Our Assurance of Salvation 1 Jn. 5:13 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
Our assurance of salvation is based upon the Bible; it is not based upon a feeling we have or a doctrine of man. Getting saved is easy. It is simply a matter of believing what Jesus Christ said and believing what he has done for you. When Christ came to the earth, he led a perfect, sinless life. Then, he died on the cross and resurrected from the dead. His death and burial satisfied God’s judgment on sin. His resurrection showed that he beat death and sin. In true biblical salvation, God charges Jesus Christ with your sin and exchanges your unrighteousness for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Therefore, a saved person in God’s eyes has a perfectly righteous life (the life of Jesus Christ), and has been justified (declared not guilty by God’s judgment). See 2 Cor 5:21 and Rom 5:8-9.
When you get saved, God wants you to know for sure that you are saved and he doesn’t want you to doubt it. So, John wrote in 1 John 5:13, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” God would not have written that if he did not want you to have assurance of salvation.
The two biggest enemies of assurance of salvation are sin and self-righteousness. Once you have truthfully trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, uncontrolled sin will make you believe that you’re not saved. Furthermore, self-righteousness will cause you to believe there is something more that you must do to maintain your salvation. You will always wonder if you have done enough to keep you saved. At times, you will stand in doubt of your salvation.
You should be able to examine yourself and prove to yourself that you are saved. Paul said in 2 Cor. 13:5, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.” The trouble with doubting your salvation comes up when you start looking at your own sin and your own righteousness. Both can convince you that you are not saved or that you have lost your salvation. Only by studying what the Bible says and believing it will you be able to overcome your doubts.
There are several ways that you can have assurance of salvation. Our assurance of salvation is based upon:
The Bible – 1 John 5:13. The Bible is the only place to get faith. You must put your faith in the facts of what God said and not in your feelings. If you have received Christ, then you are a son of God (John 1:12) based on what God said. Study the Bible (2 Tim 2:15). Oftentimes a Christian will have enough faith to get saved but will not study to increase that faith. When you continue to study and read the Bible, your assurance of salvation grows.
The Blood – Col. 1:14. You must realize that when Jesus Christ shed God’s blood on the cross, he satisfied God’s wrath for sin forever. The sins that you committed before you got saved and the sins that you have committed since you’ve been saved are covered by his blood (Acts 20:28; Heb 10:10-12).
The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus – Acts 17:31. The fact that Jesus Christ came literally, physically out of the grave assures us that once we have trusted him for our salvation, we too will come up out of the grave (1 Thes 4:13-18). Our resurrection is not dependent upon what we do but upon what he has already done for us.
The Baptism by the Spirit – Rom 8:16. When you get saved the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of your body (1 Cor 6:19-20). By his presence in you, he bears witness that you are a child of God. Does he bear witness to that fact in your life? Based on 1 Thes 1:5, the Holy Spirit gives you power to do things once you are saved that you could not have done before you got saved. You may not always experience this power or yield to his work. However, there are times when he unmistakably accomplishes something in your life that you could not do or would not have done as an unsaved person. This gives you assurance of salvation.
The Benefit of Righteousness – Isaiah 32:17. When you receive Jesus Christ, you also receive his righteousness (Phil 3:9; Rom 6:12-14). When that righteousness is at work in you it gives you peace, quietness and assurance. Simply trust Christ’s righteousness and not your own. Your own righteousness will always be filthy by comparison to his (Isaiah 64:6).
The Brethren – 1 John 3:14. Christians can be particularly hard to love before you are saved. Once you receive Christ, though, your attitude toward Christians generally changes. That’s one way you know you’re saved.
Conclusion: These six things will give you assurance of salvation. If you will study them carefully and believe what God said about them, then you will have assurance of salvation against all doubt.