How Do You Know if You’re Really Saved?
I’ve been going to church before I was even born. While I was growing up, my parents took me to the same church every Sunday all the way until I moved out for college. And as I grew up going to church, I doubted my salvation constantly. Most Sundays, at the end of the sermon, my pastor would invite any unbelievers in the congregation to pray a prayer with him—a prayer of salvation—asking Jesus into their heart. I would always pray that prayer, just in case the last time “hadn’t worked.”
But no matter how many times I prayed, and how earnestly I prayed it, if I was honest, I had no peace. Did it work that time? How could I know if I was really saved? I knew Jesus was a real person, that He really rose from the dead, but was I real? Was I really a Christian?
In my grade at church, we had around 40 kids in Sunday school. Today, only a few of us are believers. In fact, of the hundreds of kids who have come through my church and its basketball program, there are probably less than a few dozen who are real Christians.
Can I ask you a scary question? What about you? If you call yourself a Christian, are you sure your faith is real? Is your Christianity a faith that will last until Jesus takes you home, or is it just a passing phase, a temporary trend, a fleeting fancy to be replaced by something else when you move cities or get a new job or have a big life event?
I teach the youth ministry at my church, and most of my youth have grown up in the church. They know the gospel and the Bible memory verses. They’ve been taught well; I often tell them that their theology is better than many adults. But when I ask them if they are Christians, they pause. They can’t yet say with confidence, “Yes, I know I’m a Christian.” Therefore, they waver and they live—in their own minds—in limbo between Christian and unbeliever.
Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’re not sure whether this whole Christianity thing is just something you actually believe or just something you inherited. You might be involved in church in lots of different ways, but you can’t get rid of that nagging thought in the back of your mind: “Am I real? Do I actually believe this stuff?” Perhaps you’ve heard of people who left Christianity, and you’re wondering, “Well if she wasn’t a true Christian, am I?”
What will happen when you move away from home? Will you go to church on Sundays or will you live like an unbeliever? What if something bad happens to your family; will you trust God then? What if God doesn’t respond to your prayers like you think He should? Will He be your delight then?
These are the doubts that plague us, that weigh us down. But there is good news. Doubts die when they’re dragged into the light; faith flourishes when we bask in the light of Jesus Christ.
This post is the first in a series all about what theologians call “assurance of faith.” My hope is that by the end of this series you will know what true assurance is and will be on your way to growing in true assurance by gazing upon Jesus Christ.
Understanding Assurance
Definition of Faith
What does it mean to have true assurance of faith? First, we must define faith.
2 Corinthians 4:6 (NASB95) For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
On the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. In a similar way, God has shone the light—not physical light, but salvation light—in the heart of sinners to make us believe.
Have you ever seen a sun rise over the mountains? When the light shines, it illuminates the rivers and creeks, the rocks and hills, the trees and plains. The light shines so that you can see, so that you can know what beauty looks like.
Well, in salvation, God shines the light in your hearts to make you see. See what? 2 Cor 4:6 says, “the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” God’s glory—His worth, His beauty, His magnificence, His kindness, His love. In other words, believing—having faith—means that you see God for who He really is. How? By beholding Jesus Christ. And seeing the glory of God, you want Him.
You want Him because you see that He is more worthy than everything else, because you see that He alone is what you need. You see that He is the only Savior, and you know that you need Him as Your Savior. You see that He is the way, the truth, and the life; and you know that you need Him to be your way of living, your truth for reality, your life and happiness.
That’s what faith means. You see God for who He is, and desire/trust/rely/embrace Him. Now notice, faith is not a flimsy, fanciful thinking. It’s not based on emotions. It’s not manifesting some reality that you really want but have no basis for. In fact, Hebrews 11:1 (NASB95) says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Assurance is related to the word sure; conviction is related to the idea being convinced. Believing God means you bank all that you are on who He is and what He has said. Believing/faith is trusting, relying, depending, being convinced, being confident in God.
A Definition of “Assurance of Faith”
Now that we have defined faith, we can define assurance of faith. I’ll give three definitions, from simple to complex:
Assurance of faith means you know you know. You know you believe.
Assurance of faith means you are are confident—through Scripture, the testimony of the Holy Spirit, the evidences of grace—that in Christ you have eternal life.
Sinclair Ferguson says, “Assurance is the conscious confidence [“I know I know”] that we are in a right relationship with God through Christ. …It is the confidence that we have been justified and accepted by God in Christ, regenerated by his Spirit, and adopted into his family, and that through faith in him we will be kept for the day when our justification and adoption are consummated in the regeneration of all things.”1
Conscious confidence means that assurance of faith is experienced. You know. This is subjective—that is, based upon personal experience. Note that Ferguson’s definition has a ton of theological language—Justified and accepted by God. Regenerated by His Spirit. Adopted. Through faith kept until the consummation of all things. This means that assurance of faith is founded upon truth, upon knowledge. This is objective—based upon external, biblical truths, unchanged by feelings and daily life.
In other words, a true assurance is based upon reality—both subjective reality and objective reality. It is a subjective reality in that it is experienced by you (i.e., “I believe that I am a Christian, I experience the results of salvation, I act/think/live like a Christian”). And, it is an objective reality defined by God (i.e., “this is what a Christian is, this is what it means to be a Christian”).
The Duck Test
Let’s say you stole something from me, and I were to get mad at you. So I hire a wizard, and that wizard turns you into a duck.
Now, how would you know if you were actually a duck? Well, maybe you’d first look down. Are my feet webbed? You’d look at your hands; are they actually wings? Maybe you’d try to smell. Can ducks smell? Do I smell like a duck? Then, you’d try to talk; do you quack like a duck?
These are subjective tests, interpreted through your experience. They’re not made up out of thin air, but they depend on what you do, feel, and see as reality. Useful. But what if you’re wearing virtual reality goggles? What if you’re just dreaming? What if someone hypnotized you into thinking you were a duck? Would you actually be a duck? No. To know for sure you are a duck, you need something more than just what you experience to come to assurance about your duck-ness.
Let’s say the great wizard who made you a duck says, “And now, you are a duck. And my sacred book of truth says, ‘If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.’” And then I tell you, “You are a duck!” That objective reality that has nothing to do with your interpretation or experience; it is the authority of another, someone greater than you—and the book he trusts.
So your subjective experience says you’re a duck, and objective reality says you are a duck. Guess what? Sorry, buddy. You’re a duck. Assurance of duckness means you know you’re a duck. You need both subjective experience and objective reality to be sure. Either one alone is not enough.
Coming back to reality, to summarize, what is assurance of faith? It’s knowing you know and believe the gospel. It’s confidence in the reality of your salvation. It’s the conscious confidence that you are in a right relationship through Jesus Christ because of both a subjective reality (your experience) and objective reality (God’s truth). Your experience tells you you’re real and God’s Word tells you you’re real. Both are necessary.
Four Kinds of People
Now that we’ve defined assurance of faith, what does it mean for us? Regarding assurance, there are four kinds of people in the world:
The Dead: unbelievers who do not believe and who know they do not believe.
The Deceived: professing believers who do not believe and yet have assurance that they believe.
The Doubting: professing believers who truly believe and yet lack assurance that they truly believe.
The Delighted: professing believers who truly believe and have consistent assurance that they do truly believe.
Notice that three groups think they are real Christians, but only two groups actually are. Notice that the deceived are the opposite of the doubting: the deceived think they’re saved but they’re not, and the doubting doubt they’re saved but they are! Of course, the question is, which group do you belong to? The dead, the deceived, the doubting, or the delighted?
We’ll define each of these categories a bit more in the next posts.
Footnotes
Sinclair B. Ferguson, ‘The Reformation and Assurance’, The Banner of Truth, cf. p. 30 fn. 1, no. 643. (Apr. 2017): 20. Quoted in Joel R. Beeke, Knowing and Growing in Assurance of Faith (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2017), 15. ↩︎
Reflection Questions
Have you ever doubted that your faith was real? What was that experience like?
Do you think someone can think they’re a Christian and yet not be? How is that possible?
How sure are you that you are real?