How Can You Be Sure of Your Salvation -- Part 1

“Test yourselves to see if you are of the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians. 13:5). My wife pointed out last week that my article, “Are You Sure of Your Salvation,” might be received in one of two ways. She suggested some might misunderstand and conclude I am teaching a works oriented salvation—nothing could be further from the truth! Then she suggested others might believe I am teaching one can be saved and then lost—a biblical impossibility. Maybe you concluded something different. But the truth is I purposely left out any application from the previous article in order to cause you to stop, think about and evaluate your own life, and determine if indeed you are counted among the redeemed. My reasoning is that there is no more as important an issue than that of one’s eternal destiny. A lot of things in this life we can get wrong—but not this. So I will ask you again, are you sure of your salvation? And I will follow up with this question—how do you know? How can you be sure of your salvation? Paul wrote, “Test yourselves to see if you are of the faith.” I believe the Bible teaches several ways we can test ourselves to see if we are of the faith. Some of these ways are objective, others subjective. I will discuss three in this article, others in future articles.

First of all, does the Holy Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you belong to God? In other words, do you experience the internal work of the Holy Spirit? Paul wrote, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). John wrote, “We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 John 3:24). He later wrote, “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13). The first thing that happens to us at salvation is the Holy Spirit indwells us, forever sealing us as children of God (see Eph. 1:13-14). Elsewhere, the Bible refers to this indwelling, occurring at the moment of salvation, as the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 11:16; 1 Cor. 12:13). This baptism of the Holy Spirit is not some “second blessing” that comes later but is something that occurs at the very moment of salvation, when one believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that believers have the Holy Spirit indwelling them gives evidence of salvation. So, does the Holy Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you belong to God? Paul wrote, “I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).

Secondly, do you believe and obey God’s Word? I do not know how many professing Christians I have met that express doubt in God’s Word or only give it lip service. One of the primary identifying marks that you are a true born again believer in Christ Jesus is that you believe God’s Word and obey it. John wrote, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected” (1 John 2:3-5). I cannot help but think about some people I know who believe because they walked a church aisle and prayed the “sinner’s prayer” they are saved—never mind they do not believe and obey God’s Word. Notice John said, “By this we know Him.” It is by our faith in and obedience to God’s Word that we know we belong to God.

A third way of testing yourself to see if you are of the faith is that of being sensitive to your sin. Do you have a continual sensitivity to the sin in your life or do you just live any way you want to live, assuming you will go to heaven when you die? A true believer is sensitive to the sin in his or her life. John wrote, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). If you are able to sin against God in a continual, habitual way then it is highly possible and quite probable you do not know Him—or worse, He does not know you. This is the case with many so called believers who think they are right with God because they walked a church aisle or prayed the “sinner’s prayer”, were baptized or had some charismatic experience but do not give evidence of a changed life. About these, John wrote, “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” (1 John 2:19). “Test yourselves to see if you are of the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you fail the test?” (2 Cor. 13:5).