To Those Who Doubt Their Own Salvation
There is no more common question in the church than, “How do I know I’m a Christian?” It is a question surrounded by much fear, asked with much longing, bursting from a heart starved for hope. If you have asked that question, I have written this series on assurance of salvation especially for you.
In part 1, I defined assurance of faith. In part 2, I spoke to the Dead and the Deceived. This post, part 3, is for the Doubting. They are those who doubt that their salvation is real and yet are true believers. God in heaven knows them and He doesn’t doubt whether they are His children! But for various reasons—some even somewhat legitimate!—they doubt.[1]
If this is you, there are ten-thousand wonderful things to say to you. But the first is this: the character of God is steadfast love.
The Character of God is Steadfast Love
1. God is a Father who Loves His Children
God is the Father of all believers, and He desires them to be assured of His love. Why does He do this? Because He is our heavenly Father. As a perfect Father, He desires for His children to be assured of their salvation. He is not holding out of us, keeping us at arm’s length, afraid to get too close. He knows literally everything about you—past, present, and future. And He is involved in literally everything in your life. He is loving you, dear child of God, all the day and night. He accomplishes this through many means, but I will cover just three.
His Word
First, He has given us His Word that we may know Him. To be specific, both the book of John and 1 John were written for the expressed purpose of bringing God’s people to assurance.
John 20:30–31 (ESV) 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
1 John 5:13 (ESV) 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.
If you desire assurance, read the Word. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Do you crave the Scriptures? Do you feast your soul upon it? Read, study, pray, memorize, meditate so much so that you can genuinely say with the psalmist, “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). Start with John, then 1 John, then read the gospels over and over to see the majesty of Jesus Christ. Whatever your Scriptural intake, I daresay you—I—need more.
His Spirit
Second, He has give us His Spirit so that would know that we know Him.
Romans 8:15–17 (ESV) 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Every Christian, now matter how big or how small their faith, is indwelt by the Spirit of God. He is the Third Person of the Trinity, and He works in our lives to cause us to bear fruit, to put off sin and put on righteousness, and here in Romans 8, to convince us that we are truly children of God, heirs of salvation. God Himself testifies to you, dear Christian, that you are His.
His Love
Third, He has loved us with an eternal, magnanimous, overflowing, abounding love.
1 John 3:1-2 (ESV) 1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
The New Testament constantly calls Christians “beloved”, i.e. ones loved by God, as a moniker of identity (i.e., 1 John 3:2). God is love, and He has manifested that love by sending His Son to die as a propitiation (a perfect, sin-paying sacrifice) for our sins (1 John 4:8-10). The cross of Christ pours forth for all time irrefutable proof of God’s love for you, dear Christian. He lived, He suffered, He died, for you.
Like a Father
An earthly father wants his children to be secure in his love. A foster dad once told me that when a kid he was fostering first moved in, the kid would secretly stash food away in his bedroom. Why? Because from experience at other homes, the kid had learned that he couldn’t be sure when his next meal was. He had to fend for himself. But this foster dad is a member of my church, a man of great love, and with tears in his eyes he expressed, “He doesn’t have to do that. All I have is his! I love him!”
If an earthly father has that sort of love towards his children, does not our Heavenly Father love us even more? He desires us to believe that the most solid, secure, immovable thing in our entire world is His steadfast love, to be assured that we are His and He is ours. God is a Father who loves His children.
2. God is a Savior who Loves to Save
In addition to being a Father to His own, God is also a Savior who loves to save. After all, God has only one “natural” son—Jesus, the Son of God. Everyone else is an adopted child. How did all these sinners get into the family? God Himself welcomes them, with arms wide open.
Now we know intuitively that God is holy, opposed to sin. He is the judge of all the earth, and He will judge rightly. We know this from Scripture but also from our conscience; even when no one on earth sees or hears our sin, the weight of guilt and shame crushes us.
But even as God is opposed to sin, He welcomes sinners to His family. That’s scandalous! How? Because He is, by nature a Savior, a Savior who loves to save.
Ezekiel 18:31–32 (ESV) Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”
The very first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the book of Mark are “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Why does He say that? Because “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). God loves to save. He chose us—undeserving, wretched sinners—in Christ before the foundation of the world for salvation, that we would be holy and blameless before him” (cf. Eph 1:4). The adopting of undeserving sinners into the holy family of God was not a reaction, not an accident but an eternal plan designed in the mind of God for His fame and glory—and our good.
Even after becoming a Christian, you will still sin. Honestly, sometimes we will sin in worse ways than unbelievers. We have more light! We are more responsible! We know the love of the Father, the grace of Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit and yet we still sin! We’re terrible! But you, dear Christian, are broken, humble, contrite because of your sin—and you come to God.
Psalm 51:17 (ESV)
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
I Will In No Wise Cast Out
Maybe you have been wandering in the shadowlands of doubt and fear for so long you can’t even imagine a way out. Listen to Christ: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). John Bunyan wrote in his “Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ” on John 6:37—
“But I am a great sinner, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I am an old sinner, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I am a hard-hearted sinner, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I am a backsliding sinner, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I have served Satan all my days, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I have sinned against light, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I have sinned against mercy, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.
But I have no good thing to bring with me, say you.
"I will in no wise cast out," says Christ.”
So come! Come to this glorious Christ! You are a great sinner, but Christ is a great Savior. He is more merciful than you ever dared hope, more powerful to save than your sin is powerful to damn, more mighty than your stubbornest sin, more patient than you could ever imagine, more wise than your deepest rumination—and He says to you, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).
Robert Murray McCheyne wrote:
Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in His beams. Feel His all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in His almighty arms.[2]
God is a Savior who loves to save. Christ is that Savior. In some sense, it doesn’t matter whether you are dead, deceived, or doubting; regardless, your greatest need is to see Jesus Christ.
God Himself Rejoices in Salvation
If you are a weak Christian, a feeble Christian, or not even a Christian, God welcomes you. In Luke 15, the shepherd seeks his lost sheep.
Luke 15:5–7 (ESV) 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’
The woman seeks her lost coin.
Luke 15:9 (ESV) 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’
The father loses his son.
Luke 15:20 (ESV) 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
What do they all have in common? When they found what was lost, they rejoiced! They celebrated! When God brings a sinner home, what happens? He delights, rejoices, celebrates ! Our God is a happy God, a happy God who loves to save.
Footnotes
Beeke details eleven reasons many Christians lack assurance: (1) our history and present experience of sin, (2) false conceptions of God’s character and His gospel, (3) lack of clarity on justification by faith, (4) lack of confessing Christ, (5) disobedience and backsliding, (6) ignoring of satisfying evidences of grace, (7), possessing a doubting or negative disposition, (8) conversion in early childhood or gradual conversion, (9) looking for the wrong kind of experience, (10) lack of acknowledging what God has done, (11) being attacked by Satan. (Beeke, 25-41).↩︎
Andrew Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1966), 293. Accessed at https://www.thetrails.org/blog/post/for-every-look-at-yourself-take-ten-looks-at-christ. ↩︎