Without a doubt, one of the most important questions one can ask is, “How can I know I’m saved?”
In many ways, this is the most basic question a person can ask! And yet, the question is actually quite complex. There are words to define, concepts to explore, and beliefs to espouse before one can really have a satisfactory answer.
As we explore a biblical answer to this question, it may be as good a time as any to reflect honestly on your answer.
Saved?Most of us grow up with the notion that there is a salvation “event” that takes place in our lives. Do I still believe that today?
My answer would be yes, but it’s complicated.
Ephesians 1:3-4 seems to describe what this “event” looks like:
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Pauls opens his letter with a theological treatise; he is underscoring what Jesus has accomplished, and will go on to draw some conclusions about a life of proper faith and practice for the Ephesian church.
Notice in this passage that Paul describes that once one “trusts” (i.e., “places their hope in”) Christ, after hearing the gospel and believing, they are “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” which acts a “down payment” of their inheritance.
What’s being described here is beautiful; it is the process of reconciliation between God and man. Salvation is therefore God’s rescue, via the work of Jesus on the cross, of a sinner—and his sealing them for their final day of redemption.
There’s a natural question that arises at this point. What are we saved from?
The answer is multi-faceted. Are we saved from Satan? Our flesh? God himself?
Scripture can be leveraged in support of all of the above. And yet, a mere reflection on the nature of the world provides a sufficient answer: We all know the world is broken.
Greg Koukl beautifully makes the point in The Story of Reality:
None of us can long avoid the gnawing sense of guilt we feel for the bad things we have done. This is a good thing, of course, for a couple of reasons. For one, the person who never feels bad about doing bad things (an especially unpleasant kind of person known as a sociopath) is not likely to stop himself from doing something dreadful when it suits him. But there is another reason. It is a very small step from feeling guilty to realizing that we feel guilty because we are guilty. And that is precisely what the Story tells us. We are broken, true enough. But we are not simply malfunctioning. We are not machines that need to be fixed. We are transgressors who need to be forgiven. We have not merely “made mistakes,” like getting our sums wrong when balancing accounts. We have sinned. And with sin comes guilt. And with guilt comes punishment. The sin must be answered for. It must be paid for in some way. Atoned for, if you will.
The issue is that something is wrong with the world. It’s not the way it is supposed to be. We are separated from God, and we evidence that separation each and every day through our disobedience to our Creator.
That we are in need of rescue is virtually inarguable; Chesterton famously quipped, “The one doctrine of Christianity which is empirically verifiable is the fallenness of man.”
To be saved, then, is to place your undying trust in the Person and Work of Jesus, and to enthusiastically affirm the words of the Apostle John: “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:10-13).
Bulls and goats, or something else?One confusion that arises with folks, even some seasoned Christians, is that of Old Testament sacrifices.
A lengthy passage from the book of Hebrews brings out the issue:
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws int...
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