How can I have assurance of my salvation?
Answered from the commentary of Edward Dennett, J. Wilson Smith, George Cutting and 6 others
Assurance of salvation comes by trusting alone in Jesus Christ and resting on God’s Word about Him, not on your feelings, experiences, works or changing inner condition. If you have renounced your own works as a ground of salvation and trust in Christ alone, you may know that you are saved, because God’s Word says that the one who believes in the Son has everlasting life. This assurance rests on Christ’s finished work: He bore our sins, and God raised Him from the dead, so the believer is justified and has peace with God. Therefore, take God at His word: the believer has everlasting life, has passed from death unto life, and shall not come into condemnation.
Do not look to fluctuating feelings for certainty; let peace follow from believing God’s testimony, and look to Christ and His work as the ground of your confidence. The Holy Spirit also bears witness with the believer’s spirit that they are children of God, forming the affections of a child and enabling the cry, “Abba, Father”; this witness is more clearly discerned in a walk of loving obedience. Good works and holiness are the fruit of salvation, and a careless or sinful walk grieves the Spirit and weakens the enjoyment of assurance; they are not the ground on which salvation is settled. The passages agree that one who truly believes in Christ is eternally safe, while warning that outward profession without real faith is no assurance of salvation.
Verses: 1 John 5:11, 1 John 5:12, 1 John 5:13, John 5:24, John 6:37, John 6:39, John 6:40, Romans 8:1, Romans 8:16, Romans 8:28, Romans 8:29, Romans 8:30, Romans 8:38, Romans 8:39, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 1:14, Ephesians 2:8, Ephesians 2:9, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 10:27, John 10:28, John 10:29, Hebrews 7:25, 1 John 2:3, 1 John 2:4, 1 John 2:5, 1 John 2:6, 1 John 3:14, 1 John 3:19, 1 John 3:20, 1 John 3:21, 1 John 3:22, 1 John 3:23, 1 John 3:24, 1 John 4:13, 1 John 5:1, 1 John 5:18
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
Only the Word of God can give certainty as to salvation. Redemption is secured through the work of Christ. Since He performed the work that was required, we need not worry. The certainty of our salvation derives, through faith, from the declarations of the Word of God. We are called to behold “the salvation of the LORD” and to stand still, resting fully on the many passages of the word such as Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” and John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.”
If we have not "the words of God," we have no basis for faith, and must therefore be tossed about with irremediable uncertainty; but having divinely-given communications, we have on their authority divinely-given certainty as to eternal salvation. By it we have present assurance, founded on the redemption-work of our Lord Jesus Christ, that our sins are forgiven, that we have eternal life, are the children of God, and shall not come into judgment. (Acts 10:43; John 3:36; Gal. 3:26; Rom. 8:1.) If such are asked why they believe on our Lord Jesus Christ? and why they have such certainty as to their present and eternal blessings? their reply will be "Because God in His word says so, and faith needs no other authority for confidence, and no other rest for the heart and conscience."
Now, observe that the knowledge of salvation is derived by the believer from the word of God. That word is the alone source of information on the point, and is, thank God, quite sufficient, and if sufficient it satisfies him who believes it. He who thus accredits the word of God is consequently freed from all doubts respecting the certainty of his salvation.
Therefore, my beloved reader, if indeed thou hast renounced thine own works as a ground of salvation, and hast, through the Spirit of God, accepted the “precious blood of Christ” as thine only title, learn that the word of God bids thee know that thou art saved. Yea, thou art saved, thou hast eternal life. “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life” (John 3:36), so that thou mayest go forth in the calm and “full assurance of faith” to live a life of joy, of holiness, and spiritual activity, waiting till thou shalt see Him, who loved thee and gave Himself for thee, who liveth now at God’s right hand, from whence He will quickly come to take thee and all His blood-bought people to dwell with Himself for ever.
Yes, my reader, nothing can be so sure as the word of the living God: "Be it known to you that through this risen man, Christ Jesus, is preached to you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses." "Are justified" — not may be after death. No, the believer is now beyond death, Jesus having died for him. If you are brought to give up all self-righteousness, and as a lost sinner to receive Christ as your entire salvation, you may be most certain you are saved. A person may be deceived in doing and enduring anything to save himself, but no man will trust alone in Christ, but, by the Holy Ghost. If this is your faith, you may be certain it is of God. You may be certain, therefore, you are saved. If you are trusting partly in Christ, and partly in something else, you never on that ground can be saved. It must be all Christ, or no Christ at all.
How many believers on the Lord Jesus are held in bitter bondage of soul, sometimes for long years, by the fear that it is presumption on their part to take the ground of being sure of salvation. But to believe God is surely no presumption. On the other hand to refuse to believe God’s testimony is indeed presumption. How honouring to take God at His word. Here is one passage of Scripture out of many, that makes it abundantly plain that we can know for certain, that believing on the Lord Jesus we are saved, and that the very moment we believe. We read,
"There is nothing more wanted to make you safe," I replied. "If you have really believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, YOU ARE AS SAFE AS HE CAN MAKE YOU. Not one poor sinner who trusted in Him was ever lost. But it is one thing to be safe, and another thing to be sure about it. What you need is to have assurance, and this you may have on the authority of the Word of God."
Thus we have seen that the blessed Person of God's Son wins my confidence. His Finished Work makes me eternally safe. God's Word about those who believe on Him makes me unalterably sure. I find in Christ and His work the way of Salvation, and in the word of God the knowledge of Salvation.
Such is the divine order. First, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; secondly, knowledge of salvation, or assurance, as it is sometimes termed, from belief in the word of God; and lastly, peace as the consequence of knowing that I am saved. Take a simple illustration. If I owe a debt of one hundred pounds, and have not wherewith to meet it, I shall be under constant concern and anxiety. If however a friend comes and says, "Be under no concern for the debt. I have discharged it," my anxiety will instantly cease, if I believe his word, not otherwise. So is it with our knowledge of salvation. If I believe in Christ Jesus, I shall know that all God's claims against me have been satisfied, and consequently I shall have peace, if I believe His word, and in no other way. It is most important to apprehend this point; for many, making "assurance" to depend on feeling, are continually in a state of disquiet and unrest. But when we see that the foundation of our confidence lies in the immutable truth of God, we shall never doubt our salvation, whatever the chequered character of our inward experiences. The fact indeed is too often lost sight of (as pointed out in another chapter), that the ground of our peace is entirely outside of ourselves, in the work of Christ for us; and hence the eye is turned inward, instead of outward to His cross, His precious blood. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through out Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1).
Many true believers have doubts and fears about salvation, not having in their souls the assurance that God gives in His word. The woman in Luke 7 would not have the slightest doubt on this question after the Lord said to her, "Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace." Nor should we have the semblance of a dread, for the Scripture tells us that "God — has saved us." (2 Tim. 1:9). The word is not "may save" or "will save," but "has saved." But we need to be preserved amid the dangers and snares of the world, and for this the Lord Jesus Christ has become our Great High Priest; and as such "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7:25).
Verses
- 1 John 5:11–1311And this is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. 12He that has the Son has life he that has not the Son of God has not life. 13These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God.
- John 5:24Verily, verily, I say unto you, that he that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me, has life eternal, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.
- John 6:37All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I will not at all cast out.
- John 6:39–4039And this is the will of him that has sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up in the last day. 40For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on him, should have life eternal; and I will raise him up at the last day.
- Romans 8:1[There is] then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.