). The Holy Spirit fell on them, not to save them, but to show that God had granted to the Gentiles “repentance unto life” (Acts 11:15-18). Peter, seeing these things, taught Cornelius and his household the truth and “commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord” (Acts 10:48). Why be baptized? Let Peter answer. Peter said baptism is “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Morality alone will not save. Being saved requires one come to Christ in faith, repent of sins, confess Him before men and be buried with Him in baptism for the remission of sins. Perhaps this is something you need to do. Why not let us help you? Tomorrow may be too late (II Cor. 6:2).
