Blessed Assurance

2 Timothy 4:8 “Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

The lyrics of the classic hymn 'Blessed Assurance' goes: “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.”  Of course, this blessed assurance is that we have redemption and salvation, as our sins against God are paid for and forgiven through the atoning sacrifice of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross in our place, the regeneration of our spirit with the transformation of our heart reconciled to our heavenly Father, along with a rescue from Hell bound damnation forever to the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity. But having a “false assurance” of salvation – believing that you are in the right with God and yet being outside of the kingdom - is a real problem in our world, needing the reality of gospel truth. As a friend of mine says, “Do you have a ticket to get in?”

An article on the subject that I read while on vacation states that it probably would not be an overreach to say that most people today go about their lives thinking that all will be OK because they are “good people”. After all, we might surmise, they do way more good than bad, take care of our families and have not killed anyone, so why would they not be saved? I used to think this way. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “good” as: Having moral qualities best adapted to its design and use, or the qualities which God's law requires; virtuous; pious; religious; applied to persons, and opposed to bad, vitious, wicked, evil. Goodness is such a high standard that the Lord Jesus said in Mark 10:18 “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” By itself, the presence of good works does not prove anything. One does not have to be saved in order to physically refrain from murder, to love one’s family or to show respectful kindness and be a productive citizen.

Ephesians 2:5-10 New “Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

The article explains that external conformity to the commandments and laws of God is possible for people who do not know Christ as their blessed Savior, although non-believers cannot do what is fully pleasing to God. The Lord Jesus said in John 3:3 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is because apart from grace, people are dead in trespasses/sin and thus cannot be motivated to do their good works by true love for God. If good works are to be in any way evidence that we are truly saved, we must couple their with the gospel of Jesus Christ, knowing that believing in the biblical plan of Salvation through Christ alone saves us.

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

The article clarifies that those who are “saved” (spared from the lake of fire in the pit of Hell) fall into two classes. First, there are those whoa re truly saved and know that they are saved. They are assured of their salvation because they believe in the biblical Christ (the Blessed Redeemer and Savior of the world) and see evidence of the faith in good works of service to God and their neighbor. James 2:26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Yet, it is possible that for someone to be truly saved and to believe that they are not saved.

The devil loves to bring up our sins and use them to make us doubt our salvation. Satan accuses us, encouraging us to call into question the state of our salvation, and our sin can make it hard to believe that Christ really loves us and has redeemed us. We can accept Jesus as our Savior and still feel that we need to pay for our past sins or think that those sins are too bad for God to forgive us of them. So, the second class of saved people consist of those who are saved but have no personal assurance of their salvation. But they can know that they that they are truly saved. The indwelling Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, but does not do so in a way that makes us despair of ever finding assurance of salvation. Doubt is from the devil, not from the Lord. In John 10:10, the Lord Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Be assure of that!