“That You May Know” – How to be Sure and Certain of Your Salvation

Four Possibilities

• I do not have eternal life, and I know that I don’t.
• I do not have eternal life, but I think that I do.
• I do have eternal life, but I feel uncertain and insecure.
• I do have eternal life, and I have biblical, confident assurance.

“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.”
(1 John 5:13, ESV)

Five Tests

1. Do I God’s ?

³ And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. ⁴ Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, ⁵ but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: ⁶ whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (2:3-6)

2. Do I make a practice of continuing in ?

⁹ No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. ¹⁰ By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (3:9-10)

3. Do I other believers in the body of Christ?

¹⁴ We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (3:14-15)

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (4:7-8)

4. Is there evidence of the in my life?

And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.  4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. (3:24b-4:3)

5. Do I confess that Jesus is the Son of God, do I him as my Savior, and am I following him as my Lord?

¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (4:15)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. (5:1)

¹¹ And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (5:11-12)

Two Questions

1. What about those who prayed a prayer or walked the aisle or were baptized long ago (as a child or youth) but in whom there is little or no evidence of the life of Christ now?

“You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16a, ESV).

2. What about those who were once actively involved in the church but have now fallen away?

¹⁹ They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (2:19)