ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE SAVED?

Wouldn't it be terrible to “wake up” in death to discover that you are not in Heaven but in Hades' Hell? Hebrews 9:27: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Our sequence: 1. death; then 2. judgment. What if you are not then “in Heaven”? Perhaps, what is more terrible is that you thought you would be surely in Paradise with Jesus, in the bosom of Abraham (Luke 16:22), but are discovering you had been wrong. You are in Hell!

Jesus said that this would be possible! Mark 7:22, 23: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? [But His response:] And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

There will be many that think they have been okay and with Jesus, but they will discover that they were actually never even in fellowship with Him. What devastating news! And with no hope for a rescue in the future. Your destiny is announced as final and sealed. You are lost forever in a miserable hell.

But what about those of us now alive and are declaring that they know they are saved. How confident can a person actually know whether he is saved?

A CHIEF PURPOSE of 1 John is to inform us to how we may “know”^G1492 whether we are saved.

The Spirit from Jesus through the apostle John writes this to believers: “These things I write unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13). Believers can know (εἴδω^G1492) if they are saved from reading these writings. That is, we can “see, perceive, [and] understand^G1492” whether we are saved. Not just simply perceive [as in another "know" verb ginosko], “but know with settled and absolute knowledge” (Vincent's Word Studies). Robertson's Word Pictures likewise comments, “He wishes them ... to know that they have it, but not with flippant superficiality.” This Greek word eido “is related to the word for 'see' and often describes the kind of knowledge that results from observation. You can see the reality and know it to be true.” ⁱ

Similarly, John began the epistle by saying, “[T]hat which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write, that our joy may be made full” (1 John 1:3-4).

One can be certain if one is saved! How? By having fellowship with the writer John. We must actually have fellowship with John's group. If we are in fellowship with John and them, it naturally follows as a conclusion that we are in their extended fellowship with the Father and Jesus. While we are alive, we can know whether Jesus “knows” us and whether we are saved in His fellowship.

This is a "KNOWING" THAT GIVES JOY. 1 John 1:4 “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” No doubting it; we can actually have a complete^G4137and “satisfied” joy, "calm delight^G5479" in our knowing. This is confirmed to us by God's Spirit through the writing of the apostle John.

Criteria whereby we can know that we are saved.

1. ARE WE REBORN?

First of all, are we believers who have been "born again"? John mentions this rule several times in this epistle: 1 John 2:29, 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 5:4, 5:18.

In John 3:5 we are told that Jesus taught Nicodemus about the new birth rule: "Except a man be born [again, verse 3] of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” On the day of Pentecost, the first believers were saved and were added to the church (Acts 2:47; "kingdom", Colossian 1:18) when they repented of their sins, were baptized in water and received the Spirit's words from the Spirit empowered apostles (Acts 2:2, 38, 41; 10:47).

The apostle Peter wrote of the rebirth. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God [from God's Spirit, v. 22]” (1 Peter 1:23). The word of God is from the Spirit conveyed through Jesus' apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3:3-5).

John's first epistle emphasizes the requirement of "born again": “[If] Born again, one does righteousness” (1 John 2:29). "Those who are God's children do not continue to sin, because the new life God gave them stays in them. They cannot keep sinning, because they have become children of God” (1 John 3:9, NLT). One does not choose to sin when the Word “seed” remains in him. And yet, he cannot say he is "perfect" in a sinless sense, because he must truthfully confess his sins so that Jesus as His advocate to the Father can wash away those sins (in 1 John 1:8). This is "walking in the light" as Jesus is "in the light" (v. 7).

2. ARE WE MODELING JESUS IN OUR WORDS AND ACTIONS?

Our actions reveal our salvation status and whether we are "in Jesus."

Those of us who are new born souls can know (cf. 5:13) whether we have fellowship with God and therefore are saved by what we say and also what we do.

a. Are we walking in the light as revealed by Jesus' Spirit through the apostles? This is described by John as habitually not sinning; 1 John 1:6, 7; 3:6; 4:6.

b. Yet, we must not assert in pride that we do not sin at all (1:10). For it is our constant fight in the world. For example, the tempter, the devil, only left Jesus on Earth until the next season ("of opportunity", Luke 4:13). But Jesus never succumbed. Our aim to follow His example.

c. This aim: We must grow to being totally like Jesus, "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). It's a “growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord” (2 Peter 3:18).

d. The Spirit enjoins the criterion for our new life as (a) faithfully and actively obeying God's commandments in the Faith (1 John 5:4 and Jude 3) along with (b) demonstrating the love of Jesus in our living (1 John 4:7, 5:1, 4, 18).   Jesus declared during His earthly ministry that "the first commandment" even in the Old Testament was loving God with all one's being and the "second" was equal as "loving our neighbor as thyself" (Mark 12:30, 31). These are always binding (e.g., 1 John 5:2, 4:7 and Romans 13:9).

THE REALITY OF THE MATTER. Are we truly saved? “If we truly love others and live as Christ did in this world, we won't be worried about the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17, CEV).

Do not worry whether we are perfect enough and sinless enough in order to be presented to God but rather are we steady in life's contest by living consistently by the sacrificial love of Jesus. Be grateful that we have such an advocate as Jesus, God's Son. When a person with such a remarkable history as Paul professes, before his death, that salvation was still his goal, should we not be likeminded as he in our assessment of ourselves?

"No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14, NLT).

______________ GAYLON WEST edited by Janie Ward and Mary West