What Does “Call Upon the Name of the Lord to be Saved” Mean? (KJV Explanation Across Joel, Acts and Romans)
One of the most familiar Bible promises is whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved. As believers, we immediately connect that phrase to the gospel invitation in our present age—and rightly so. But if we trace this phrase through the Bible, we discover something much bigger. It isn’t a one-verse slogan. It’s a truth that reaches into Israel’s past, shapes our present and will resurface in the future tribulation. What appears at first to be a simple gospel promise turns out to be a key truth in God’s framework for working with both Jews and Gentiles, operating across the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God.
The first appearance is in Joel 2:32:
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered…
The setting in Joel 2 is unmistakably future and Jewish. Joel is writing about “those days,” a time marked by celestial signs and national distress during the tribulation. The promise of deliverance is connected to mount Zion and Jerusalem, and specifically to “the remnant whom the LORD shall call.” In other words, Joel is describing the preserved Jewish remnant who turn to their Messiah during the tribulation. In this passage, “calling on the name of the LORD” isn’t about church-age salvation—it’s about Israel’s physical and spiritual restoration as the kingdom of heaven draws near to earth in the latter days.
Peter quotes the same promise in Acts 2:20–21 during his sermon at Pentecost:
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Here Peter is speaking directly to Jews gathered in Jerusalem, not the Gentile world at large. He is offering them the very kingdom their prophets foretold—a chance for the nation to receive their Messiah. When Peter repeats Joel’s phrase, he is not redefining it for the church age; he is extending the same Jewish national call of repentance that Joel described.
The mention of “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord” in this passage refers to what Israel could have done: acknowledge Jesus as the Christ and call upon Him as their Lord and King. Peter even ties it to “that great and notable day of the Lord,” the very event that would have followed had the nation responded.
Early Acts was a real and legitimate offer. The kingdom of heaven could have been ushered in, and Christ could have returned had Israel, as a nation, called on His name. But tragically, the same people who rejected Christ during His earthly ministry rejected Him again through the witness of Peter, the apostle to the Jews.
Then Paul quotes the same phrase in Romans 10:12–13:
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Here, the context is notably different. The kingdom offer to Israel has been postponed, and now the focus turns to the Gentiles via Paul. The very door that Israel would not enter is opened wide to the world. The same scriptural phrase appears again, but this time it is not about a Jewish remnant or a national decision—it becomes the individual gospel invitation in our age of grace, the message not of the kingdom of Heaven on earth, but the kingdom of God, which is Christ in you—to the Jew or the Gentile.
But make no mistake. Whether in Joel, Acts or Romans, “calling on the name of the Lord” is never a shallow, last-minute plea. The Bible presents it as a heart-level turning toward God and His rightful authority. In every age—Israel in the past, the Gentiles today and the Jewish remnant in the tribulation—this calling has always meant surrender. Not a quick foxhole prayer for deliverance from bad circumstances repeated without understanding, but a humble soul bending low before the Lord Jesus Christ, yielding to His rule and confessing His rightful place. It is no fleeting cry of panic, but the deliberate submission of a repentant heart.
R&J Shee