{"id":6739,"date":"2019-06-10T14:30:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T19:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedisciplemaker.org\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2019-06-10T14:30:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T19:30:07","slug":"10-assurances-of-eternal-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/06\/10-assurances-of-eternal-life\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Assurances of Eternal Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It is normal for a Christian to have occasional doubts about salvation. Persistent doubts, however, are a source of major concern. And although no doubts should be ignored, chronic worries about salvation must be resolved.
\nConversely, it is typical for non-Christians to think they are safe when they are not and for them to have a vain hope\u2014a false assurance of salvation.
\nWhere do we turn for assurance? Oddly enough, even though we learn about God and Jesus and salvation in the Bible, Christians are tempted to go to other things for assurance of biblical salvation. They will look to experiences or rituals or parents or pastors for assurance. But the Bible not only tells about salvation, it tells us where to look for assurance of salvation.
\nThe Bible tells us that assurance of salvation rests primarily in the character of God, the work of Jesus Christ, and the truth of God\u2019s promises.
\nBeyond that, Romans 8:16 tells us that assurance of salvation may be experienced partly through the internal work of the Holy Spirit convincing Christians that they are children of God.
\nAlthough this is a biblical and precious experience available to Christians, it is sometimes problematic. That\u2019s because, by nature, this type of assurance is inward, subjective, and individual. We can easily deceive ourselves into thinking we have heard the Spirit\u2019s voice. And it is also easy for some Christians (such as those who struggle with depression or those who have never had the assurance of much human love) to doubt if they\u2019ve really heard the voice of the Spirit assuring them of God\u2019s love. So Scripture tells us of another source of assurance:
\nAssurance may be experienced partly through the presence of the attitudes and actions the Bible says will accompany salvation.
\nIf you are concerned about the assurance of your salvation, the book of the Bible you want to read and reread is the first letter of the apostle John. As we noted earlier, the expressed purpose of this letter is to help believers gain the assurance of salvation. \u201cI write these things,\u201d says John, \u201cto you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life\u201d (1\u00a0John 5:13). In 1\u00a0John we are told of at least ten attitudes and actions that consistently characterize Christians only. So if you want to know if you are going to Heaven, examine yourself in the light of these evidences of true Christianity.
\n***<\/p>\n

1) Do you share the intimacies of the Christian life with other believers?<\/h3>\n

***
\nWe read the following in 1\u00a0John 1:6-7:<\/p>\n

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Particularly note verse 7. It says two things are true of us if we walk with God in the light. The second one is that we are forgiven of our sins. But before that it says, \u201cWe have fellowship with one another.\u201d One mark of people who walk with God and are forgiven is that they have fellowship with other Christians.
\nThe word fellowship comes from the Greek word koinonia, which means \u201cto share together with.\u201d In the New Testament it means that followers of Christ talk about and live the Christian life with other Christians. It goes beyond mere socializing, although Christians do a lot of that, too. Biblical fellowship includes discussing and participating together in the intimacies of Christian living, such as prayer, Bible study, ministry, and especially discussion about God and the things of God. It involves verbalizing spiritual victories and failures, sharing scriptural insights, and asking questions of each other\u2019s walk with God.
\nDoes this describe you? If you love exchanging insights about the Bible and Christian living, if you hunger to learn from other believers so you can grow in grace and get closer to Christ and live more in obedience to Him, then you are a believer.
\nNon-Christians certainly aren\u2019t like this. They emphasize how their faith is a private thing. They believe one\u2019s relationship to God is too personal a matter to discuss openly. On almost all occasions\u2014even at church\u2014they\u2019d rather talk about the news, work, sports, politics, their children, or their hobbies than about Christian living or how the Bible relates to these things.
\n***<\/p>\n

2) Do you have a deep awareness of your sin against the Word and love of God?<\/h3>\n

***
\nIn 1 John 1:8, 10, we read the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. . . . If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everyone will admit to not being perfect, but that\u2019s not what these verses mean. This involves more than just a willingness to acknowledge that on occasion we have been wrong. Growing Christians are scarcely able to do or think anything without seeing their sin in it. They know that if sin were blue, everything they said, did, or thought would be at least some shade of blue.
\nThey recognize the selfishness in their hearts, even when they do the best and most benevolent of deeds. They know the sinfulness of their thought lives right in the midst of some of their most Christlike actions. They are aware of the darkness of the sin inside them when they outwardly model goodness and light. They know that even when they are closest to Christ and most like Christ, sin is still splattered over them like mud.
\nChristians feel this way because God\u2019s Spirit lives inside them. The illuminating Spirit progressively opens God\u2019s pure law to them, and they increasingly see their inconsistency in keeping it. The convicting Spirit shows them that their sin is more than just human failure; it is sin against the Word and the love of God. The glorifying Spirit gradually draws the veil on the character of a Holy God to them, and they discover just how far short of God\u2019s glory they are.
\nRichard Baxter, another English Puritan and contemporary of John Bunyan, wrote a famous and still-printed book about Heaven called The Saints\u2019 Everlasting Rest. <\/em>In it he said this about the awareness of sin as a sign of salvation:
\nI think, if I could stand and mention all the other marks of grace,\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. it would appear that the life and truth of all of them lieth in this one.[i]<\/a>
\nDoes the Spirit of God make you aware that your sin violates God\u2019s revealed Word? When you sin, do you feel like children who grieve, not because they\u2019ve done wrong and may be disciplined, but because they feel like they disappointed their Father? If so, then you are a Christian. Strange as it seems, those who feel sin most deeply are those who feel most forgiven (see Luke 7:36-50, especially verse 47; 1\u00a0Timothy 1:13-15).
\n***<\/p>\n

3) Do you live in conscious obedience to the Word of God?<\/h3>\n

***
\nConscious obedience as evidence of salvation is found frequently in 1\u00a0John, but is most clearly expressed in 2:3-5:<\/p>\n

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says \u201cI know him\u201d but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A woman told me a relative of hers had died. I asked if he was a Christian. She said, \u201cOh, yes, he made a profession of faith and was baptized at age seven. He never went back to church or read the Bible in the seventy years after that, but I\u2019m sure he was a Christian.\u201d
\nSuch a claim is astonishing in light of the statements in these verses. We \u201cknow him if we keep his commandments.\u201d No one but Jesus has ever perfectly and consistently obeyed the commands of God; nevertheless, obedience to the Word of God characterizes the lifestyle of a disciple of Jesus. And anyone who \u201cdoes not keep his commandments is a liar\u201d about being His disciple.
\nJust as coming to Christ is done consciously, so is living daily in obedience to God\u2019s Word. What the apostle John refers to in this passage does not happen accidentally or unintentionally. Those who know Christ aren\u2019t aimless; they purposefully obey Him.<\/em> They become learners of His Word and set out to obey it. Despite frequent failures, they persevere.
\nI often hear new and growing believers talk about obeying God. Sometimes they\u2019ll say how they\u2019ve come to realize that something they\u2019ve done (or not done) for a long time was disobedient to God\u2019s Word, but now they are consciously obeying. Or they\u2019ll say how much they want to obey God\u2019s will in a situation but aren\u2019t sure yet what it is. Concern for obedience to God is Christian; carelessness is not.
\nDo you seek out the Word of God, and do you find yourself compelled to obey it? Do you consciously and intentionally try to live out what you encounter in the Bible? Then in the words of 1\u00a0John, know that you have come to know God.
\n***<\/p>\n

4) Do you despise the world and its ways?<\/h3>\n

***
\nNotice 1\u00a0John 2:15: \u201cDo not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.\u201d
\nWhen this verse speaks of \u201cthe world,\u201d it\u2019s speaking of the world system and not God\u2019s creation. It refers to the world without God: the ungodly ways and things that characterize the world.
\nUnbelievers love the world and plunge into it because it\u2019s all they know and have. And the more they realize they won\u2019t be here forever, the more they immerse themselves into the world to find meaning, hope, pleasure, and satisfaction. They discover, of course, that the world can\u2019t fill the holes in their hearts, but they keep trying because they don\u2019t have anything else (unless they come to Christ).
\nDespite their endless dissatisfaction, worldly people (that is, non-Christians) do love the world. Their greatest loves are in things where God is not central. These things may be cultured and refined or they may be lewd and base, but they are pursued without thoughts of God. Non-Christians will love sports, sex, money, property, work, travel, retirement, children, hobbies, television, education, politics, computers, art, grandchildren, collecting, reading, music, shopping, or any number of things more than God. The world finds the church and the things of God the most boring things imaginable. At best it finds them much less meaningful than other things. And the people of the world can\u2019t understand why we don\u2019t get as excited as they do about the things that delight them (see also 1\u00a0Peter 4:3-4).
\nChristians, however, feel less at home in this world the more they grow spiritually. They also look increasingly toward their true and eternal home, the Celestial City.
\n***<\/p>\n

5) Do you long for the return of Jesus Christ, and do you long to be made like Him?<\/h3>\n

***
\nIn 1\u00a0John 3:2-3, John spoke of the second coming of Jesus:<\/p>\n

Beloved, we are God\u2019s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christians can hardly wait for Jesus to fulfill His promise to return to the earth (Matthew 24, 26:64; John 14:3). The ones who know Christ often think, I wish He would come today. <\/em>Trying to imagine the glorious place where they will spend eternity, Christians daydream about what life will be like in \u201ca new heaven and a new earth\u201d where Jesus reigns (Revelation 21:1). Like a bride anticipating her wedding day, so those who are part of the bride of Christ\u2014the church\u2014expectantly await their union with Jesus at His return.
\nPart of the believer\u2019s expectancy about seeing Christ is in becoming \u201clike him.\u201d At that moment, the Bible says, \u201cwe shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye\u201d (1\u00a0Corinthians 15:51-52). The same chapter talks about the splendor, glory, power, and immortality of the new spiritual body to be given to God\u2019s children. With it will come the complete and final deliverance from sin\u2019s presence that the Christian groans for.
\nThe result of anticipating the return of Jesus, according to 1\u00a0John 3:3, is that the believer \u201cpurifies himself as [Christ] is pure.\u201d I remember hearing as a child that I shouldn\u2019t do anything I would be ashamed of if Jesus returned and found me doing it. Such talk must sound old-fashioned today, for I haven\u2019t heard it in years. And of course, the Lord knows now, not just at His return, when we do something wrong. Still, this attitude should represent the heart of a Christian, young or old.
\nDo you sometimes look at the clouds and visualize Jesus\u2019 triumphant arrival? Have you mused about looking into His radiant face and being transformed? Do you ever longingly wonder what it will be like never to think another sinful thought or commit another sinful act? If you do, take heart, for unbelievers don\u2019t often or seriously think of these things. These things are the Christian\u2019s dreams.
\n***<\/p>\n

6) Do you habitually do what is right more and sin less?<\/h3>\n

***
\nJohn wrote the following in 1\u00a0John 3:7-8, 10:<\/p>\n

Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All people do some things they would consider righteous and some things they wouldn\u2019t. So it\u2019s easy for most people to believe they are righteous because they do some things that appear righteous. But much of the meaning of these verses turns on the word practices. <\/em>Each time it\u2019s used here, it\u2019s in the present tense, referring to patterns and habitual action. So \u201cWhoever practices righteousness is righteous\u201d doesn\u2019t mean that a Christian can never commit acts of sin. Instead it means that Christians are those who, throughout their lives, habitually do what is right more and sin less.
\nThis life change is not found merely in the power of Christians\u2019 own resolve\u2014it is because of the work of Christ for them and the power of the Holy Spirit within them. \u201cWe know that our old self was crucified with him,\u201d wrote the apostle Paul in Romans 6:6, \u201cin order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we should no longer be enslaved to sin.\u201d When people give their lives to Christ, those people instantly are forgiven of the guilt of sin, and the enslaving power of sin is broken so that it gradually loses its grip on their lives. Complete liberation from the presence of sin doesn\u2019t occur until death (or the Lord\u2019s return, whichever is first), but an overall tendency toward obedience is present now for the children of God.
\nPastor and author John MacArthur explains the difference between the Christian who \u201cpractices righteousness\u201d but sins frequently and the non-Christian whose life is a pattern of sin:
\nI frequently receive letters from anguished Christians who doubt their salvation because they can\u2019t seem to break a sinful or unwise habit. They most often write about smoking, overeating, and masturbation. They fear their struggle with such things means they are locked into a pattern of sin. But John is not saying that the frequent occurrence of one particular sin in a person\u2019s life means that person is lost.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. A person who rejects God\u2019s authority doesn\u2019t care what God thinks about his habits, and is obviously not a Christian. A Christian, however, has a drastically different way of relating to God.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. A true Christian can still sin, and may even do so frequently, but sinning frequently is not the same as practicing sin.<\/em> In 1\u00a0John we see that a true believer can do the first, but not the second.[ii]<\/a>
\nIf you hope you are a Christian, look at your life this way: Over the past few years, has it been your habit to do what is right more and more and to sin less? Can you point to specific things and say, \u201cI believe I am living by God\u2019s Word more than I was some time ago; I know I customarily do more of what I know God says is right than I used to. And I think that overall, the habits of my life are less sinful than they used to be\u201d?
\nNotice that the emphasis in these verses isn\u2019t on what a Christian does not do\u2014the emphasis is on what he does. <\/em>Some people, as we said before, feel spiritually secure primarily because of the things they do not do. But when the Bible talks about assurance, it emphasizes what\u2019s on your \u201cto do\u201d list as much as what\u2019s on your \u201cnot to do\u201d list\u2014what\u2019s on your list of loves as well as your list of hates.<\/p>\n