Blog

Confidence in a Time of Uncertainty: Assurance of Our Salvation

  | 

We are living in a time of great uncertainty and most of us have many questions. How long will this pandemic last? When will life return to normal? What if I (or my loved ones) contract the virus — or pass it along to others? Our lives have been turned upside down and many of us are unsure of what we should or should not be doing each day. Unfortunately, we don’t have answers to those questions, but another more important question someone recently asked that we can answer is this: How can I be sure I am saved and will have eternal life when I die?

We Can Know — and God Wants Us to Know

One of my favorite Bible verses is 1 John 5:13: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” I like this verse so much because it tells us that one of the purposes of John’s first letter is so readers might not just hope or think that they will have eternal life, but will KNOW it. This was the aim for the first readers of the letter and it is the aim for us now. We don’t have to live in uncertainty, but rather can live in confidence. If someone asks us, “If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven?”, it is not presumptuous to say “Yes, I would.” In fact, it is God’s desire for us to have that certainty.

We Need to Know It Is Not By Our Works

This confidence in having eternal life is not because of what we have done or will do. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it very clear that our works can not save us: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”. In fact, our works and actions would lead us not to eternal life but to judgment as Romans 3:10 tells us that “there is no one righteous, not even one” (also see 3:11-18) and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Romans 6 teaches that the “wages of sin is death” (6:23); our works do not earn salvation but rather bring us to judgment.

We Need to Know Through Faith

The Bible does not teach us that our works are worthless for our salvation and lead to judgment to cause us to despair — those points are made to direct our hearts to the way that we can be saved: through faith in Jesus and his works, not ours. We see that in Romans 6:23, as after telling us that sin’s wages (earnings) is death (judgment), it then says “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is a gift to be received, as we receive it through faith as we saw in Ephesians 2:8-9 that says we are saved by grace (a gift) through faith (how we receive it, not by our works). Romans 10:9 and 11 confirm this, saying that “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” and “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 

These inspired words of the apostles build upon Jesus’s words and promises, as he says in John 5:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” When we believe in Jesus – believe that he came to die for our sins and that he lived the perfect life that we should have lived – we move from being afraid of death and judgment to having the promise and assurance of eternal life, knowing God now and being with him forever. This comes through believing in Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life” (John 6:47).

Be Confident in God’s Promises

There are many verses in the Bible that promise eternal life for those who believe in Jesus and that this salvation is promised to us now and will not be taken away. For the sake of time and space, I will share only a few of these verses.

John 6:39-40: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 10:28-29: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

Romans 8:38-39:For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 10:25: “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

These verses remind us again that it is not our works that save us but rather God’s work and promises to us — what a blessed assurance! At times we waiver and struggle, but salvation is not given to us because of the amount and strength of our faith, but rather the object of our faith. It is not about how strong our faith is, but about the strength of whom we believe.

Live and Rest in This Assurance

There are many uncertainties in life — this season is one that magnifies this and reminds us that this is actually always true, not just during a pandemic. Perhaps you are living with anxiety about the future — may that change today. Perhaps you are wondering about eternal things — may you put your trust in Jesus and live in hope and confidence in life and in death. In this season, let’s pray for confidence in our ultimate fate. 

I’ll end with these great words of Jesus found in John 11:25-26 that are an invitation to believe and to have assurance and confidence in all times: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” 

*Note: All Bible verses are from the English Standard Version (ESV) translation.

Questions about the Bible or theology? Email them to Pastor Brian at Theology@WeAreFaith.org. You can also request to receive weekly emails with our blog posts by filling out the information on the right side.

Current Series


Easter

Weekend Resources