How To Be Certain Of Your Salvation

(Written by Geoffrey Grider)

While the entire Bible stresses certainty and assurance, there’s one section of Scripture that stakes out this theme as its central focus—the letter of 1 John.

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 Peter 1:23 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: As we have been discussing lately, the Bible teaches the eternal security of the born again believer in Jesus Christ. Today we present for your consideration 5 main markers from Scripture that accompany your salvation,  from Dr. David Jeremiah’s book “Ten Questions Christians Are Asking“.

As we carefully read through 1 John, we notice a five-fold argument for the assurance of salvation—five of the birthmarks of the Christian.

The Birthmark of Confession

The first is the birthmark of confession, described in 1 John 5:1: “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” Before you can have assurance of salvation, you have to believe and be saved. You have to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Some people assume they are saved because they grew up in a Christian culture, or they have gone to church all their lives, or they have been baptized, or they have tried to live a good life. Yet they’ve never distinctly and personally confessed Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

The Bible teaches that we are sinners, separated from God by a sinful nature. We can never earn, buy, or climb our way into heaven. By our own efforts or goodness, we can never be saved. That’s why God became a man who lived a wholly righteous life, died on the cross, shed His blood for us, and rose from the dead. He paid our penalty, took our judgment upon Himself, and He offers us the opportunity to be born again.

The Birthmark of Change

If the first birthmark is our confession of Christ as our Saviour and Lord, the second is a changed life, as we see in 1 John 2:29: “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.” When Jesus truly saves us, it makes a difference in how we think, act, speak, and conduct ourselves. The Bible says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:1-3 (KJV)

As we begin learning to practice righteousness, our habits change. We will not be sinlessly perfect while we’re on this planet; but if we’re Christians, we need to behave like Christians. If we say we’re saved but nothing has changed about us, something is wrong. We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works, and the Gospel is a transforming agent in our lives.

The Birthmark of Compassion

Those who are truly saved also bear the birthmark of compassion. How can you know that you are a Christian? By what you believe, by how you live, and by whom you love. Love is a recurring theme in 1 John, and the apostle leaves no doubt about how it permeates the lives of true Christians. “Beloved,” he wrote, “let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.. . . . We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” (1 John 4:7; 3:14).

Do you love your brothers and sisters in the family of God? Those who are truly saved are those who enjoy and bless the household of faith, the family of God.

The Birthmark of Conflict

A fourth sign of being truly saved is conflict. According to 1 John 5:4, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” The word overcome implies a struggle. We’re faced with an adversary whom we must overcome. Our adversary is identified in 1 John 2:14 as the wicked one: “I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” John went on in the next verses to say: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (1 John 2:15-17).

When you’re genuinely born of God, you’ll be growing to be an overcomer as you deal with the temptations around you—the world, the flesh, and the devil. You may not be victorious over every temptation every time, but you’ll make progress in gaining more victories and losing less battles as you grow stronger in Christ and in the power of the abiding Word of God.

The Birthmark of Conduct

That leads to the final point I want to make: We can see evidence for the validity of salvation in our desire to conduct ourselves in a way that pleases God. According to 1 John 3:9, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”

If we’re not careful, we might interpret this verse to teach that anyone who is born of God never sins. That would conflict with other passages in the Bible that describe us as fallible and often failing.

In 1 John 3:9, the word for sin is a present active infinitive and it describes a continuous action. John is not saying that whoever sins once is not born of God. That would disqualify all of us. It would certainly disqualify me. But John is saying, in effect, “Whoever keeps on willfully sinning, violating God’s law with stubborn disregard and ongoing wickedness, cannot have assurance of salvation.”

If we are truly saved, we will grieve over our sins, confess them, and seek God’s grace to do better.

His grace is inexhaustible and His salvation is irreversible. Make sure you have confessed Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, and then trust Him with your eternal future. He will never leave you or forsake you. His Word was given that you might know Jesus Christ as your Saviour and that you might know that you have eternal life.

You can have assurance of salvation today. source

Let’s Add One More thing, the Birthmark of Belief

We will add a #6 to this excellent list in that a born-again believer can know they are saved because they believe God’s word in the Bible. Unsaved people cannot believe God’s word and have it functioning in their lives because God says that it only works in them that believe. “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:13. 

Unsaved people will often quote from the Bible for social, political or financial gain, but if someone is not a born again believer it will have no effect in their lives. There’s no repentance, no testimony of a “new life”, no victory over sin or even acknowledgement of the sin in their lives. Belief in what God has written is key, as Paul says in Romans 10:9 – “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

When I got saved, God’s word went from a dusty book I almost never read to a treasure trove that continues to delight my soul 25 years after I first became born again. If you believe the Bible when you read it – didn’t say understand it all, I said believe – then that is a rock-solid sign that you have become born again.