IS IT POSSIBLE TO NOW KNOW THAT WE ARE SAVED?

 

        

One friend wrote that we cannot have any assurance that we are saved until it’s all decided at the final judgment. If this is so, we will live a tortured existence until that time. However, John had assured us that we can know that we have eternal life:

·       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)

First of all, it is evident who is not saved – those who make a practice of sinning, the unrepentant:

·       Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil…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. 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. (1 John 3:8-10)

In contrast, we can know that we belong to God because we love His people:

·       We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. (1 John 3:14)

Love does not mean that we are not tempted by resentments and jealousies. However, we repent of these motives and attempt to honor God by acts of love. The fruit of Biblical love is obedience:

·       And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:3-4)

John offers other ways that we can know that we belong to the Savior. We listen to His Word given by His Apostles:

·       We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:6)

This means that if we seek the truth through the Scriptures, we are a “spirit of truth.”

The knowledge that we are saved is essential. It is the knowledge that He truly loves us that enables us to love and to serve Him:

·       1 John 4:10-11 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

If we do not know that He loves, it will be hard for us to love others and to even love God. For years, as an Augustinian Monk, Martin Luther lacked this knowledge and was tormented. He failed to understand the Good News that salvation was a free gift of God to those willing to entrust their lives to God through Jesus. Instead, he believed that he had to be spiritual enough in order to merit God’s favor. As a result, he later admitted that he had hated a God who he believed might reject him. It wasn’t until he grasped the meaning of the verse “and the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17) that his hatred was melted into a love for God. He subsequently wrote:

·       “I felt that I had been born anew and that the gates of heaven had been opened. The whole of Scripture gained a new meaning. And from that point on the phrase, 'the justice of God' no longer filled me with hatred, but rather became unspeakable sweet by virtue of a great love.” (Commentary on the Book of Galatians)

His life illuminates the fact that we need to know that God loves us so much that He died for us even while we were still His enemies:

·       but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11)

If He loved us enough to die for us even when we were His enemies, how much more now! But what do we have to do to receive His free gift? Our Lord has made it so easy that any who call upon the Him will be saved:

·       Romans 10:12-13  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is also the assurance that Jesus has given us:

·       Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24)

We do not have to wait until the great judgment to know that we are eternally saved. We can know this now!

It is hard to live a robust Christian life without confidence that we are saved:

·       Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-23; Ephesians 3:12)

Such confidence enables us to walk in love:

·       Hebrews 6:11-12 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

From my own experience I know what it is like to lack such confidence. It is utterly devastating. I thank God that over the years He has granted it to me.

For many of us, coming to this knowledge or assurance might be a slow process. The Apostle John acknowledged that many of us have doubts:

·       By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19-20)

Even when we are eternally saved, our heart may condemn us. However, our feelings mustn’t be our ultimate standard. God is that standard. Therefore, we have to assure our hearts by His Word and by noting the increasing fruits of the Spirit in our lives in terms of our obedience to His teachings:

·       And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us... (1 John 3:23-24)

This is the fruit of His Spirit. It is this knowledge that casts out the fear of judgment (1 John 4:16-18). If you lack this confidence, just continue to pray. Such prayer is according to His will and will be answered (1 John 5:14-15).

IS SALVATION POSSIBLE APART FROM FAITH IN JESUS?

If there is there is another way to get to heaven apart from faith in God through the Messiah Jesus, Scripture has been absolutely silent about it. According to the New Testament, to believe in other ways to heaven is to deny the absolute need of the Cross of Christ:

·       I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:20-21)

If it were possible to merit (earn) our salvation by following a set of laws, principles, or even loving duties, then Christ died in vain. And if He died in vain, then all that He had suffered to fulfill God’s righteousness and to demonstrate His overwhelming love for the world was also in vain, a needless and costly display. The availability of multiple means of salvation would also invalidate Jesus’ teachings:

·       “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24)

·       Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28-29)

·       “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24)

Doesn’t the insistence on only one way to heaven make God unjust? It is not right that God would hold humanity accountable for something they cannot believe in! However, Scripture tells us that we are all accountable, since we all know the truth:

·       For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things…Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:20-23, 32)

Therefore, the problem isn’t a matter of a lack of evidence but a willful rejection of the evidence, both objectively perceived and subjectively experienced:

·       For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16)

Consequently, we all know the truth of our guilt and our need for the pure mercy of God procured by Jesus dying in our place on the Cross:

·       Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things…Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:1, 4-5)

However, we suppress the truth that we are under the wrath of God and invent many counter-narratives:

·       God doesn’t exist,

·       God only deserves my hatred,

·       God is love and would never condemn me,

·       I am a truth seeker, but the evidence is simply unavailable, or

·       I am a good person.

Admittedly, substitutionary atonement is an offensive teaching, which runs against our grain. There are many non-Christians who seem to be more deserving of eternal life than we. However:

·       …For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:22-24)

We all need the mercy of God. Anyone who denies this self-evident truth is in the deepest denial. Such is the human race!

FAITH, LOVE, AND ETERNAL LIFE IN THE PENTATEUCH

According to the Bible, faith is not a blind leap into the darkness but a rational and confident step into the light of the evidences. It had always been this way. When God encountered Moses through a burning bush, He instructed him to return to Egypt to liberate His Israelite slaves. However, after being humbled as a shepherd for 40 years, Moses was reluctant, but raised an important objection. Why should the Israelites believe that he had had a genuine meeting with God? Perhaps Moses just imagined it or was deceiving the Israelites.

God didn’t tell him to tell the Israelites, “Just believe!” Instead, He provided Moses with proofs that God was actually going to lead them out of Egypt:

·       The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—“that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” (Exodus 4:2-9 ESV)

These and many other miracles were not only performed before the Israelites but also before nations. Whenever Israel’s faith was beginning to flounder, Moses would remind them of these undeniable signs and proofs witnessed by the entire nation.

As impressive as are the miracles and revelations of the Bible, I find that the things that God didn’t say equally impressive. In contrast with other religious writings, the Bible never told Israel that they were superior to others. Instead, He continued to warn then against thinking this way (Deuteronomy 7:6-8; 8:17-20; 9:4-7). Nor did God ever compliment their spiritual progress. Instead, He criticized Israel far more than He did other nations. This makes the Bible highly unusual among religious literature.

God is also a God of secrets (Deuteronomy 29:29). Nevertheless, they are still embedded in His revelation to Israel, the Bible. While God had revealed to Israel that they would be blessed for their covenant faithfulness, they would also suffer for their unfaithfulness. However, the Law, the Books of Moses, never made explicit mention of a hell or a promised heaven for their faithfulness. Such a revelation was conspicuously absent. Nevertheless, these Books offer cryptic evidence of the existence of an afterlife. Jesus had pointed out one evidence of this during God’s encounter with Moses at the burning bush. Against the Sadducees who denied the existence of an afterlife, Jesus thundered:

·       “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:29-32)

From the Scriptures, Jesus reasoned that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still existed because God is (not “was”) still their God. However, the Five Books of Moses offer other hints of the existence of an afterlife. Because of Moses’ sin, God would not allow Moses to enter into the Promised Land. Instead, He informed Moses: “you are about to lie down with your fathers” (Deuteronomy 31:16).

Did this mean that he would be buried alongside of his ancestors? This was not possible. Instead, he was to be buried by God in an unknown location on Mount Nebo:

·       “And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 32:50-52)

How would Moses be “gathered to [his] people” if no one knew where he was buried?

·       and he ]God] buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. (Deuteronomy 34:6)

If Moses couldn’t have been physically “gathered to [his] people,” it must have been spiritually! This means that Moses and his ancestors still existed, as Jesus had indicated.

One last indication of eternal life in the Pentateuch (Five Books of Moses): It is God, not the Levites (the priests), who would make atonement for Israel’s sins. The sacrificial system imposed under the Mosaic Law seems to have been adequate in accomplishing a superficial, this-life, forgiveness of sins. However, it seems that, ultimately, a deeper forgiveness, requiring a more substantial atonement was necessary, an atonement or ransom that only God could provide.

God had instructed Moses to teach a song to Israel that would convict them of their unfaithfulness and its consequences. However, the song ended with hope, a promise of atonement, even for the entire world:

·       "Rejoice, O nations, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And will render vengeance on His adversaries, And will atone for His land and His people." (Deuteronomy 32:43 NASB)

The Levites couldn’t have provided this atonement, otherwise, there would not have been a need for God to provide it (Job 33:24). However, the atonement (ransom) that God would provide would make the difference between eternal life and death:

·       Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit. (Psalm 49:7-9)

This had remained God’s greatest secret. There was only one object upon which even the High Priest could not look without being smitten with death. It was the atonement cover of the Ark, located in the Holy of Holies, surrounded by the wings of the cherubim, lest anyone see it. It represented the only thing that could satisfy (propitiate) His wrath and utterly eradicate our sins. In view of such a secret, it is not surprising that the High Priest could only enter the Holy of Holies once a year, on the Day of Atonement, and only after providing the most careful preparations:

·       And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony [the Ten Commandments], so that he does not die. And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. (Leviticus 16:12-14)

The mercy seat, which covered the Law, protecting us from the death required by our sins (Romans 6:23), represented the Gospel, the Good News, the hidden Glory of God, awaiting its revelation at the Cross:

·       And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23-24)

Amazing, God’s glory was a matter of experiencing the most excruciating and humiliating death. However, only this would prove God’s love for us.

Why did the Father conceal this great mystery until the Cross? Perhaps this story might help. After I had become a supervisor at the NYC Department of Probation, I idealistically thought that if I was totally transparent with my subordinates about my commitment to fairness and justice that they would reciprocate. However, they mistook kindness for weakness and tried to take advantage. Consequently, I had to bring charges against two of them. As a result, they hated me, and I hated them.

In contrast, Joseph waited for just the right time to reveal himself to his brethren who, perhaps 30 years earlier, had sold him into slavery. I trust that God also had His reasons for waiting.

HOW CAN I BE SURE THAT I HAVE BEEN RECEIVED BY THE SAVIOR?

We need to know who we are, specifically, that we are children of our Savior. The late and esteemed Rabbi Abraham Heschel had claimed that we need to know why we are here, and this includes the need to know who we are:

·       It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Taking this a step further, we also need to know that we are loved, valued, and esteemed by our Creator. Once we know this, we can begin to accept ourselves, despite our many failures and rejections.

Psychologist James Hillman had written that the way we think about ourselves is also the way we feel about ourselves:

·       We dull our lives by the way we conceive then…By accepting the idea that I am the effect of…hereditary and social forces, I reduce myself to a result. The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim. I am living a plot written by my genetic code, ancestral heredity, traumatic occasions, parental unconsciousness, societal accidents.

If we are merely the accidental result of our environment and our genetic inheritance, it will be difficult to feel good about ourselves and to find any satisfaction that we have a purpose in this life, apart from passing on our genetic material. The problem is compounded if we believe that we are just a member of the animal kingdom, no more valued than a mosquito.

 

Satan also understood that we need to know who we are. He therefore tried to make Jesus doubt His divine self-identity, at the time of His greatest vulnerability, at the tail end of fasting for 40 days:

·       And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:3 ESV)

And again, the tempter:

·       said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:6)

Only after it became apparent that the tempter was unable to shake Jesus from His self-understanding, he issued his secondary temptation:

·       Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9)

There is nothing as crushing as a blow to our self-identity. Even more importantly, after we have surrendered everything to follow Jesus, we need to know and to be assured that we are truly His. Jesus also understands that we have a crying need to know, in this world of constant disappointment and suffering, that we have been given a grand commission and inheritance. Therefore, in the next chapter, He called His disciples to aside to explain to them how blessed they are:

·       “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3)…they shall inherit the earth (5:5)…for they shall be satisfied (5:6)…they shall see God (5:8)… they shall be called sons of God (5:9)…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (5:10)…your reward is great in heaven” (5:12).

Scripture gives us many assurances of our blessedness. Paul assured the Church:

·       See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:8-10)

When we fail to understand our blessedness, we are easily taken “captive by philosophy,” promises of the happy of life, or various fears and pressures. As a result, we find that we are unable to live a robust and confident Christian life. Therefore, I want to offer some reassurances from the Scriptures, the same reassurances that have helped me:

·       “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out…For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:37, 40)

Paul had also assured us that anyone who calls upon God will be saved (Romans 10:12-13). However, as a compulsive doubter and self-examiner, I continued to wonder, “Have I really come to Him?” However, I began to see that the typical man does not have such doubts or concerns. The entire question is ridiculous to him:

·       The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Evidently, I couldn’t be that “natural person.” The things of God were important to me, but doesn’t everyone who feels like a failure want to feel better about themselves? Perhaps my reasons for seeking God were just selfish and self-centered? However, the Apostle Paul hadn’t even been seeking God at all. Instead, he was killing Christians and forcing them to renounce their faith, and yet God revealed Himself savingly to him:

·       The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15-16)

Paul hadn’t done anything to merit salvation. Instead, he was the worst of the worst, and yet, God had mercy upon him. He even had mercy upon Israel’s bloodiest king. It was only after Manasseh had been imprisoned by the Assyrians and had humbled himself before God that God had mercy upon him and restored him (2 Chronicles 33:13).

If God could have mercy on Paul and King Manasseh, it seemed that He could also have mercy on me. Yet, I continued to think about those who seemed to have faith but really didn’t. Jesus taught a parable about the Word of God which had been sown in various soils. Some soils (people) seemed to receive it in faith but then rejected the Word (Matthew 13). Would that be my fate?

I found that the Scriptures give us many ways to test our faith. Ordinarily, we love the darkness, because it does not expose our many self-deceptions. Jesus taught that if we come to the light, it shows that there has been a meaningful change:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21)

There had been a change. Increasingly, I needed to know the truth, even when it hurt, and resorted to the Word of God. The book of First John provides many ways to test the genuineness of our faith. Even though I fell short in regards to all of these tests – and this grieved me – I began to see that I was beginning to approximate God’s standards.

In any event, these things are impossible with us (John 15:4-5; 2 Corinthians 3:5) However, if we pray for the assurance of the Lord’s love, He will give it in His time. Why? Because we are praying according to His will:

·       And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)