Thousand Oaks Baptist Church
How to Know You’re Saved
Introduction:
If you are a genuine, born again believer, it is your glorious privilege to know that you are saved and have eternal life.
God wants you to have the full assurance of personal salvation. He has made it possible for you to be absolutely sure that you are saved.
And so, in order to examine this matter, we need to consider the answers to three vital questions:
1) What is salvation?
2) What is assurance?
3) How can I have assurance of salvation
I. What is salvation?
First of all, then, the very first question we need to ask is: What is salvation? What is it to be saved? How can I be saved? What do I have once I have been saved?
Salvation is composed of three truths.
A. The first truth is that salvation is being rescued from the condemnation of sin and unbelief. We know that the Bible says that all have sinned, and that no one measures up to God’s holy standard of absolute perfection (Romans 3:23). No one is without sin.
Likewise, we know that the Bible says that the recompense of sin is death (Romans 6:23). The soul that sins shall die (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). This is spiritual death, which is separation from God and from His blessings and His providence for all eternity in the awful Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10-15).
We also know that the Bible says that even now, all those who are lost sinners are already counted as dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). They are separated from God, separated from God’s blessings, separated from the hope of heaven, separated from righteousness.
We said that salvation is first of all to be rescued from the condemnation of sin and unbelief. The condemnation of sin is 1) eternal separation from God and 2) eternal punishment for sin. Salvation is to be rescued from that terrible two-fold condemnation.
B. The second truth is that salvation is to be forgiven of all my sins and justified from all my sin.
Again, we know that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Matthew 14:33; 27:54; Mark 1:1; Luke 1:35; John 1:34; 9:35-37; 11:27; 20:31) and God the Son (Matthew 1:23; John 1:1). We know that He came down to this earth for the primary purpose of implementing the plan of God to forgive us (Luke 7:47-50; 19:10; Acts 5:30-31; 13:38; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 2:13; 1 John 1:9) and to justify us (Acts 13:39; Romans 3:21-24, 28; 4:5, 23-25; 5:9; Galatians 2:16; Titus 3:7).
And that plan of God was that Jesus Christ should pay the awful, infinite penalty for all of our sins in Himself, that He should take our penalty and punishment for sin, and die in our place.
And so the Bible says that Jesus Christ died for the sins of every man, woman, and child who ever was or ever will be conceived in this universe. Think with me for a moment. Man’s present physical like is dependent upon the blood that courses through his veins. The life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11). Now then, the penalty for sin requires a man’s life in the shedding of his blood. But Jesus Christ, the infinite and eternal Son of God, paid that penalty for every sin with the shedding of His own precious blood and by His own death on the Cross (1 Peter 1:18-19).
How could Jesus Christ do that? He could it because God loves you enough to send His Son to do it (John 3:16-18; 1 John 4:10). He could do it because He was the infinite and eternal Son of God; therefore, He was able to bear the infinite and eternal punishment for the sins of the whole world, throughout all of time.
As the result, there is, therefore, now no condemnation for sin left to those who count Christ’s blood as having been shed for them (Romans 8:1). For those who believe that He died in their place, God has fully pardoned their sins. He has forgiven us our trespasses (Colossians 2:13-14), and our iniquities He remembers no more forever (Hebrews 8:12; 10:17).
And in His grace and mercy, God not only counts the death of Christ as being our death, He also counts the perfect, tried, and true righteousness and holiness and purity of Christ as being our righteousness and holiness and purity (Romans 3:21-22; 4:3-6; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:21). As believers, we stand before God in the standing that Jesus Christ has before God, no more and no less. We stand now as beloved children with our loving heavenly Father (John 1:12; 1 John 3:1-2).
C. The third truth is that — wonder of wonders — God also counts us as having been raised from the dead with Jesus Christ. Salvation is to be given new, eternal, resurrection life.
We know that the Bible says that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after He was crucified and buried. He was buried in His natural body; He was raised in His spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44). His spiritual body was a real, literal, hearable, seeable, touchable, smellable, honest-to-goodness body, and it still bore the marks of the crucifixion upon it (Like 24:36-43; John 20:27), but it was now also a spiritual body. What does that mean? It means that Jesus’ body was no longer limited by the natural restrictions of time and space. Time, distance, and material barriers posed no difficulties or hindrances to Christ in His resurrection body.
God says that we, as believers, all of us who have salvation, are to count ourselves to have already, spiritually, mentally and morally, been resurrected with Christ, and potentially bodily (in the future) to be resurrected like unto Christ’s resurrection body (Philippians 3:20-21).
This means that, in salvation, the believer has a new, spiritual nature dwelling in his present body, alongside the old, spiritually dead nature. The new, spiritual nature is in perfect fellowship with God, because that new nature is literally Christ in you (Colossians 1:27). Likewise, God the Holy Spirit has also taken up residence in your body in that new nature, in order to make Christ real to you and to make Christ’s works and attitudes and words operative in your body and in your inward and outward life.
And as you personally and deliberately yield control of your thoughts and words and deeds to Christ, rather than to the old nature, then your life will be changed and cleansed of the old habits of sin, by the indwelling power of God.
And then, when Christ returns (as He promised to), He will change even our humble bodies into the same kind of resurrection body that He has, and the old nature will be put away from us forever.
And so you can begin to get an answer to the question, “What is salvation?”
Salvation began when God in eternity past, in His sovereign will, chose some out of a world of lost and hell-bound sinners to be saved. Those whom He chose, He called to salvation. He invited us to accept by faith the salvation offered to us in Christ. He used many factors and often many people to bring us to that act of acceptance.
That act of acceptance God calls conversion. It was that moment when we repented of our sins and wholly believed that Jesus both died and rose again to save us, personally.
Our repentance was our deliberate act of admitting our sins and our sinfulness. It was sorrow for our sins, because of what they cost God in the death of His Son. Repentance was deliberately and definitely and decisively abandoning our sins and turning instead by faith to Jesus Christ.
Our faith was out whole-soul committal to Jesus Christ. We had confidence that He both willed and was able to save all who come unto God by Him. We believed that He and His work for us were entirely sufficient to save us. We asked Him to save us, and we believed that He did save us when we asked, on the basis of His promise of salvation to all who truly believe and call on Him for salvation (Romans 10:9, 10, 13).
And in that moment, God regenerated us. That is, He gave us a new, spiritual birth into the family of God. In this new birth, He gave us a new nature that transformed the governing disposition of our soul, so that our soul would henceforth move in a Godward direction.
And God also justified us. That is, He pardoned and forgave all our sins. He accepted us as righteous in His sight, in the righteousness of Christ, which He imputed to us on the basis of our faith in Christ, and which we received by faith alone.
And now God has begun the great work of sanctification in us. That inward disposition toward righteousness and toward God that was imparted to us at the moment we were saved has also separated us unto God. And that Godward disposition is maintained and nourished both by our own concurrence and by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
As the result, we want to be like Christ, in all of His righteousness and love and purity and good works. And this process of sanctification if presently conforming us to be like Christ, spiritually, morally, emotionally, and intellectually, as we yield to His control.
And ultimately, at the coming of Christ for His Church, the sanctification process will be completed, as we are then made like Christ completely, to dwell with Him in love and joy and peace throughout all eternity, serving Him and praising Him forever.
That’s the whole picture of salvation in a nutshell.
� Salvation is being rescued from the condemnation of sin and unbelief.
� Salvation is to be forgiven of all my sins and justified from all my sin.
� Salvation is to be given new, eternal, resurrection life.
God offers it to us. We accept it by faith. Then God gives it to us and puts it to work in us. That is salvation.
II. What is assurance?
But then, the second question we need to ask is this: What is assurance?
And the answer is that assurance is that blessed inner confidence in your heart and soul and mind that you really are saved, and that God is keeping you saved, sustaining you in a right relationship to Himself, and that you are eternally secure in the Lord. In other words, it is the confidence that you can never again be lost and go to hell.
One dictionary defines assurance as being safe and sure of it, being certain in your mind, free from doubt with regard to salvation, confidence in both your mind and manner, and freedom from doubt or uncertainty.
Assurance is knowing something for sure.
And with regard to salvation, assurance is knowing for sure that God has indeed saved you, and that you are, therefore, eternally saved, never to be lost again.
III. How can you and I have assurance of our own salvation?
And so now the third question comes up at this point, and the third question is this: How can you and I have assurance of our own salvation?
How can we know for sure that God has saved us and that we can never be lost again? How can I have assurance of eternal security?
The answer is three-fold:
1) First, we may know that we have eternal life by believing the testimony that God Himself has given to us in the Bible concerning salvation and eternal security.
2) Second, we may know that we have eternal life — new spiritual, resurrection type of life — by observing the reality of this new life in our own experience.
3) And third, we may know that we really are the children of God by listening to the witness of the Spirit of God, Who testifies to our hearts that now we really are the children of God, having truly believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now let’s examine each of these three motivations to assurance in closer detail.
A. First, we know that we who have believed in Christ do have eternal life and eternal security and full salvation, because God Himself has testified that we do have it. And God’s own testimony of these things is found in His inspired, inerrant, infallible, divinely revealed Book, called the Bible.
God cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). And every time unbelieving men and women have tried to disprove the veracity of the Bible, they have ended up confirming its truthfulness.
Wherever the plain, historical, scientific, biological, medical, social, judicial, or religious statements of the Bible have been to the test of truth, they have stood the test, every time. Wherever the Bible can be tested, it has been tested, and every time it has been found to be absolutely true and accurate. It is God’s inspired revelation to man, and God has not lied to us.
In John 5:13, the Bible says:
“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.”
In John 20:31, we read this:
“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”
The primary purpose of the Bible is to motivate you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, so that by believing in Him, God could save you and give you eternal life. And then the Bible was also written to give you assurance that God really did save you when you believed on Christ, so that you may know that you have eternal life as a present and unending possession.
In John 3:36, God says this:
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
My friend, if you are a true believer, you continually continue to have eternal life. God started the process for you by choosing you to be saved. Then He called you to be saved. You responded by faith; you believed God and received Christ. And at that instant, God saved you. Salvation was given to you as a never ending possession. God describes what He gave you as everlasting or eternal life.
Now, something that God describes as everlasting or eternal must by definition have no stopping place in time or eternity. When you received Jesus Christ, He came to live in you forever. You are counted as being in the eternal Son of God, as part of His Body. You came to Him, He accepted you into Himself, and now, in John 6:37, He says to you:
“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
Did you come to Jesus Christ? Yes? Then He will never cast you out, once He has accepted you into Himself.
In John 10:28-29, Jesus said this concerning true believers:
“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
We can’t even pluck ourselves out of our heavenly Father’s hand. If we could, that would give us more power than God, and that’s foolishness.
And so, eternal life really is eternal. Eternal salvation really is eternal. It can never stop for those who once have it.
And this is why we have such a great wealth of Bible verses of assurance.
In John 5:24, Jesus said:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
In John 6:47, Jesus said again:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
In Acts 10:43, Peter the Apostle said:
“To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”
In Acts 13:38-39, Paul the Apostle said:
“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.”
God says that our sins are forever forgiven. He says that we are eternally secure in Christ, Who has saved us and Who will forever keep us saved, “… to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy …” (Jude 24).
And so, first of all, we have assurance of eternal salvation by believing the testimony that God Himself has given to us in His Bible.
B. Second, we can know that we have eternal life by observing the reality of this new life in our own experience.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says:
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
You see, if any person is in Christ by believing in Him, then that person is a whole new creation! The old state of things in the life of such a person disappears, it loses its force to control him, and behold, a new state of things comes into existence.
Eternal life is in the holy, righteous, living, loving Son of God. And the new creation that is created in your life and in your experience by the Holy Spirit when you become a new believer, will have the character and the characteristics of Jesus Christ. Your new life will begin to be characterized by holiness, righteousness, life, love, truth, and joy.
In 2 Peter 1:4, God said this through the Apostle Peter:
“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
God tells us that, by believing on His promises in the Bible concerning salvation, we become partakers of His divine nature. That is, we take on His holy characteristics.
A truly saved individual will want to go to a church that preaches the Bible and the whole counsel of God. Such a person will want to read his Bible, study it, know it, and live it. He will want to pray. A truly saved person will want to tell others about the wonderful salvation that he’s found in Jesus Christ.
A truly saved individual will want to put the old habits of sin out of his life. He will want to live a clean, pure life of separation from sin, once he discovers what it is all about.
A truly saved individual will want to fully serve Jesus Christ with all of his heart and mind and soul and body and spirit. He will want to serve God with all that God has given to him by way of possessions, skills, talents, and gifts.
A truly saved individual will want to fully dedicate is life to Jesus Christ. He will want to live in fully yielded obedience to his Lord’s blessed will. He makes Jesus his Lord and Master.
Now, a newly saved Christian may not know about all of this at first, but as soon as it’s taught to him from the Bible by faithful pastors and teachers and Christian friends, he will want to do it God’s way.
1 John 4:16-18 tells us how this new state of affairs makes itself known in another way:
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
And in 1 John 4:7-8, we’re told:
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
Now, this kind of love isn’t lust. It isn’t even the love of pure human affection. Instead, it’s the love that is willing to give all and to spend all to meet the needs of others in need. It’s responsible, sacrificial love. When manifested toward God, this love causes us to obey Him willingly and give up all to follow Christ. When manifested toward Jesus Christ, this love causes you to keep His commandments (John 14:15), which will result in abiding in (living in the middle of) His love (John 15:10). When manifested toward Christians, this love causes us to seek their best good, even though it may cost us all that we have. When manifested toward lost sinners, this love causes us to be tireless and patient and always ready to give out the Gospel message, going where no man has gone before with the Gospel.
This kind of love, manifested in these ways in your life, testifies to the reality of your salvation.
The little New Testament book of 1 John deals with the evidences of being truly saved. If we continually walk in the spiritual darkness of sin and unbelief, then our claim of salvation is a lie, and we are not doing the truth (1 John 1:6). His Word is in us when we admit that we sin all the time (1 John 1:8-10). We know that we are in Christ when His love is matured in us, as evidenced by keeping Christ’s commandments and His Word (1 John 2:3-5; 5:2-3). Not loving either the world or the things in the world is evidence that God’s love dwells in us (1 John 2:15). We know that we are truly saved when the anticipation of Christ’s return gives us a motivation to purify our lives (1 John 3:3). We know that we are truly saved, because we are practicing righteousness (1 John 2:29; 3:10). We know that we are truly saved when we genuinely love other true believers (1 John 3:10, 14, 23; 4:11-12, 20-21). Loving in deed and in truth, by helping other Christians in need, is evidence that we are saved (1 John 3:17-18). We know that we are truly saved, because we truly believe that Jesus Christ was God come to earth in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3). We know that we are truly saved, because we love God for first loving us (1 John 4:19). We know that we are truly saved, because we believe that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 5:1, 11-13). We know that we are truly saved, because we overcome (subdue) the world with our faith (1 John 5:4-5). We know that we are truly saved, because we have the witness of the Holy Spirit in us, assuring us that we are saved when we read verses of assurance (1 John 3:24; 4:13; 5:10). We know that we are truly saved, because we do not practice sin any more (1 John 3:4-9; 5:18). If we know that we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, but we still lack full assurance of salvation, then starting to do these things will give us that assurance that we lack (1 John 3:19), because we ought to live as Jesus lived (1 John 2:6).
And then, in Galatians 5:22-23 and Ephesians 5:9, the fruit of the Spirit is listed:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance …”
“For the fruit of the Spirit is in all … righteousness and truth …”
As these elements of the fruit of the Spirit appear in your new life, you know that you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells every true believer (Romans 8:9). If the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you, then you can’t bear this fruit, and you’ll know that you are not saved. If He does dwell in you and proves it by the fruit, then you know that you are saved.
In all of these things, we know that we have eternal life, because it clearly shows, more and more, in our everyday experience, as we yield to the will of God.
C. And then, third and last, we know that we are the children of God by listening to the witness of the Spirit of God. He dwells in us, testifying to our hearts that now we really are the children of God, because we have truly believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Please understand that this is not to say that we merely feel saved. Emotions are not the witness and testimony of the Holy Spirit. A thrill going up and down your spine or a special feeling in the pit of your stomach is never an indication that the Holy Spirit is testifying to you. You can get those feelings on a roller coaster! There’s nothing particularly spiritual about the glands in your body that release the chemicals that produce these feelings and emotional states of mind. Spiritual love, joy, and peace are not dependent upon how well or how poorly your body functions.
And so, don’t ever depend upon your feelings for assurance of salvation or nearness to God.
The witness of the Holy Spirit is different. The witness of the Holy Spirit is that settled, heart conviction that we really are the children of God, because we have met all of God’s requirements for salvation. We have repented of (turned in sorrow from) our sins, and we have turned in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, accepting Him as our only and all-sufficient God and Savior. The best we know how, we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, calling on the name of the Lord, believing in our heart that He died for our sins and rose from the dead to justify us.
And now we simply believe that God did His part in salvation. You believe that He saved you with an everlasting, all-sufficient salvation, through an eternal, infinite, all-loving, all-sufficient Savior. You believe that God has forgiven all of your sins. And in this belief, the Holy Spirit gives you the settled conviction that these things are true for you. Doubts may still come like gnats on a hot summer evening, but I don’t have to swallow any of them. And the fly swatter of faith is always available.
Conclusion.
You can have full assurance of salvation by taking all three of these evidences for yourself, by faith.
1) The witness of God’s Word.
2) The witness of a transformed life.
3) The witness of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
If all three agree in your life, then doubt no more! Walk in full assurance, knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that God has indeed saved you, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have a wonderful Savior. He has planned and fully purchased for us with His death and His precious blood a great, eternal salvation.
My friend, if you know that you don’t have assurance of salvation, because you’ve never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I invite you to receive Him right now. I invite you to be saved by God’s marvelous grace, through your own personal faith in the death and resurrection and Person of Jesus Christ. Believe now on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved (Acts 16:31).