It’s a heartache to me as a pastor to realize that so many Christians lack assurance of their salvation. They lack the confidence that their sins are truly forgiven and their place in heaven is eternally secure. The pain I feel over this issue was heightened as I read this letter:
I’ve been attending Grace Church for several years. As a result of a growing conviction in my heart, your preaching, and my seeming powerlessness against the temptations which arise in my heart and which I constantly succumb to, my growing doubts have led me to believe that I’m not saved.
How sad it is, John, for me not to be able to enter in because of the sin which clings to me and from which I long to be free. How bizarre for one who has had advanced biblical training and who teaches in Sunday school with heartfelt conviction! So many times I have determined in my heart to repent, to shake loose my desire to sin, to forsake all for Jesus, only to find myself doing the sin I don’t want to do and not doing the good I want to do.
After my fiancée and I broke up, I memorized Ephesians as part of an all-out effort against sin, only to find myself weaker and more painfully aware of my sinfulness, more prone to sin than ever before, and grabbing cheap thrills to push back the pain of lost love. This occurs mostly in the heart, John, but that’s where it counts and that’s where we live. I sin because I’m a sinner. I’m like a soldier without armor running across a battlefield getting shot up by fiery darts from the enemy.
I couldn’t leave the church if I wanted to. I love the people, and I’m enthralled by the gospel of the beautiful Messiah. But I’m a pile of manure on the white marble floor of Christ, a mongrel dog that sneaked in the back door of the King’s banquet to lick the crumbs off the floor, and by being close to Christians who are rich in the blessings of Christ, I get some of the overflow and ask you to pray for me as you think best.
I was struck by how eloquently the author of that poignant letter expressed his feelings—feelings I’ve discovered to be common among many sincere Christians. Yes, many.
Two years ago, as I began preaching through 2 Peter, I embarked on an eight-part study of the assurance of salvation. Invariably after each service, people would come to me and say, “Until tonight I have never experienced assurance.” They repeatedly thanked me for speaking on the topic—and thanked God for the clarity of His Word on assurance.
That experience made me acutely aware of the need for biblical clarity on assurance—especially on how it relates to our emotions as believers. I found myself wondering how a person could take the monumental, life-changing step of becoming a Christian, yet not be assured of the results. My assurance is essential to the way I respond to life as a Christian. I cannot imagine living without it. Every true Christian should enjoy the reality of his or her salvation. Not to have that assurance is to live in doubt, fear, and a unique form of misery and spiritual depression.
Undeserved Assurance
Now, some people have assurance who have no right to it. An old spiritual put it simply and directly: “Everybody talkin’ about heaven ain’t going there.” Some feel all is well between them and God when it isn’t. They don’t understand the truth about salvation and their own spiritual condition.
Many people ask me why I speak and write so frequently on salvation and spiritual self-examination. Often they fear that what I’ve said will undermine the assurance of true Christians. Of course I have no desire to do that, but to maintain a balanced perspective on the issue, I recall that Jesus said:
Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you.” (Matt. 7:21–23)
That passage haunts me. Like no other, it brings me face-to-face with the reality that many people are deceived about their salvation. I’m sure the apostle Paul felt that way when he said to the church at large, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (2 Cor. 13:5).
How do people acquire a false sense of assurance? By receiving false information about salvation. Much of our modern-day evangelism contributes to that through what I call “syllogistic assurance.”
A syllogism has a major premise and a minor premise that lead to a conclusion. Let’s consider John 1:12: “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” The major premise: Anyone who receives Jesus becomes God’s child. The minor premise: The person you just witnessed to received Christ. Conclusion: The person must now be a child of God. That seems logical, but the problem is, you don’t know whether the minor premise is true—whether the person truly received Christ. Beware of trying to assure people of their salvation based on an untested profession. True assurance is the reward of tested and proven faith (James 1:2–4; 1 Peter 1:6–9). And it’s the Holy Spirit who gives real assurance (Rom. 8:16).
The human counselor must guard against any tendency to usurp that role.
Undermined Assurance
Some people believe no one can have real assurance—not even a true Christian. They reject God’s sovereignty in salvation, thereby destroying the theological basis for eternal security and assurance. That’s the historical Arminian view (named after a Dutch theologian). It asserts that if a Christian thinks he or she is secure forever, he or she is apt to become spiritually negligent.
That belief is also the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The Council of Trent declared it anathema to say “that a man who is born again and justified is bound [of faith] to believe that he is certainly in the number of the predestined” (canon 15 on justification). Modern Catholic teaching, such as that of Vatican II, upholds that position.
G. C. Berkouwer’s The Conflict with Rome explains that Rome’s denial of the assurance of salvation is consistent with its conception of the nature of salvation.1 Since it conceives of salvation as a joint effort by man and God, something that’s maintained through the doing of good works, it concludes the believer can never be absolutely sure of his or her salvation. Why? Because if my salvation depends on God and me, I might mess up.
Whenever you have a theology that involves human effort for salvation, there can be no true security or assurance, because human beings can default. But historical biblical theology declares that salvation is entirely the work of God, which leads to the concomitant doctrines of security and assurance.
The apostle John said, “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” (1 John 5:13). The prophet Isaiah wrote, “The work of righteousness will be peace, and the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever” (Isa. 32:17). Where God grants righteousness, He also adds the peace of assurance.
Full Assurance
It’s true that someone can be saved and doubt it. One may go to heaven in a mist, not knowing for sure he or she is going, but that’s certainly not the way to enjoy the trip.
God wants you to enjoy that journey. First, consider what the Bible teaches about the lasting nature of salvation. There’s no valid basis for being assured of your salvation if Scripture says it’s possible for you to lose it. We will examine the classic biblical texts affirming the forever quality of salvation but will not ignore the troubling passages that seem to indicate otherwise. Then we will explore two passages that overwhelmingly illustrate in cumulative fashion the security of salvation as a gift of God in line with His irrevocable purposes. All this constitutes the objective grounds for assurance. We’re to be assured of our salvation first and foremost because Scripture promises eternal life to those who believe in Christ (John 20:31). God’s Word and the guarantee of life to believers is thus the foundation of all assurance.
Second, once we’ve established that the Bible consistently affirms that salvation is forever, we need to get personal. As Paul said, we need to test ourselves. The lasting nature of salvation won’t mean anything to you personally unless you are a genuine believer. How can you tell whether you really are a Christian? How do you know if your faith is real? The apostle John wrote his first letter to answer those questions, for they are the same question. He gave us a series of tests to measure ourselves by, and we will take them all. They delve into the subjective grounds for assurance. Their focus is the fruit of righteousness in the believer’s life and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. Note that those two subjective factors have meaning only if they are first rooted by faith in the objective truth of God’s Word. They are vital to our discussion, however, and I will emphasize them in the remainder of the book because most contemporary discussions on assurance focus almost exclusively on the objective grounds for assurance. They minimize or dismiss the subjective grounds, thus robbing an untold number of believers of a valuable source of assurance. Worse yet, in doing so they perpetuate the tragic phenomenon of false assurance.
Third, as we take a closer look at the subjective grounds for assurance, we will see what God’s Word says to the many believers who struggle emotionally with the issue of assurance—in spite of knowing the promises of Scripture. Perhaps you’re one of them: You believe in the security of salvation and that your faith in Christ is genuine, but you are plagued with the insecure feeling of not knowing for sure whether you will go to heaven. For some of you, those times are but fleeting moments; for others, they last a long time; and for still others, they seem like a way of life. Is there any way to overcome that doubt? How can you match up your feelings with your faith? How can you experience the assurance of your salvation?
For a start, it helps to know the different reasons that could lead you to doubt your salvation. That’s how I began my series on assurance from 2 Peter. It’s an honest examination of where most of us are struggling. We don’t want to assume that because we know the facts we therefore experience the reality. That assurance will become more and more real as we understand and apply the virtues Peter described.
After we examine them in detail, we will conclude our study by taking an encouraging look at victory in the Spirit and the promise of God to help us persevere.
To provide hooks to hang your thoughts on, I’ve come up with three simple questions to remind you of the direction of our study:
• Is it a done deal?—what the Bible teaches about the lasting nature of salvation.
• Is it real?—how you can tell whether you are truly a Christian.
• Is it something I can feel?—how you can experience the assurance of a secure salvation.
My prayer is that after carefully considering each area, grace and peace will be yours in fullest measure (1 Peter 1:2). Don’t continue to live with doubts about your eternal salvation. Rather, live with the blessed assurance God wants you to enjoy as His child!
Notes
1 G. C. Berkouwer, The Conflict with Rome (Philadelphia: P&R, 1957), 118–19.