“How Vast the Resources of His Power …” No. 9

CAN WE KNOW WE ARE SAVED?

Most of us who were brought up in the Church of Christ, and perhaps other wings of the Restoration Movement as well, are a little embarrassed upon: being asked Are you saved? It is one of those very few religious questions that we handle with frustrated uncertainty. We have ready answers for most everything, and we can usually give book, chapter, and verse for them, a practice that must surely have some virtue. When asked about our own salvation, we might still quote scripture, but we appear to chafe in the effort to relate the scripture to our own spiritual state.

The best way for you to see this for yourself is to find some serious moment in which you can ask some of our people that sober question Are you saved? It should be asked with seriousness and concern, not in a spirit of challenge. It is predictable that almost without exception the reply will have an element of uncertainty about it. He isn’t sure that he is saved. He may hope that he is, or he may even say he believes that he is, but usually he feels obligated to qualify his statement in some way, such as “If I have been faithful . . .”

It is rare for any of our brethren in the Church of Christ to reply with an equivocal “Yes, I am saved.” It is almost unheard of that the reply would be emphatic as well as unequivocal: “Yes, indeed I am saved. Praise God that I am!”

It is my thesis in this study that the Christian can know that he is saved. He can and should be both emphatic and unequivocal in his avowal of salvation. He can speak with the assurance that Paul did in 2 Tim. 1:12 and say, “I know and I am sure.” We furthermore believe that hesitancy and uncertainty in this regard imply an inadequate personal faith. It also suggests that one sees his salvation as dependent upon his own works as it is on the grace of God. It is evident that Paul’s certainty was based upon his trust in God’s grace than in his own works. \Ve all need to talk as Paul does here: “He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works, but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago.” (2 Tim. 1:9) If we trusted more in the virtue of God’s grace and less in the virtue of our own works, we might be more certain of our salvation.

I must confess that I have not always enjoyed the assurance that I now speak of. Years ago when I enrolled for a few courses at Dallas Seminary, I was asked on the application blank if I were saved. This question, along with several others (including one on whether I were a premillennialist), impressed me as both insipid and sectarian. I proceeded, therefore, to tell them a few things, writing at some length on each of the questions, using appropriate scriptures of course. Because of what they called my “divergent views” they were hesitant to accept me as a student, the real reason being, I now suspect, that they supposed I was not teachable. I was equally hesitant to be a student once this happened, for I figured (and told them so) that with such a parochial view toward truth they could hardly be objective in their studies.

This led to a conference with Dr. John Walvord, who later became the seminary president, who revealed to me that they were in a quandary over an application from a Church of Christ man, which was apparently their first. He went on to explain that from their point of view the Church of Christ was as basically wrong about the gospel as the Roman Catholic Church, that both believed in salvation by works rather than by grace. They therefore doubted that either a Roman priest or a Church of Christ minister would be happy students in their institution. The president thought it strange that I would answer the question Are you saved? with “I trust so,” but it seemed to confirm his suspicions about Church of Christ doctrine. It so happened that the seminary decided that I was teachable after all, and we all had a good time studying together.

I answer that question differently now. Yes, I am most certainly saved, not by any virtue or righteousness of my own, but by His grace and mercy. I have doubt about my own goodness and faithfulness, but no doubt about my salvation by grace through faith, apart from any works on my part (Eph. 2:8). This does not mean that I was not saved when I was in doubt about it, but it means my faith was weak and misdirected. I believed in the Christ, of course, but I supposed that His grace had to have the cooperation of my works to be effective. But now I can say with Paul: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law (or through works), then Christ died to no purpose” (Gal. 2:21) .

In this same passage Paul writes: “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.” That sounds like a man who knows. It brings to mind Augustine’s statement: “I believe, therefore I know.” Is it not strange that we show more certainty about the loyalty of our friends and the fidelity of our wives than we have in our eternal salvation? Pascal’s “The heart has its reasons that reason knows not of” may apply here. If a man’s faith in his wife can be so strong that he can say he knows, surely his assurance of God’s grace can be limitless.

A fitting question for those who suppose they have no right to be sure is Are you saved today? If one can’t be sure, he may be saved one day but not the next. He may be ready for heaven one moment but not the next. Surely this is not the living hope that the scriptures speak of. If one’s hope depends on how the balance sheet of debits and credits is at any given moment, then it is a dead hope. If he must be sure that he has no unforgiven sin, or that he has not been remiss in some good deed, before he can know he is saved, then the life of a Christian is doomed to misery and frustration. It is folly for a man to suppose that he just might be able to die at that moment when he has not sinned since praying for forgiveness, or that he might be fortunate enough to go into eternity on one of his good days when his life has been perfect.

What futility this is! We are to pity the man who supposes he can make it to heaven by climbing the stairway of moral perfection and good deeds. He will find himself scaling the stairs at a rapid pace at one moment and then falling flat on his face at the bottom of the stairs the next. By being punctilious in executing his various religious chores he will move six steps upward, and then amidst his pride slip twelve steps downward. This business of trying to make it to heaven through moral arithmetic is a losing cause.

This is the tragedy that Paul describes in Romans 7 when he says: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Here is the frustration of trying to scale the stairway to heaven by one’s own initiative, only to come tumbling down through human weakness. So Paul cries out in despair: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” His answer is the Christian’s triumph: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

There is no other answer, and in this answer the Christian has assurance. And so Paul goes on to say what too few of us seem able to believe: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). And he goes on to say in Romans 8:37-39: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, not things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We are more than conquerors! Without that kind of conviction Christian hope means very little.

Some of us have difficulty in enjoying an assurance of salvation because of fear of unforgiven sins. It is therefore part of our praying terminology in the assembly to say to God, “Forgive us all our unforgiven sins,” as a kind of catch-all prayer for any sin we overlooked. We have no one in the Bible praying that way, and it may be that such a prayer reveals bad theology. There seems to be the idea that if death should catch us with “unforgiven sins” it would be too bad for us. We therefore seek to keep ourselves ready for judgment by saying these magic words, as if God never forgives sins until He hears some such formula. One Christian I know answered the question “Should you die tonight do you believe you would go to heaven?” by saying “I am not sure; I’m afraid I might have some unforgiven sins.”

This is bad theology because once again it makes salvation a matter of works. This sincere Christian certainly believed in the saving power of the Lord, but she also thought it necessary to perform certain rituals in order for God’s grace to be effective in her life. Such a one can pray “Forgive me of all my unforgiven sins” every day, or even several times a day, and perhaps feel some degree of assurance at the moment, but there is always the feeling of uncertainty in the anticipation of death. This is an awful religion to live, and one does not have to live it. When Luther was asked by his superiors in the Roman Church what he would give the people in place of the rosary, candles, holy water, etc., he replied “Jesus Christ.” And that is our answer to those who try to keep themselves ready by partaking of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday and going to church on holy Wednesday.

It is impossible for one to live a joyous life if there is any doubt about his salvation. Gal. 5:22 speaks of joy as a fruit of the Spirit, and Rom. 14:17 refers to “joy in the Holy Spirit.” Joy is that sweet: satisfaction that victory is ours through Christ-victory over sin, death and the grave. A prisoner is filled with joy at the news that the governor has pardoned him. His joy is limited only by the measure of confidence he has in the governor’s word. If he is sure the governor will do what he says, his joy knows no bounds. A man who can be certain that God has forgiven him, and that his eternal salvation is assured, will be filled with joy. Joy is thus related to hope. Uncertainly begets not only hopelessness, but a life of despair. The mission of the Holy Spirit, therefore, is to fill our hearts with hope, thus making life a joyous and thrilling experience.

Notice the assurance with which Paul writes to Titus in Chapter 3.

“He saved us,” he says with confidence, and then explains why: “not because of deeds done by us in righteousness,” as if to suggest that if it were by our own merit, there would be nothing to depend on. “But in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.”

This is beautiful religion. Paul sees a rich outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the basis of hope of eternal life. He can speak with assurance of salvation because of the grace and mercy of God. People who are uneasy about their salvation are concerned about their works before God. Since Paul was aware that his salvation was not a matter of “deeds done by us in righteousness,” but wholly a matter of grace and mercy, he could have confidence.

A confident faith is hardly expressed anywhere as boldly as it is in John’s first epistle. Know is one of John’s favorite terms, and if the apostle in the many “We know” passages could express such confidence in the face of a militant Gnosticism, which denied the reality of the Word in the flesh, then we too can be sure.

In his short epistle John uses “We know” or “Ye know” a dozen times, revealing his assurance of a meaningful and abiding relationship between Christ and his disciples. Let us notice some of these passages as they are rendered by the New English Bible.

“Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children; what we shall be has not yet been disclosed, but we know that when it is disclosed we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope before him purifies himself, as Christ is pure.” (l John 3:2-3)

We know that we shall be like Him! What a blessed assurance! And notice that we are told that if we have this hope we purify ourselves as Christ is pure. Hope has a cleansing effect on our lives, keeping us from becoming attached to the world and its many allurements.

“My brothers, do not be surprised if the world hates you. We for our part have crossed over from death to life; this we know, because we love our brothers.” (l John 3:13-14)

We know that we have passed from death to life! Life in the Son is indeed precious, and blessed is the man who knows that that life is his. John sees love of the brethren as the sure sign of passing from death to life. Can our quarrelling, divided brotherhood pass that test?

“This letter is to assure you that you have eternal life.” (l John 5:13) Other versions say: “ ... that you may know that you have eternal life.” Is he not also writing to us so that we might be assured that we have eternal life. He speaks not of a quantitative life, one that will go on forever, even though this is true; but he speaks of a qualitative life, a kind of life, which is life in the Son. We have this life now, and there is no reason why we should not always have it. Jesus said to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus: “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26). The life that he referred to there is the “eternal life” that John says we have now.

Notice how John closes his epistle with a series of “We know” statements.

“We know that no child of God is a sinner; it is the Son of God who keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot touch him.” (5:18)

“We know that we are God’s family, while the whole godless world lies in the power of the evil one.” (5:19)

“We know that the Son of God has come and given us understanding to know him who is real; indeed we are in him who is real, since we are in his Son Jesus Christ.” (5:20)

Such confidence gives us a blessed resource of power. We too can know that Christ is real (at home, at work, at play), and that we are in Him who is real. We can be equally certain that He will keep us safe and that the evil one cannot touch us. What a blessed peace! What joy!

We have brought ourselves up to be a strange people in matters of this kind. Even when we seem certain that we have the truth, that we are indeed Christ’s only church on earth, we are at the same time suspicious of anyone who speaks with the assurance expressed in the foregoing passages. We are certain that we are doctrinally right, but we are less than sure of our own personal salvation.

This may be accounted for by the way we use the term truth. To John it meant a right relationship to Christ, as it did to all the writers of the scriptures who speak with such assurance. “If we walk in the light …” means being in Christ to John, while to our people it means being right about everything taught in the New Testament. So, if one follows the interpretations of our preachers, who have to assume infallibility, he can be right on all points of doctrine, and this is what “having the truth” is made to mean.

My position is that a man may be innocently involved in many erroneous interpretations —“guilty of a thousand errors” as Campbell said of Origin — and still be right in his relationship to Christ. While it is true that his relationship with Christ may be strengthened and deepened as he overcomes his erroneous thinking, it is nonetheless the case that Christ is his now, that he has eternal life now, and that he can know that he is saved. If one had to wait until he could be sure of all his ideas about the Bible before he could be sure of his salvation, then the confidence that Paul and John speak of would never be possible.

We are a people that can be sure we are right (that we indeed have the truth) and yet unsure about our salvation simply because we do not know what being right means, and do not know what the truth is.

“The truth” has little or nothing to do with questions such as instrumental music, the Sunday School, premillennialism, church cooperation. There is surely truth and error involved in such questions, but “the truth” as used in scripture is something entirely different: it is the reality that God has acted in history by giving the world the Christ, who has come in the flesh, bringing deliverance from sin.

It is in responding to “the truth,” which is the gospel, that makes a man right before God. He can never have the truth or be right by either his own works or by the measure of his own knowledge. One may be doctrinally right about everything and still not have the truth. And he may be wrong about matters of doctrine and still have the truth.

The point is that being right and having the truth in scriptural terms has to do with knowing a Person. The early Christians knew the Person before they ever had the New Testament scriptures. They knew they were saved long before the New Testament made its appearance. When the scriptures did appear, their assurance of salvation was not jeopardized by any errors in understanding. The saints at Rome were no less sure of their salvation if, when they read Paul’s letter to them, they did not understand it all. Peter complains that brother Paul wrote many things that are hard to understand, but he does not suggest that one’s salvation is dependent upon an understanding of them, though he does warn against twisting such scriptures, which implies a deliberate intention to make a passage mean what it does not say (2 Pet. 3:16). Surely one can be honestly mistaken about the scriptures and still know “the truth” in that he is in Christ.

If it is fatal to make salvation dependent upon book knowledge, it is no less fatal to make it dependent upon one’s works. “Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. (Rom. 4:4- 5)

If being saved is a matter of work, then we can never be sure, for we cannot know just how much is due us at any given time. But at no time would our works be sufficient to save us. So may God grant that we be among those “who do not work” —meaning that they do not trust in their own work or knowledge—but among those “who trust him who justifies the ungodly.”

The question of “once saved, always saved” or Calvin’s doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is another subject, which we cannot go into now. But we do not believe it follows from what we have said that if one knows that he is saved that he cannot under any circumstances ever be lost. We know we are saved because we “trust him who justifies the ungodly.” But one can quit trusting. He can quit believing. He can quit relying on the grace of God. While he believes with all his heart that Christ is holding his hand, and that no one can pluck him from the Lord’s grasp, it does not follow that he cannot be enamored of the world and on his own volition withdraw his hand from the Master’s clasp. The Lord holds us by the hand, and so we can turn loose if we choose; He holds us not by the arm, thus holding us whether we choose to be held or not. Yea, Paul makes it clear that we “fall away from grace” whenever we seek salvation other than through the grace of God.

But the saint certainly need not fall, Nor must he entertain the slightest notion that he will, kept by God’s grace as he is. So the Christian can be fully persuaded that he is saved and firmly believe that it will never be any other way. Why? Because he will keep on trusting, believing, and relying upon God’s grace and mercy. Yes, he will “take heed lest he fall,” as Paul often urges, but this will take the form of drawing closer and closer to Christ, relying more and more upon the strength that only He can give. He doesn’t “take heed” by trying to keep ahead on some ledger of good deeds.

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16) —the Editor