All Unmarked Scripture Quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

Although the concept can and has been taken too far, it’s true to say that every single part and teaching in the Bible has something to do with the gospel. If you’re a believer in Jesus, you ought to know that the “gospel” means the “good news” of God’s eternal, cosmic, and climactic work through His Son Jesus Christ, or “Messiah”. In sum, the gospel is the message that God has satisfied His own justice and wrath through the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and has effected the reconciliation of all people who will repent of sin, and entrust themselves to Jesus. Thus, the chief work of being a Christian on earth is to believe, understand, and apply this message to our lives in increasingly consistent ways. For Paul declares that “by” the gospel “you are saved, if you hold fast to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain” (1 Cor. 15:3). Although it wasn’t his intention to call into doubt the genuineness of his audience’s faith, he implicitly brings up a seriously worrying concept with those last words – it is possible to believe the gospel “in vain,” or worthlessly.

Calls to Assurance

This would explain why there are so many Scriptures that warn people to avoid being deceived about their spiritual condition, and to truly arrive at a knowledge and assurance of possessing God’s peace, forgiveness, and favor. For example, Jesus Himself said,

“Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who enter through it. Because narrow is the gate and hard is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” – Mt. 7:13-14 (my translation)

Likewise, Peter wrote to his followers near the end of his life,

“Therefore, my brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you …” – 2 Peter 1:10

With this exhortation, Peter is presenting both a warning and a blessed promise. He’s implying that it’s possible to be uncertain or unassured about being called by God to salvation, and he’s promising that such certainty can be had and increased through the use of means. And the New Testament is replete with expressions of the believer’s knowledge of their right relationship with God.

In fact, the writings of the apostles and Jesus’s own words make it clear that having the knowledge of peace with God is more than possible – it’s obligatory upon all believers who can think rationally. The Lord doesn’t just enable us to know He’s forgiven us, but He commands us to receive certainty about our salvation.

Obviously, this is what Peter is saying to his audience in the above passage. Peter urges believers to make certain that they’ve been called and chosen by God. And in case we are at a loss to understand the means by which we come to a knowledge of our safety from eternal judgment, John has provided us with an entire letter devoted to this very thing. At the end of 1 John, he says,

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” – 1 Jn. 5:13

Confessions of Assurance

But we see similar ideas of assurance conveyed through descriptions of believers passively enjoying assurance. In Romans, Paul declares that believers now “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1), and then goes on to exclaim, “we exult in hope of the glory of God” (5:2). Likewise, Peter asserts in the beginning of his first letter that his readers “rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls” (1:8-9). What is he saying here, if not that believers who are gathering for fellowship have concluded that they already possess the eternal salvation of their souls simply through their faith in Jesus’s redemptive work for them.

Similarly, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians states,

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation – having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession . . .” – Eph. 1:13-14

So here we see that simply by believing the good news that Jesus had accomplished salvation for them, the Ephesians were sealed or preserved in Christ through the Holy Spirit. This is also referred to as God’s pledge or promise that He would redeem them ultimately at the end of time.

And as if all these passages were not enough, the cast down, forsaken, and dying apostle, Paul, expresses his personal assurance of his eternal destiny at the end of his life in these words:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day . . .” – 2 Tim. 4:7-8

These words of Paul give us a twofold means by which our knowledge of salvation is received by us. First, he points to the way he lived his life – he fought, ran, and preserved the beliefs that he held and taught. This was merely evidence that he had entrusted himself to Jesus, and had been saved by Him. His second means of knowing that he would be saved was through Jesus’s own promise to give him “the crown of righteousness” as “the righteous Judge”. And as the righteous Judge, Paul knew that God would accept nothing less than moral perfection to receive “righteousness,” or a perfect standing and condition in the sight of God. Hence, Paul is here implying that he was sure that he would go to heaven because the Lord had done everything God required for his blessed entrance into heaven.

Strangers to Assurance

All of these passages expressing the blessed assurance that believers ought to have about their right standing before God bring us back to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15 – “unless you believed in vain”. There are at least a few examples of such a faith in Scripture. The most explicit one is found in Acts 8, where Luke tells of man called Simon the magician. After the gospel has been preached to the Samaritans, he recounts,

“Even Simon himself believed; and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip, and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed.”

Here we’re told that Simon believed “the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” (v. 12). Yet his story ends with great disappointment. Simon believed “in vain,” since Peter declares to him,

“’You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.’” – Acts 8:21-23

Instead of obeying the authoritative plea of Peter to pray in repentance, Simon answers,

“’Pray to the Lord for me yourselves, so that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.’”

And Luke said that this bitter slave of iniquity, whose heart was at odds with God, believed the gospel. Another example of a person with a worthless faith is found in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, where he laments,

“. . . Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” – 2 Tim. 4:10

According to John in 1 John 2:15b, “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Therefore, Demas was revealing himself to be a world-lover rather than a God-lover, and consequently a fake believer of the gospel. He’s mentioned by Paul in one of his earlier letters as one of his missionary companions, but he clearly proved himself to be a pretender, forsaking Paul in his greatest time of need during his last imprisonment for execution.

How Can You Have Assurance?

Given this reality of people who appear to believe the gospel, but prove themselves false, how are we to understand God-pleasing faith in Jesus? How can we know that we’ve entrusted ourselves to Jesus for our eternal salvation, and hence have that salvation? And how is it possible to believe the gospel, and what it says about Jesus and ourselves, and yet fail to “enter through the narrow door” that leads to life? If the Lord so chooses, we’ll examine Jesus’s own teaching on this matter, and how to distinguish between true and false faith in a later devotional.

For now, if you have entrusted yourself and your eternal destiny to the God-man Jesus Messiah because of His death for sinners and His resurrection from the dead, so that you find your ultimate satisfaction and joy in worshiping Him, be comforted. You who finds your life and peace in His death in your place and His resurrection for your own can know that your beloved by God, and among His children. But if you don’t find your ultimate satisfaction, joy, peace, and life in the Lord Jesus, you can be sure that you have no peace with God, or life eternal. Beware lest you find yourself standing before the Judge soon to hear Him say, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work lawlessness, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. You will now be rewarded according to your evil deeds, since you wouldn’t come to Me for life.” If you realize now that you’ve never changed your mind about everything and trusted in Jesus, now is the acceptable time – today is the day of salvation! Call on the name of the Lord, and you will be saved!

Brethren, pray for me, for we are sure that have a clear conscience, desiring to be pleasing to the Lord in all things. May you grow in your knowledge of the Messiah and the power of His resurrection.