Best Christian Books on Salvation: 10 Classics on How to Be Saved
If you want to know how a person is saved, start with Spurgeon's Twelve Sermons on the Plan of Salvation. Each sermon can be read in half an hour, and each one ends by pointing you to Christ. If you would rather have it in story form, read John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, the most famous picture of salvation ever written. If you want every part of the gospel set out in order, read J. C. Ryle's Old Paths.
The old writers agreed on the shape of salvation. Every one of us has sinned, and sin brings guilt, death and judgment. We cannot save ourselves by good works, church-going or trying harder. Salvation is God's work from start to finish. The Father planned it, the Son paid for it by His death and rising, and the Spirit brings it home to the heart. We receive it by repenting and believing in Jesus Christ. And it is more than escape from hell. To be saved is to be forgiven, made new, set free from the power of sin and brought home to God at last.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
Here are ten of the best books on salvation in TheWay Library, all free to read.
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1. Twelve Sermons on the Plan of Salvation, by C. H. Spurgeon
Twelve sermons that each look at salvation from a different side: salvation to the uttermost, Jonah's "Salvation is of the Lord" from inside the fish, the things that go with salvation, the plain man's pathway to peace, and the simplicity and sublimity of it all.
O my hearer, all the injury which you have already inflicted upon yourself by sin, the Lord can repair!
Twelve Sermons on the Plan of Salvation, One More Cast of the Great Net
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2. Living or Dead?, by J. C. Ryle
Eight short tracts that each ask you a straight question. Are you spiritually alive or dead? Are you forgiven? Are you holy? Is there only one way? Ryle writes, as he says elsewhere, not as an enemy but as a lover of your soul. Read one tract a night.
Rest not till you know and feel that you have got actual possession of that peace with God, which Jesus offers, and that Christ is yours and you are Christ's.
Living or Dead?, chapter 5
3. The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Christian flees the City of Destruction with a burden on his back, goes in at the Wicket Gate, and comes to the cross. The rest of the book is the long road home. No book has shown more readers what it means to be saved.
So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.
The Pilgrim's Progress
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The whole gospel, in order
4. Old Paths, by J. C. Ryle
Nineteen papers on the truths Ryle calls "necessary to salvation": the Bible, the soul, sin, forgiveness, justification, the cross, the Holy Spirit, conversion, faith, repentance and Christ's invitation, "Come unto me." If you want one book that covers the whole ground plainly, this is it.
Christ offers to come into man's heart with pardon, mercy, and grace, and to dwell there as its Peace-maker and King.
Old Paths, chapter 15
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5. The Gospel in Ezekiel, by Thomas Guthrie
The great Scottish preacher finds the whole gospel in Ezekiel 36: man sinning and suffering, God's justice, God's motive in saving, justification through Christ's righteousness, the new heart and the Spirit within. Guthrie is famous for his pictures, and every chapter has them.
Now, there is no greater mistake than to suppose that God, as a God of justice and a God of mercy, stands in antagonism to himself.
The Gospel in Ezekiel, chapter 4
6. Practical Truths, by Archibald Alexander
Short, plain pieces by the first professor at Princeton Seminary, written for ordinary readers: the almost Christian, "Why will ye die?", the importance of salvation, sinners welcome to come to Christ, and a clear summary of justification by faith.
The Lord Jesus Christ, apprehended and received by faith, is the only safe sanctuary for a soul pursued by the demands of a broken law.
Practical Truths, The Importance of Salvation
Salvation preached
7. Real Salvation and Whole-Hearted Service, by R. A. Torrey
The addresses Torrey preached to huge crowds, printed much as he gave them. They are direct: "Where art thou?", the sin of unbelief, refuges of lies, who can be saved, how to find rest, and the joy of the Christian.
Jesus Christ can save any man; but Jesus Christ won't, and Jesus Christ can't, save a man who won't give up his sin.
Real Salvation and Whole-Hearted Service, chapter 9
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8. Two books of sermons by B. B. Warfield
Warfield was one of the great theologians of his day, and these sermons show him as a preacher. In The Power of God unto Salvation, read "The Saving Christ," on the faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. In The Saviour of the World, read "The Prodigal Son" and "Jesus Only."
When all are in equal need of salvation, where is there room for censorious complaint of the goodness of God?
The Saviour of the World, chapter 1
See our guide to B. B. Warfield's books.
What salvation does
9. Popular Christianity, by Catherine Booth
Five lectures by the co-founder of the Salvation Army, each setting a popular counterfeit beside the real thing. She contrasts a Christ admired only as a teacher with the Christ of God who saves from sin, and a "mock salvation" that leaves people in their sins with a real deliverance from them.
The whole work of Christ was aimed at the salvation of men's souls.
Popular Christianity, Lecture III
10. Eternal Life, by Henry Drummond
A short essay on Jesus' words, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God." Drummond shows that eternal life is not only life that lasts forever. It is a new quality of life, knowing God, and it begins now.
The quality of the Eternal Life alone makes the heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon.
Eternal Life
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Where to start
If you are asking how to be saved, read Spurgeon and Ryle's tracts first, then read The Pilgrim's Progress. If you already believe and want to understand what God has done for you, read Old Paths and Guthrie.
For more on how grace and faith fit together, read what it means to be saved by grace through faith. For the moment a person turns to Christ, see the best books on conversion. For how a saved person can know it, see the best books on assurance. And for books on sharing the gospel with others, see the best books on evangelism.