Love in Action

Daily Devotional

The Source of Salvation

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” — Acts 4:12

The Bible presents a day in which all people shall be judged for the deeds committed in this life. Other religions also believe in some form of judgment after death. It goes by various names—including the Last Judgment—involving a general or individual evaluation of human thoughts, words, and deeds by God, various deities, or the universal law of cause and effect.

According to most of these traditions, a person is powerless to influence the final judgment after death, though they can shape the outcome while alive. For some, salvation is a matter of weighing good deeds against bad ones: if we do more good than bad, we are saved. For others, it comes through keeping the law or following a moral code.

For Christians, however, only one thing brings justification: faith in Christ. Buddha cannot do it, Muhammad cannot do it, and Moses cannot do it.

This is a bold claim, yet it is precisely what Moses and the prophets foretold. It is what Jesus Himself declared, and what the apostles preached.

At times, I hear people claim that Jewish people are automatically saved—even if they deny Jesus—because they are God's chosen people. I know individuals who have left the church and embraced the belief that Black Americans are the biblical Jews and are therefore automatically saved. I have heard people call America the "New Israel," concluding that we are a chosen nation and guaranteed salvation. Even within groups that call themselves Christian, some seem to believe or imply that salvation comes through adhering to a church's creed rather than through Christ alone.

We should always remind ourselves that while the source of salvation is clear to us, it is not obvious to everyone.

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”