Background
Some time ago while doing some study on the book of 1 John, I ran across a great verse. In 1 John 5:19, John writes, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” John is writing to Christians so that they can have an assurance of their salvation.
This is an encouraging topic, so I decided to take the epistle of 1 John, and make a list of Spiritual Assurances that John gives in his text. Assurance of salvation in a believer’s life can be a great encouragement for them as they live for Christ.
It is important to point out three things for the purposes of this article:
- John is not talking about perfection in the life of a believer. Summarizing what he says in chapter 1 of 1 John verses 7-10; we walk in the light of Christ, and if we sin, we have forgiveness in Him.1
- These characteristics in a believer’s life are demonstrated by action, not just believing it or talking about it. (1 John 3:18)2 Other passages in the New Testament are clear on this issue as well. (Matthew 7:17; James 2:18; 2 Peter 3:11)
- Being redeemed by Christ transforms us into new creatures and produces new holy desires in us. The evidence of this change grows as we mature as His disciples.
Six Assurances
This list of assurances in the life of a believer are taken from the text of 1 John and are listed in the order presented in the epistle.
Throughout the book of 1 John, John mentions characteristics of believers and how they act. In 1 John 2:3 he says, “And by this we know that we have come to know Him.” The phrase ‘and by this’ is telling believers that their behavior indicates what has happened in their lives. Their lives were transformed by Christ, and now they act differently than they did before -they keep God’s commandments. This is the first assurance. (See Assurance #1 below.)
Evidence of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life is demonstrated by:
Assurance #1
- Keeping God’s commandments.
“And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” (1 John 2:3)
Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” And also, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”3
We abide in His love by obeying Him and we will bear spiritual fruit in our lives.
Assurance #2
- Living in the same manner that Jesus lived.
“By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner He walked.” (1 John 2:5b-6)
Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29)
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24)
“For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)
Following the example of Christ is to deny our own way and find rest in Him by faith. This is necessary because our own way is natural and His way is supernatural!
Assurance #3
- Loving the brethren
“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.” (1 John 3:14) (John is talking about spiritual death. I wrote about the fear of physical death in, The Fear of Death.)
“So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” (Galatians 6:10)
“Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for [anyone] to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.” (1 Thessalonians 4:9)
“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22)
Loving the family of God is repeated numerous times in this epistle and in the rest of the New Testament. Jesus tells us that the world will know that we are His disciples if we love one another. (John 13:35)
Assurance #4
- Ensured by God4
“We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before Him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.” (1 John 3:19, 20)
Concerning verse 19, ‘We shall know’ is from the Greek word ginosko (ghin-oce’-ko), which means to come to know, to learn, to find out, to realize. Bible teacher John MacArthur says that ginosko is being used in the future tense, meaning that, “We will come to know, to learn, to find out, to realize. So it’s not necessarily intuitive, it’s something we have to learn, it’s something we have to find and discover. We will know by this that we are of the truth.”
The word ‘assure’ in 3:19 is from the Greek word peitho (pi’-tho) which means to persuade. MacArthur explains, “that’s usually the way it is translated, to persuade. In other words, we’ll be persuaded. We can know that we’re of the truth, we can be persuaded of that fact as we stand before Him. Thayer’s Lexicon tracks the word back to meaning ‘to tranquilize’. Or to put it another way, to calm, to pacify, to soothe the alarmed conscience, to quiet the troubled heart, to calm fear and doubt.”5
Assurance #5
- Confidence before God
“Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.” (1 John 3:21)
“By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
“And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” (1 John 2:28)
Having confidence in God will have a dramatic impact on how we live. It will affect our decisions, morality, and peace just to name a few. Also, John goes on in the next verse to say that confidence before God changes our prayer life. We have confidence in prayer because we obey Him and seek to please Him.
Assurance #6
- The Holy Spirit in us
“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. (1 John 4:13)
“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” And also, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”6
Conclusion
My list of assurances was only taken from the book of 1 John. I expect that there are many other evidences of salvation derived from other parts of the New Testament, but you will have to find those in your own study. (I also wrote about an additional area, forgiving yourself, in my article, Remember to Forgive.)
All of the assurances I named were tipped off to us by John when he used a phrase such as, “And by this we know…”, which appears first in 1 John 2:3. John is clear in his writing that there are things we can look for in our lives that are evidences of saving faith. He concludes this idea and mentions it again in 1 John 5:13, when he says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” Since John gives 5:13 as the main purpose for his writing, someone may well make the case that there are many more assurances in this epistle than the six I have named in this article.
Spiritual assurance is linked to persevering in the faith. I write about that in the post titled, Persevering in the Faith. In addition, see the article Stability in the Faith.
Even with assurance in our faith, we may still be missing God’s peace. For more on this topic, see my paper, Stolen Peace.
Appendix
Some readers may recall that the great preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote a book about this subject many years ago titled, Religious Affections. Written in 1746, just after the First Great Awakening, Edwards was responding to the question of who was a true believer. There were many conversions during that time and he believed that some of them were false conversions.
I will conclude with a quote from Edwards book. The evidences Edwards gave in his book were called ‘affections’. Today, we don’t use the word affections in the same way as Edwards does. Therefore, I put ‘assurances’ in brackets where he uses affections since that would perhaps be the word Edwards would use if he were writing today.
“There are false affections [assurances], and there are true. A man’s having much affection, does not prove that he has any true religion: but if he has no affection it proves that he has no true religion. The right way, is not to reject all affections [assurances], nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections [assurances], approving some, and rejecting others; separating between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, the precious and the vile.”7
1 1 John 1:7-10. 7 but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
2 1 John 3:18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
3 John 15:4, 10
4 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ensure :to make sure, certain, or safe 8/6/22
5 https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/62-29/the-essential-foundation-of-christian-assurance 7/31/22
6 Romans 8:14, 16
7 http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/ReligiousAffections.pdf 8/5/22 Last paragraph pg 18 ending on 19