Dear Friend,
As I understand it, you are convinced of your salvation because of the commitment you made to the Lord Jesus Christ many years ago. That could well be. When Jesus Christ saves, He does it for eternity. However, some of your relatives doubt your salvation or are convinced you are not saved. This is the main reason for my letter.
I
want to give you a list of biblical parameters that will help you know for a
certainty one way or the other. The same will help others know of your
salvation, but not with the same degree of certainty. I can be sure of my own
salvation. I cannot be sure of someone else’s salvation in the same way.
However,
I can doubt someone else’s salvation without being guilty of “judging.”
Here is why.
1
Corinthians 5:12 says, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside
the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those
outside.”
The paragraph on judging is in Matthew 7:1-5:
Do not judge or you
too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged,
and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at
the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in
your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of
your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first
take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the
speck from your brother’s eye.
Two more texts before we get to the means of knowing you are saved:
Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are His” and “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” (2 Timothy 2:19)
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:11-13)
God
knows, and you can know!
Here
are several biblical means of knowing.
1.
Love for the brothers. 1 John 3:14 and 1 John 4:20: “We know we have passed
from death to live, because we love our brothers.”
Loving
our brothers is not the means of passing from death to live. It is a
means of knowing that we have already passed from death to life.
Non-Christians
love non-Christians.
Christians
love non-Christians.
It
takes a Christian to love a Christian.
One
of the first evidences of new life in a newly-converted person is he delights
in being with other Christians. He could not stand being with them before his
conversion. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God
whom he has not seen.”
This
love for our brothers in Christ is an assurance of our salvation. It is also an
assurance to others that we are Christians. Jesus said it this way in
John 13:34-35: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved
you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are My
disciples if you love one another.”
If
I do not love my brother, all men have a good reason to doubt that I am
a follower of Jesus.
2. Change of character. Galatians 5:19-24:
(List 1) “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn, as I did before, that those that live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
(List 2) “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”
The
question that needs to be asked is this: Do the characteristics of list 1
describe me the best, or do the characteristics of list 2? If the first list
describes me the best, then I am not a Christian, and I will not inherit the
kingdom of God.
What
about my conversion experience? If my experience does not get me out of list 1
and into list 2, then my experience was spurious. Jesus does a better job of
saving than that. You may say, “Then there are not many real Christians.” That
is a true statement. Real Christians have been saved out of the works of the
flesh into the fruit of the Spirit.
3.
Spiritual understanding. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the
things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and
he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor.
2:14).
Did
the Bible become understandable to me after my conversion? Yes, it made much
sense. Did it make sense before my conversion? No, and I had read it daily for
eighteen months.
4.
Obedience to God. “We know that we have come to know Him, if we obey
His commands” (1 John 2:3). Our increased obedience is an evidence that we have
come to know Him. if I have not become more obedient, then it is doubtful that
I have been saved.
5.
Increased discipline from God. “In your struggle against sin, you have not
yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the
word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: ‘My son, do not make
light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He
accepts as a son.’ Endure hardship as disciplines; God is treating you as sons.
For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and
everyone undergoes discipline) then you are illegitimate children and
not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us for a
little while as they thought best, and we respected them for it. how much more
should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! … God disciplines us
for our good, that we may share in His holiness. No disciplines seems
pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of
righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews
12:4-11).
This
text says several things. 1) I should resist sin to the point of death. 2) If I
do not resist and do sin, God will discipline me. This discipline will be a) an
encouragement, b) painful, c) for my good, my holiness, righteousness, and
peace, and d) proof of my sonship.
If
I do not get disciplined for sin, it will be proof that I am not a son of God.
There
are two normal ways God disciplines us: our conscience (Romans 13) and the
police (also Romans 13). If our conscience is not sensitive and we do
not get caught by the police, then it is evidence that we are not Christians.
Here is a review:
·
We must judge those inside the church, those who
say they are Christians. We must be spiritually qualified to make the
judgement.
·
God knows who the real Christians are.
·
Christians must depart from wickedness.
·
Evidence of the new birth: love for Christians;
change of character; spiritual understanding; obedience; discipline.
If
the opposite is true, then you should doubt your salvation.
There
is one other possibility. “But if anyone does not have them [the fruit of the
Spirit] he is nearsighted and blind and has forgotten that he has been
cleansed from his past sins” (2 Peter 1:9). If that is the case, then
confession of sin is necessary, as in 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.”
Also, we have this teaching in Hebrews 5:
In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (vv. 12-14)
I hope this gives you a description of a basic Christian life. I would love to hear from you.
In our Lord Jesus Christ,
Jim Wilson
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