Assurance of Salvation
1 John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Assurance of salvation is a wonderful and amazing thing for the believer to understand. Unfortunately, there are many people who do not believe this or who do not want to teach this because they use legalism as a weapon to manipulate Christians into being obedient to God. Then there are some people who abuse assurance of salvation and use it as a license to sin. Finally, there are Christians who do not feel they are worthy to have assurance of salvation because they have gotten a taste of their own depravity.
Every Christian struggles with assurance of salvation at some point, so do not feel like you are alone. I myself struggled with this for years because of the way that I was raised. For some the struggle is for weeks or months and for others the struggle can be for years.
The first question you should ask is do you understand the gospel.
The second question you should ask is do you believe God when He says you are forgiven?
We will dive into each of these views and answer these two questions in this study.
Why would someone not want to hold to or teach assurance of salvation?
One reason is they may hold to a bad view of soteriology or the way in which a person is saved.
People who believe that they have something to do with their salvation will naturally believe that they can lose it.
If salvation was all up to the individual in earning it, could they lose it?
The answer is yes. If you had to earn it, you could lose it.
Many of these people teach that you must confess every sin in order for your sins to be forgiven. That also isn’t true and is not what the gospel reflects.
This goes back to understanding the gospel. If you understand that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone given by God’s grace alone then you have the correct understanding of the gospel and the correct foundation on which to have assurance of salvation.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Do you believe Ephesians 2? This is the gospel. Jesus did the work that we could never do. If Jesus did the work and we didn’t then it is Christ who holds on to us, not the other way around.
John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
Understanding this truth and believing Jesus when He says it is vital to understanding
Romans 5: 1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.
You cannot have peace with God if you don’t believe your salvation is secure. God wants you to have peace. He wants you to understand that you are safe in His eternal family if you are a Christian. In fact, He has called you for a purpose.
1 Peter 2:21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
Jesus Christ bore your sins in His body when He went to the cross for you. He completed His mission; in John 19:19 Jesus said, “it is finished!” meaning that His work for you on the cross was complete.
Another reason people do not believe or do not teach assurance of salvation is because they can use that as manipulation to make people act a certain way. The idea is that if you teach your kids that they can lose their salvation that will cause them to want to not get into trouble. To be good little kids. The same is true for adults. If you can lose your salvation, you may be afraid to have that drink, do those drugs, have that affair. Again, this is a misunderstanding of the gospel and sanctification. We do not obey God because we are manipulated to do so or out of fear, it is the opposite reason; we obey God because we love Him. We obey God because we are thankful for what He has done for us. We obey God because the Holy Spirit indwells us and propels us to be more and more like Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Under Construction
What about those who abuse Assurance of Salvation?
Scripture has something to say about using assurance of salvation as a license to sin and it is this; they were never a Christian to begin with.
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
Romans 6:1 "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."
