Confident in Salvation!

Commentary By:  Gordon King

As believers in Jesus Christ we have been born-again, made a new creation!  We have been given a free gift of eternal life from God Almighty!  We have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.

God is good and gracious, He loves His children and wants us to know it!  He does not want us wondering if we still have our eternal salvation, if perhaps we have done something wrong to lose it.  He wants us to have confidence in knowing that our salvation is secure in Him, that it is what He has done for us and nothing of our own doing!

Yet, how many Christians second guess their own salvation?  Just how many of us question whether or not we are still saved?  How many have these doubts and lose faith, become disheartened, and actually distance ourselves from God?

Sadly, I believe that there are way too many believers with these thoughts and feelings, way too many who question whether or not the sacrifice of God on the cross was enough to save them forever!  I have even had Christians argue with me that we can in fact lose our salvation, I 100% disagree with them!

God told us that if we believe in His Son Jesus Christ then we will be saved and given eternal life.  What part of “eternal” do we not understand?!  As far as I know eternal has always meant eternal, forever, everlasting, never-ending.  It doesn’t mean eternal until we mess up!

Romans 10:9

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.“

If God had any conditions then He would have stated them here, but He didn’t!  Salvation is unconditional.

John 3:16

“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.“

Does this next verse sound like God wants us to feel insecure about our eternal salvation?

1 John 5:13

“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, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.“

God wants us to know that we have eternal life, so that we may continue in our faith and believe in Jesus Christ!  So that we will be effective in our walk with God and for His kingdom.  How can we be useful to God if we are questioning our faith?  How can we focus on Christ if we are unsure if we will lose our salvation or not?  How can we increase our faith and grow in Christ if we are worried about losing our salvation?  That’s just it, we can’t!

God knows our hearts and our minds, He knows what we have done in the past, present, and even in the future, yet He still saved us.  He forgave us of all of our sins, yes, past, present, and even future!  The blood of Jesus Christ covers all of our sins, not just past sins, if this were so then not one of us would ever remain saved, NOT ONE!

The good Lord did not set any conditions upon our salvation, it is by grace that we are saved, through faith, and nothing more, nothing less.  Not by our works are we saved, nor by our works are we “unsaved”!

When a child is born can they then be unborn?  Likewise, when we are born-again can we be “unborn-again”?  This just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.  The bible tells us that once born-again we are a new creation, how then can we be not a new creation?  It doesn’t say in the bible anywhere that we will be reverted back to the old sinful creation we began with, never.  You cannot unborn a child by placing him back in the womb, nor can you unmake a new creation in Christ once it has been created!

We must understand that the sin we have committed in our life has a penalty, a payment must be made, and that penalty is death!  There is only one way that we can pay the penalty without the death of our own life, and that is by an unblemished sacrifice in our place, a perfect sacrifice.  Who in this world has ever been perfect other than Jesus Christ?  No one, not one.  Only God could ever measure up to His own standards of perfection.

If we for example committed an offense that required us to pay back thousands of dollars, yet if we didn’t have it then we would be thrown into prison.  However, if our father paid our financial debt for us then we are free and clear to go on with our life.  The debt has been paid, we owe nothing, we will never again be brought up on these charges, they have been wiped clean.  This is how it is with God, when Jesus died for us on the cross, He paid our debt, the charges have been wiped clean, and we will never again be brought up on the charges against us, it’s as if they never even happened!  And it’s actually even better than that, even future charges will not be held against us, He paid the debt for our past, present, and even future charges!  How great and wonderful is that?!

The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, of God Himself dying in our place took away “all” of our sins, we are completely and forever cleared of all charges against us!  We are no longer condemned under the law, but set free from the penalty of sin and death.

Romans 8:1

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Does this mean that we can go on sinning, no, of course not!  However, it does mean that sin has no more power over us, that we have a secure relationship in Jesus Christ, and that means forever!  We can still sin and we will pay the consequences in this life for it, we reap what we sow.  The love of God is that we keep His commandments.

1 John 5:3

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.“

Our old selves have died with Christ, we have become new creations.  We are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Romans 6:7-14

“For he who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.“

We are not under the law, sin has no dominion over us, we are now under grace!

We are children of God Almighty, sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of our redemption.

Ephesians 4:30

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.“

We all sin, yes, even believers in Jesus Christ at times sin, we are not yet made perfect as Christ is.  And if we “all” still sin, then how could it be that any of us are still saved if we could lose our salvation?  After-all, sin is sin, and how would we know just what sin it is that made us lose our salvation anyway?!  And if we could lose our salvation, then could we ever get it back?  And if we could then just how many times?  And would we then be made a new creation again, and again, and then over again, an endless amount of times?  None of this makes any sense.  Does God really want us thinking that we may have lost or just may lose our salvation by our works?  And if this is the case then couldn’t we also say that we maintained our salvation by our works?!  Sure we could, we could boast that although God saved us it was us who kept it!  I did such a good job that I maintained my salvation!  Wow, look at me, I am really something!  Something to boast about!  Not!  This is exactly what God does not want, people to boast about their salvation, it is a gift from God Almighty, from His grace, His love for us, His precious sacrifice on the cross!!!

James 1:6-8

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.“

No doubting, God does not want us to doubt in Him or His ways, nor does He want us to doubt our salvation!  Doubting our salvation is being “double-minded” and “unstable”.  God has given us a sound mind, that means that we are to know, to have faith, to not doubt the promises of God!

God has freely given to us salvation, eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ.  He wants us to know this for a fact, to have confidence in our salvation, to be useful for the kingdom, to be used by God!  He wants us to increase our faith, to build our relationship with Him, and the only way we can do that is by knowing that we are saved and have eternal life, forever!

I have to be honest with you, there were times when I questioned my own salvation, in fact there were times when I wasn’t sure if I was till saved or not, or thought that I could lose my salvation.  However, after reading and studying scripture, after building my faith and my relationship with the Lord, I know for a fact that I am saved, will always be saved, and have been given eternal life, and that means forever!  No matter what happens to me in this life, no matter what I do or don’t do, I am saved period!  The good Lord has forgiven me of my sins, all of them, past, present, and future, I can rest assured in my salvation, knowing that one day soon I will meet the Lord in the air.  He has removed all of my sins from me as far as the East is from the West, that is an eternal distance!

Psalm 103:12

^“He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.”

Have faith in God, have faith in His promises, believe that you have eternal life, that means forever!

God bless my friends!  Maranatha!