How Confident Are You In Your Salvation?

Have you ever doubted your own salvation? Has doubt crept into your mind about your being saved or not? Here is how you can have confidence in salvation.

Saved From What?

Today, hundreds of believer’s live in fear…fear of losing what they could not gain, and that being eternal life, but when we put our trust in Christ, we are secure in Him and we are saved, but saved from what? We are actually saved from God Himself! Yes, saved from God, but more specifically, we are saved from “the wrath of God [which] is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18), “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs” (Psalm 75:8), but that’s why it’s called the good news because when “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” (Rom 5:10), so we are not simply saved from eternal death in hell fire alone, but we are saved from the wrath of God which was poured out on Christ for our sake (Rom 5:1).

Is it Biblical to Fall Away?

I do not like the term “once saved, always saved” because that seems presumptuous of God’s mercy. I would rather call it the perseverance of the saints, even though it’s actually God’s preserving of the saints. Far too many believe that a person can be saved, but not stay saved, believing you can lose your salvation. What a fearful thing…one day to believe that they are saved and then the next day, fear they’re lost, but there are so many Bible verses that I can turn to that prove otherwise. Time and space limit me to only a select few, but these are certainly convincing. Paul was confident in his salvation, and so were the apostles, but some passages just seem to trouble us. One is in Hebrews 6:4-6 which says “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” What’s important to note is that it says they have “shared in the Holy Spirit” or “tasted of the powers of the age,” and yet did not receive the Holy Spirit. It does not appear that the writer is speaking to believers since many of the Jews were turning back to the Old Testament laws.

Tasting the Goodness of God

The Book of Hebrews was written to a Jewish audience and naturally, not every one of them was saved any more than everyone in the church today is saved, so there are tares (false converts) growing up alongside the wheat (Christians). The Book of Hebrews is about the supremacy of Christ, a once-for-all sacrifice that is superior to the Old Covenant sacrifices that had to be continually offered, but could never take away sin, but even if Hebrews 6:4-6 were written to Christians, the writer seems confident of their being saved as he writes, “we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation” (Heb 6:9). When he says, “in your case,” he is contrasting it to those who have only “shared” or tasted of “the Holy Spirit.” The author says he feels “sure of better things – things that belong to salvation.” It is sad that Hebrews 6:4-6 has needlessly troubled so many, but they are lifting a few verses out of the text and not looking at the full context. If they do this, they simply cannot understand what this chapter is really saying. Text taken out of context makes a pretext, and usually a false one.

Full Assurance

If the writer of Hebrews was saying that they could be saved and then fall away, then why does he later write in this same chapter that “God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end” (Heb 6:10-11)? Note that he speaks of “the full assurance of hope until the end” and calls them saints in the present tense, so it’s clear that they’re saints in the present tense because they have been “serving the saints,” and not saints who had better be careful and not lose what they could not gain. Clearly, unsaved people don’t serve the saints. It’s important to note that all Scripture is written for believers but not all Scripture is written specifically to believers. For example God said that the Sabbath is a “sign to you” between Him and Israel, but this does not mean that it is a sign to us today. Paul never feared losing salvation, but rather he endured severe persecution for his trust in Christ, and yet could say with assurance, that this was “why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim 1:12). God is able to guard us against that day, or the Day of Judgment, but if it were up to me to guard it, I really would be worried.

Conclusion

Can you imagine trying to share the gospel with someone and telling them that if they repent and believe the gospel, they will be saved…if they don’t blow it? Or, “If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved, unless you fall away, then you’re hopelessly lost.” To tell someone they can be saved but then, “Hold on for dear life” gives the wrong message. God holds onto us, and not we onto Him (John 10:28-29). When my child and I cross the street, I don’t leave it up to him to hang on tight to my hand. I’m the one holding onto his hand tightly. The gospel is robbed of its power to save if it’s something that they believe they can lose. It’s like, Jesus gives them eternal life, but if they’re not careful, they’ll lose it, but then comes the question, “Was it really eternal life if they lost it?” If they left the faith, perhaps they were never really in the faith (1 John 2:19). Romans 1:16 and 1 Corinthians 1:18 tell us where the power lies in our salvation, and it’s not in us. Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Rom 1:16), and “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is a writer at Christian Quotes and also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.