We need to read Acts 2:40: “And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” Do you believe this word, “Save yourselves,” is okay? Could you save yourself? Could anyone of you, including Peter, save himself? But according to the Bible, Peter charged the people to save themselves from this crooked or perverse generation. According to the King James Version, the theologians would surely have a problem. To save yourself means you save yourself. If you save yourself, this must be a kind of saving by your work. And to be saved by any kind of work is heretical. Salvation is not by works; salvation is by faith through grace (Eph. 2:8). This is the basic principle. Why then does Peter say, “Save yourselves”?
Suppose a message was given in a meeting exhorting people to save themselves from today’s dark age. Could you take it? Surely I would not take it. Salvation is by grace; I cannot save myself. In Peter’s time people were in a crooked, perverse generation. How could one fallen to the depth of a crooked generation save himself out of it? If you were drowning in the ocean, could you save yourself? No one could do it. Darby’s New Translation of the Bible says, “Be saved.” According to English grammar you have the active voice and the passive voice. Save yourself is active voice; be saved is passive. Both are imperative. One is imperative active, and the other is imperative passive. Actually, it is not only active or only passive. It includes both sides. It is an active-passive voice. The grammar in English is not adequate; you need an active-passive voice. “Be” is active, but “saved” is passive. It does not mean that you save yourself, but that you are to be saved by something or someone. So it is passive.
Some might say active-passive is not good language, but I would say that the language should be improved. Language is a kind of culture, and culture depends upon invention and improvement. Today we have a lot of new words that we didn’t have two hundred years ago. This is why the King James Version of the Bible is out of date. You need a new translation. Both the English language and the Chinese language have active and passive voice, but neither has an active-passive voice. Language is always according to human culture. If you don’t have a culture you won’t have a language. In human culture there is not such a thing as active-passive, but in God’s economy active-passive is too great a matter. Even in human culture, some things are really active-passive. Suppose you are floating on the ocean and a boat comes by. You cannot save yourself, but the boat comes to save you. But you have to want to be saved. You have to cooperate. If you don’t want to be saved people cannot save you regardless of what they do. Or if you do too much to help yourself, you cannot be saved. If you are drowning and someone comes to save you, you had better not do anything. Just let him save you. Otherwise you may drown the both of you. This is to “be saved.” This is the active-passive voice, and it has to be applied to our spiritual life.
In the last meeting I did tell you not to go backward, not to go forward, and yet not to stay here. Then you wondered: What shall we do? Don’t do anything! Be saved! The problem is this: as fallen human beings, either we wouldn’t care for our salvation, or we would do everything to save ourselves. The more we do to save ourselves, the more we cannot be saved. The best way to be saved is to desire to be saved, yet don’t do anything to save yourself. This principle is hard for you and me to apply. Perhaps you were bothered by the two preceding messages. In the first I told you that your prayer is a trap, your reading of the Bible is a trap, and whatever you do even spiritually is a trap. In the second one I told you not to go forward, not to go backward, and yet don’t stay where you are.
Actually, what the Lord wants is that we return, we repent, and then let Him do everything. Not many believers would do this. Most would either forget about God, or they would turn to Him and do so many things. Some might testify that they got saved thoroughly because they cried for two nights and fasted for three meals. All of a sudden joy came to them. Yes, a kind of joy came to them, but it was a joy created by themselves because they had been crying for two nights and fasting for three meals. Surely they needed some happiness, and surely some joy would come to them. They got saved. Another may simply say, “O Lord, save me.” Many dear ones got thoroughly saved by this kind of quiet salvation. Some of those who cried for two nights and were on fire for two months may have gone back to the beach.