We are still on one of the great subjects of Soteriology; this one is called The Assurance of
Salvation. This is one of the main teachings of the New Testament, salvation by the grace of God. It is such an important matter that one may say there is hardly a matter in the New Testament, in regard to personal salvation, that is any more important than the assurance of salvation. That is, next to being saved by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the new birth, and regeneration—which we have discussed—the most important thing is the believer knowing that he has been saved eternally and is the present possessor of an everlasting life that will never fade away, never die out, and never be taken away from him. God is not an Indian-giver. He doesn’t give and then withdraw. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29), and one of the gifts of God is eternal life, for “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
This matter of assurance of salvation is of such tremendous importance that it separates forever Bible-believing Christianity from the world’s religions, Bible-believing Christianity from “Christianity,” and Bible-believing Christianity from Pentecostal Charismatic experiences.
Only to the Bible-believing Christian is it said that we are “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6) and that we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). This marks forever the difference between the person who is “counting on his experience” or “sharing his faith with peace, love” or “praising the Lord” and doesn’t know for sure where he is going when he dies and the born-again, Bible-believing Christian whose new birth has not been based upon a fleshy experience but is based upon the acceptance of the finished work of Jesus Christ dying on Calvary’s cross.
If we are “in Christ,” then we ought to have the full assurance of salvation. Many church people do not believe it is possible to be sure of salvation right now because their teachers and preachers are forever messing them up in Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews. Many Christians feel it is sacrilegious to say that you can know you are saved. They feel that way because they have been following blind leaders of the blind who don’t know where they are going themselves.
If a man could be saved by works, these people would be correct to doubt their salvation, because no man can do enough works to be sure of salvation. You would have to keep on working, and furthermore, the quality of the works would need to meet a standard, and the standard would shift. That is, you people who are counting on your own works to save you, we understand why you don’t know you’re saved. YOU NEVER WILL KNOW. If you are going to spend all your life in James chapter 2 and Hebrews chapter 6, you are never going to know for certain.
The people who know they are saved are the people who are not trusting their works to save them but are trusting the finished work of Jesus Christ. Salvation is a gift (Eph. 2:8) which a man receives, and when he does he possesses salvation, possesses Christ, and Christ possesses him. He is not at the point of falling out of Christ’s hand or apostatizing or being given over to a reprobate mind. He has nothing to do with a verse in the Bible talking about unsaved professors of religion. HE IS PART OF CHRIST’S BODY AND HIS BONE AND HIS FLESH (Eph. 5:30) and is predestinated by the foreknowledge of God to be CONFORMED TO THE EXACT IMAGE OF JESUS CHRIST (Rom. 8:29).
God said if you received His Son that you are part of His body, bone, and flesh, and your final
destination by the fiat and decree of God is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To have
assurance of salvation is to be absolutely confident, to know that you are saved and know that if you
die suddenly you would go immediately to Heaven. This is the thing that sets off Biblical Christianity
from “Christianity” so-called. Assurance of salvation is possessing salvation, possessing the Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation is eternal life. It is the life of God. It is a divine life that could not possibly have an ending because it had no beginning. If a man possesses eternal life, he is saved. He is saved for time and for eternity, for the divine nature that he partakes of is eternal life. Christ said, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). Paul said, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).
Who may have assurance of salvation? Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Taoists, Buddhists? Of course not! They are counting on their works to save them. Who may have assurance of salvation? Moslems, Rosicrucians, Communists, Atheists, Agnostics? Of course not! They are counting on their works to save them. No man who is counting on his own righteousness to justify him will ever have assurance of salvation because his own conscience is a witness against him that he is not telling the truth.
The Lord told Cain, “If you do good, will you not be accepted?”
Cain said, “I’m doing the best I can. “
And the Lord said, “Okay, then, why didn’t I accept you?” (Gen. 4)
Do you know why the Lord didn’t accept Cain? Because he was not doing the best he could. He lied about it. The best he could do was not to offer his own works, his garden vegetables. The best he could do was offer the blood. “The life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11). The life of the flesh was in the blood of that flock God gave Abel. All Cain had to do was ask Abel for a sheep. “Ask, and it shall be given you” (Matt. 7:7). He was too proud to ask for a sheep.
What is the basis of our assurance? Why is it that many of us born-again, Bible-believing people know we are saved, and many of you who profess to believe the Bible don’t know you are saved? What is the difference? Well, the difference is the basis of our assurance. Can our assurance be based on feeling? Of course not. Our feelings change. Satan might control or influence our feelings. For example, Satan might counterfeit the Holy Ghost, or he might counterfeit the baptism of the Spirit, or he might counterfeit the apostolic gifts.
You are wasting your time being assured of your salvation if you are looking to your feelings. Your feelings are as flexible as the weather. Health, weather, circumstances, and environment all affect your feelings.
God has given us three things upon which to base our assurance of eternal life and eternal
security:
1. The witness of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Previous to conversion the Spirit will have been convicting of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come, but now His ministering has changed. In a born-again believer, the Holy Spirit speaks peace to the soul and grants an inner rest that confirms to the individual that he really belongs to Jesus Christ now. Paul says “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). The Holy Spirit is a witness to the believer that he is part of God and God is part of him.
2. We base our assurance on what God said, the word of God. This is the most infallible, unchangeable thing, and this is why all people who doubt their salvation have more than one translation of the Bible. This is why all people who want to base their salvation on their experience instead of what God said never have one record of what God said: they have about a dozen records that conflict. This is why in the last days the body of Christ will not endure “sound doctrine but will
heap to itself teachers, having itching ears, and turn away from the truth and be turned unto fables.” The Bible says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num. 23:19). Yes, He will make it good.
3. The Bible says one assurance of salvation is, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). We love every other born-again, saved, blood-washed child of God. That doesn’t mean we love and are associated with or connected with every person who professes the new birth. These are the brethren, not professing Christians. Anybody knows that profession is often counterfeit. Christ said about some people that talk about doing everything in the name of Jesus, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not...in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:22–23).
The born-again, Bible-believing Christian is a “new creature” in Christ, and this is manifested in new affections, new likes, new dislikes, new loves, and new hatreds. It isn’t just new love. New hatreds are included. If you don’t hate right now some of the things that you used to love before you were saved, you have good reason to doubt the assurance of your salvation.
There are people in the town in which you live that will insist on works as a part of their salvation by quoting James chapter 2, and they will trust that you will never check to see who James is written to so you never find out the devilment they’re up to.
When you hear an unsaved preacher, elder, priest, bishop, apostle, or evangelist stand up and say, “Faith without works is dead. You see how a man is justified by works and not by faith only,” you are dealing with a man who is trying to pull a verse out of the context, trusting that you won’t check on him to see where he got it from. And you will keep right on doubting your salvation with him.
Do you know why some of you folks doubt your salvation? Because you were never saved to start with. You went down to the altar and took something and experienced something. You spent the rest of your life talking about “the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost.” Let me ask you this: Did you receive Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour? Do you truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour? Now, if you can answer a definite “yes” to both questions, then on the basis of the word of God you are saved whether you know it or not, appreciate it or not, feel like it or not, enjoy it or not.
It is not a presumption to believe the word of God. It is presumption not to believe the word of God. And when God says you are saved, it is sinful wickedness on your part to call God a liar. That Bible says in 1 John 5:10–11, “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar...And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”
Assurance of salvation will make you a much stronger Christian. Assurance of salvation is not presumption or pride, although unsaved preachers will say this. It is simply believing what God said, as God said it, where He said it. To say, “I know I am saved” requires humility, for it can only be done by God’s grace and mercy. When you say that, you have confessed that you are not good enough to get to Heaven by your own works and that, but for the grace of God, you’d be in Hell.
The proud man is the man who says, “I hope I’m saved,” because he is counting on his works to save him, and when he says, “I hope I’m saved,” he is implying that his own good works have some part in his salvation. They do not. It is God who saved me. It is God who keeps me. It is God who will get me home to Heaven. It is God who will conform me to the image of His Son. The work is of the Lord, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: It is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). God forbid that any of us should boast, save in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom we are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to us.
Source: Theological Studies Vol. II - Assurance of Salvation by Dr. Peter S. Ruckman
How to go to Heaven? Find out in the short video below
GOD's Simple Plan of Salvation
If you were to die today for any reason, are you 100% sure you will go to heaven?
This video explains the SIMPLE TRUTH according to the Scriptures. The only way to go to heaven is by:
(1) Admitting that you are a sinner
(2) Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior and Lord
(3) Repenting (meaning you are willing to turn away from your sins) of your sins then confessing your sins to God
Jesus Christ willingly sacrificed Himself and shed His precious blood on the cross as a substitute for you, so that you don't have to burn in hell for all eternity because of your sins, and have eternal life in heaven instead.
Watch the video to learn what Scripture says of God's great plan of salvation for you and how to receive His free gift. This is wonderful news. We pray you surrender to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and to know 100% for sure you will go to heaven when you die!
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“And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Luke 4:4)