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106 | How Do I Know I Am Truly Saved?
442 Plays2 years ago
In this episode Phylicia looks at the three primary doctrinal stances on assurance of salvation, the primary texts regarding our eternal security, and then walks listeners through HOW to walk in true confidence that you are saved rather than doubt and chaos. Passages: John 3, 1 John 5, 1 John 1:9, John 15:8
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast and Assurance of Salvation
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, and I am here to teach you how to know what you believe, to live it boldly, and to communicate it graciously to the world around you. I believe that women are ready to go deeper in their faith than ever before, and they don't have to go to seminary to do it. I am so glad you're here, and I hope you'll join me on this journey because every woman is a theologian.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hi friends, welcome back to Verity Podcast. Today we're talking about a topic that is close to my heart because I have seen how much members of my audience, my reader base, has struggled with this. It was illustrated for me a couple of weeks ago when I took assumptions on Instagram. So typically what this is is when an influencer will post a question box on Instagram and say,
00:00:54
Speaker
tell me your assumptions about me, and then they'll answer whether those assumptions are true or false.
Struggles with Salvation and Eternal Security
00:01:01
Speaker
I took assumptions about God and the Bible, and out of those assumptions, what I came to realize is that many Christians are not secure in their salvation. They struggle to believe that their salvation is actually
00:01:21
Speaker
safe that they are actually saved. And as I talked with some people in DMs about this, I quickly realized that many of them were basically asking God to save them over and over again instead of resting in the security of their salvation and the peace and joy of walking with Christ.
00:01:42
Speaker
Their doubt and struggle with this eternal security was causing such chaos in their Christian life, they really couldn't grow in maturity at all, nor could they effectively disciple other people. And since we know that God's will is our maturity and we know that Christ's command is to evangelize, we've got to get to the root of why we struggle so much
00:02:02
Speaker
with eternal security, also called Assurance of Salvation. And that's what this episode is all
Wesleyan Arminianism vs. Calvinism
00:02:09
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about. I feel so strongly about this because, first of all, I am a Wesleyan Arminian, and all that means is that my theology adheres more closely to libertarian free will when it comes to salvation. That means that God initiates salvation, he reaches out with his grace by his Holy Spirit, but humanity can respond to God.
00:02:31
Speaker
We have been given a will by our God and we can choose whether to respond to the Holy Spirit and to continue walking by the Spirit throughout our Christian life or not. Now, this is in contrast to a determinist framework. And if you want to know more about this, go back and listen to the Calvinism and Arminianism episode. But a determinist framework, as I talk about in more detail in Every Woman a Theologian, my book,
00:02:56
Speaker
is one in which God actually regenerates a person by his spirit and gives them the will to say yes to salvation. So God chooses who he will save, he regenerates them by his spirit, and then he calls to them and that person will absolutely say yes to God because God gave them the ability to do so. That would be the Calvinistic standpoint. It's called monergism, whereas the Wesleyan Arminian standpoint is called synergism.
00:03:26
Speaker
So being a Wesleyan Arminian, I see people in the Arminian camp who go to the extreme of constantly doubting their salvation because they have elevated the human will above what scripture teaches. But then I also work with some Calvinists who struggle to truly rest in assurance that they are the elect.
00:03:49
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, the only way you really know you are elect is because you're a believer, but you're only a believer if you are indeed elect. And so it becomes kind of a circular reasoning where the question is, am I really assured? Do I know for sure that I'm saved? In either case, doesn't matter what your soteriology, you can end up in a situation where you do not truly rest
00:04:13
Speaker
in the security that Christ's salvation offers you. And so in this episode, I'm going to be looking at first three primary doctrinal standpoints on eternal security, and then I'm going to be sharing with you some passages about this topic and then some suggestions for how to walk in assurance of your salvation if indeed you are truly saved. And we'll talk about that
00:04:38
Speaker
whether or not you are truly saved at the end of the episode as well. So let's start by addressing the three primary doctrinal standpoints on eternal security. I took these from Richard Cords, but these
00:04:53
Speaker
are pretty consistent across denominations. You're going to see some form of these arise in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anabaptist theology, Baptist, etc.
Doctrinal Standpoints on Eternal Security
00:05:04
Speaker
So the three doctrinal standpoints on eternal security or assurance of your salvation.
00:05:11
Speaker
are number one, the doctrine of eternal security. So this is often associated with traditionalism, which is a word associated with the Southern Baptist Convention. But this idea, which we'll get into in a moment, is more common among traditional Baptists, not reformed Baptists.
00:05:31
Speaker
Second doctrine is the doctrine of conditional security. So this is the traditional Arminian position. Some of them in Arminianism will also hold to the traditional eternal security view. But eternal security, traditionalism, conditional security, Arminian. And then lastly, the doctrine of perseverance of the saints, which is Calvinism.
00:05:54
Speaker
So we're going to start by talking about eternal security. Some of the most well-known teachers who hold to eternal security would be Charles Stanley, Dr. Tony Evans. And basically what the doctrine of eternal security means is that those who are truly born again have a new nature given to them by God, accompanied by the Holy Spirit, and they will not permanently fall away. So if they are truly saved, they have the Holy Spirit, they will not fall away.
00:06:23
Speaker
If they do, they probably were never saved in the first place. That's the doctrine of eternal security. So there really isn't any fear of a believer ever losing their salvation because they're truly once saved, always saved, no matter how they live after their initial salvation. But Dr. Stanley, Dr. Evans would say, you know, if you are living like hell, basically, you should be asking yourself,
00:06:52
Speaker
Am I truly saved? Did I ever actually surrender to the Lord in the first place? Because I am truly willfully walking in sin and I don't care. The key there is that unrepentant heart that is kind of the difference between a humble and penitent person who has the Holy Spirit and who listens to the Spirit when they sin versus someone who's just walking in complete unrepentant. So someone who is truly saved and has the Holy Spirit will never, ever fall away. That's eternal security.
00:07:18
Speaker
So conditional security is assurance in Arminian doctrine. And it means that you presently, knowing Christ, are secure. But you have the potential of being able to ultimately walk away.
00:07:36
Speaker
Now I say walk away versus fall away because there are actually two different positions within Arminianism. There is the reformed Arminian position and then the Wesleyan Arminian position. And the reformed Arminian position is the one that I lean towards. And this one is closer to eternal security, the traditionalist view. It's closer to that
00:07:57
Speaker
in the sense that a person who rejects Christ, who walks away, has to do it intentionally. It can't be like, oops, I sinned so much and now all of a sudden I'm no longer in Christ, which is more of the Wesleyan holiness view.
00:08:14
Speaker
So if we want to do a quick little history lesson here, you have Arminius in history, and then 500 years later or so, 300 years, you have Wesley. And then after Wesley, you have Finney, and he kind of developed out the Pentecostal holiness movement. And right around Charles Finney is when Wesley's teaching on security and salvation
00:08:36
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began to take on this viewpoint that you could actually sin enough to lose your salvation.
Historical Influences and Perseverance
00:08:44
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And part of the reason Finney stressed this was because he was so grieved by Christians living these lives that were just rampant with sin. Absolute unrepentance.
00:08:55
Speaker
So Finney was one of the first evangelists to introduce the altar call and he preached fire and brimstone in the second grade awakening. He was hated by the Calvinists of the time. And there were some reasons why I can see why and I would agree with them. But there were also things Finney did that were good. And part of his reasoning, his concern was that these Christians were just like, hey, once saved, always saved.
00:09:24
Speaker
And we'll get to that one in a second when we talk about the Calvinist viewpoint. But this kind of the crux of the Second Great Awakening, the difference between the first and the second, the first was driven by the Calvinist, the second was driven by the Wesleyan Arminians under Finney.
00:09:40
Speaker
And the difference between those two actually had a lot to do with assurance of salvation and the requirement for holiness. Because between the First and Second Great Awakenings, the people of the church got lazy. And they began to believe that, you know what, it doesn't matter how I live. I'm saved. I'm a member of the church. I'm getting what I need. In a sense, it was a return to the old Catholic model before the Reformation. People were just going through the motions.
00:10:05
Speaker
They were not walking in holiness, they were corrupt, and so Finney called them to repentance, and he was extremely fiery about it. His methods, I don't always agree with, but one thing I do agree with was his point that you cannot claim to be a Christian and continue walking in on holiness. And so this is why we end up in this conversation about assurance. It's kind of a question of how much sin is too much sin to no longer be a Christian.
00:10:33
Speaker
So under the Arminian view of conditional security, you have, again, the Reformed Arminians and the Wesleyan Arminians. Reformed Arminians would say, you can choose to reject Christ, Hebrews 6, and walk away. But it's a once for all thing. It's not like you can hop in and hop out. You can sin enough to lose salvation and then get saved again and bought back and forth, hopping over the fence, if you will. Whereas Wesleyan Arminians would have a little bit more
00:11:00
Speaker
leeway on that topic and probably be more like actually you could sin enough to grieve God and fall away. So the point though in conditional security is that you must persevere in faith until the very end.
00:11:16
Speaker
to be saved. This is the standard Arminian position. So the emphasis is on persevering in daily faith, not by effort, but by the Spirit. You each day choose to walk by the Spirit, and that's evidence of your faith. So conditional security means you could walk away, and your goal is to persevere in listening to the Holy Spirit. And that is in comparison to eternal security.
00:11:44
Speaker
The third view is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. So this stems from the other five points of tulip, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, etc. And so the elect, the Christians that God chooses to make Christians are those who are chosen and cannot permanently fall away. This is often summed up as once saved, always saved.
00:12:11
Speaker
Roy Ingle says this, there are three positions that we could take on the issue of if saved, always saved. So there's once saved, always saved. It's like, well, I got it covered fire insurance. I can live how I want to live. Roy takes it a little different direction. He says, if you are truly saved, always saved.
00:12:31
Speaker
If a person fails to continue in the faith under this if saved always saved idea, we could say first that such a person who commits apostasy was never truly saved to begin with, which is what most Calvinists would teach. And that's what if saved always saved implies. So what Roy Engel is getting at here is that
00:12:53
Speaker
The Calvinist position is essentially because God always does what he wills and because in their framework, God's sovereignty relies on him being able to save who he wills. If God wants someone to be saved and they do not respond to him, then his sovereignty is somehow diminished. And because of that, God will save who he will save. And if somebody walks away from the faith, they were never saved in the first place because that would make God a liar.
00:13:21
Speaker
Hopefully that makes sense. So I know this is a lot of doctrine, but I want to lay this down for you at the beginning because depending on how you were raised and what church you're in and where you grew up, you will probably have some familiarity with one of these three.
00:13:36
Speaker
Eternal security, once saved always saved. You can come to God freely but you will never reject Him if you are truly saved. Conditional security, the standard Arminian position that you can either sin enough to lose your salvation or you can openly reject Him only once, the reformed Arminian position.
00:13:55
Speaker
And then the third position, which is the Calvinistic one, and that one would say, if you reject Christ, you walk away from the faith, you were never saved in the first place. And those who are elect, believers are elected, they are preserved by God and will persevere to the end.
00:14:14
Speaker
I want to add also the Catholic perspective and this is from Jimmy Aiken because I think that it's important to note for those of you who do have Catholic friends, Catholic family to know from them what their perspective is. So Jimmy Aiken Catholic writer says this,
00:14:29
Speaker
Sometimes advocates of eternal security argue that if God is the perfect Savior, if He is omnipotent, then He should be able to save those He chooses. He cannot fail. This begs the question of whether God intends to bring everyone who experiences initial salvation to final salvation. If God intends to allow people who experience initial salvation to freely choose to change their mind, to return to sin and to fall from grace, then such people do not represent divine failure.
00:14:58
Speaker
It is only if you presuppose that God intends to cause all believers to persevere to the end that their failure to do so would represent divine failure, but that is assuming the thing that needs to be proved.
00:15:11
Speaker
So what Jimmy Aiken is actually describing here is conditional security. So the standard Arminian position is actually very similar to the Catholic position. And if I'm not mistaken, the Anabaptist and the Orthodox positions. So the most common position both on libertarian will and on assurance is actually leaning this direction, not the Calvinistic direction. Theologically, the Calvinistic viewpoint is in the minority.
00:15:41
Speaker
in terms of the global Christian church. So when we look at this passage, though, what he's basically saying here is what I said when I talked about the Arminian position, that if you do believe that God will only let his spirit call a person if he intends to save them, then if that person rejects God, yes, it's a divine failure. God failed.
00:16:07
Speaker
But if God intended to offer all people the freedom to respond, a person choosing not to respond to God or responding and then rejecting Him is within God's sovereign intent.
00:16:22
Speaker
He permitted it. He created man with the ability. Therefore, God's sovereignty is not diminished at all by somebody rejecting him. I mean, that person misses out, right? And they receive the wrath. They choose to remain under wrath or return to wrath if it's an apostasy situation. But I say all of this to, again, lay the groundwork for where we're going in terms of assurance.
Key Questions and Scriptural Assurance
00:16:48
Speaker
eternal security, once saved, always saved, perseverance of the saints, if saved, always saved, and then conditional security. If saved, persevere. And you can walk away if you'd really choose to.
00:17:04
Speaker
So let's look at how to navigate this as someone who is coming out maybe of an unhealthy Arminian environment, or maybe from a Catholic environment, or maybe from a different church, maybe you didn't even hear it from your church, maybe it's just something in your own heart where you're overthinking salvation. My first question when I talk to people who are in this situation of doubting their assurance,
00:17:32
Speaker
is this okay have you repented to the lord at some point in your life and said lord i want you to be the lord of my life i want you to lead my life and i'm ready to follow you have you had that conversation with god 99.9 percent of the time they say yes sometimes they say yes i've prayed that prayer dozens of times okay so you already cast yourself on
00:18:00
Speaker
the name of the Lord. So I want to read a couple of passages about this issue. John 3 36 says, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 10 28, I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Okay, these are two verses straight from John.
00:18:30
Speaker
Both of them say that all you need to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you guys have probably heard me talk about this before, where I say that to believe in Christ, to put your faith in Christ, is to acknowledge Him as King. It's not just a vague mental belief, even the demons believe, James says.
00:18:47
Speaker
So it's not just, oh yeah, Jesus existed and he probably died and was resurrected. Sure. No, it's Jesus existed. He was God. He was man. He died. He was resurrected. He reigns on high and he reigns on high over my life. He is my Lord. He tells me what to do. That's faith. That's what the creeds are talking about. So not just vague mental, you know, Jordan Peterson belief here.
00:19:08
Speaker
So, knowing this, we are talking about surrendering to God, you've surrendered to God, and here it says in Scripture, Jesus' own words, if you believe in me, if your loyalty is to me, you have eternal life. Cut and dried, straight Bible word right there. So, if you don't obey the Son, if you aren't loyal to the Son, then
00:19:31
Speaker
Yes, the wrath of God remains on you. So under wrath, if you believe in Christ, the wrath does not remain on you. You are free from that. And then, of course, in Romans, we see that it says that there is no condemnation in Christ for those who have put their faith in Him, who are walking in the faith that the Spirit has called them to. So knowing what John says, knowing the truth, we have to ask ourselves,
00:20:01
Speaker
What lie am I believing about my salvation that I believe Jesus' words are not good enough? If you believe you have to get resaved every single time you sin, I can guarantee you you're not even covering
00:20:21
Speaker
Many of the sins you've committed or will commit like there's no way you can do this. There's no way you can make sure to cover for all these things. So you're you're entering into a losing battle and you're actually going backwards into a workspace righteousness because.
00:20:36
Speaker
you have lost sight of the promise that Jesus gives through the gospel. And this is such a demonic strategy. I know that strong language. Probably thinking, oh, Felicia's getting a little charismatic. But really, if it's not of Christ, it's demonic. And this is such a demonic strategy because if he can get you to not believe that Jesus' word is true, if he can say to you, just like the enemy did in the garden, did God really say you were saved?
00:21:07
Speaker
He can get you to believe anything. He can get you completely bound up in confusion and chaos and doubt and depression over this and anxiety. And then how can you disciple someone else? Because you don't have any confidence in your own faith. It is a snowball effect that all begins by believing a lie about your salvation.
Assurance through Faith and Apostasy
00:21:28
Speaker
If you have believed in the sun, you have eternal life.
00:21:31
Speaker
and you will have eternal life, you will never perish, and no one will snatch you out of my hand." Jesus says. So let's go to 1 John 5. I had this one written down too. So same apostle, different book. 1 John 5, 11 says, and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
00:21:53
Speaker
Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
00:22:15
Speaker
Okay, couple really big words here. Over and over he says in these verses, you've been given eternal life, this life is in the sun, the sun has life, and if you do not believe in him, you don't have life. That's five instances of life or eternal life in three verses. And then he says, out of this eternal life, you have confidence that you are heard by God. True assurance of salvation,
00:22:45
Speaker
results in this kind of peaceful confidence that you are always heard by God. If you are wrapped up in constant doubt about your salvation, I can almost bet you you don't have a thriving prayer life. At least not one that's accomplishing anything in your own life.
00:23:02
Speaker
because most of your prayers are probably trying to preserve yourself from some sin that you're trying to keep track of or trying to cleanse yourself before God when Jesus has already cleansed you. Be cautious of trusting your feelings about salvation rather than the truth of what Scripture says.
00:23:23
Speaker
I'll say that again. Be cautious about trusting your feelings about salvation rather than the truth of what God's word says about you and about who saved you. Okay, so I've read you these passages, but I know what you're going to say. I know you're going to say, okay, Felicia, that's really cool. That's true. I get that. But
00:23:48
Speaker
How do I reconcile these passages that talk about eternal security and say, hey, you have eternal life because you trusted Christ with passages like Hebrews 6. So let's go to Hebrews 6. This is a passage that Arminians in particular wrestle with because it is pretty challenging.
00:24:10
Speaker
Hebrews 6 says this, For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, 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.
00:24:34
Speaker
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.
00:24:59
Speaker
This is, as I said, a challenging passage because it says clearly that the people who have known God, have tasted the heavenly gift, have been enlightened with the word, shared in the Holy Spirit, had the goodness of the word of God, and tasted the powers of the ages to come, and have fallen away or walked away.
00:25:25
Speaker
I wanted to learn a little bit more about this passage, and so I looked up an article, a paper, written by Professor Ben Witherington, who is a professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary. This is something that he said. Our author of Hebrews says what seems almost unthinkable. In Hebrews 6-6, he uses the verb paripipto.
00:25:46
Speaker
A verb found nowhere else in the New Testament to speak of falling away, not in the sense of accidentally or carelessly falling down, but in the sense of deliberately stepping into a black hole. In a Septuagint, this verb is used to describe acting faithlessly or treacherously, especially in regard to the covenant, Ezekiel 14, 20, and 2 Chronicles 26, 18.
00:26:11
Speaker
The act of falling away is not so much against a dogma as against a person, against the Son of God. Crucifying again the Son of God and holding him up to ridicule makes this abundantly clear. Apostasy, the sin of abandoning God, Christ, and the fellowship of believers.
00:26:28
Speaker
So this really supports the Reformed Arminian position, that you can't just fall away. You can't just sin, sin, sin. Oh my gosh, look what happened. I'm no longer in Christ. No, the verb that's used, the only time it's used in the whole New Testament indicates an intentional and deliberate stepping away, which is why
00:26:50
Speaker
The language around this is so severe. He says, you are crucifying once again the Son of God to your own harm, holding him up in contempt. Somebody who mistakenly falls away, you know, slips back, backs like whatever,
00:27:06
Speaker
There's a big difference between that and renouncing your salvation and rejecting Christ completely. And he's saying you have held him in contempt. And I think this is illustrated by the impact that falls like this have on public figures and their followers. I'm thinking of Josh Harris, how many people were affected by his public renunciation of Christianity
00:27:33
Speaker
holding Christ in contempt. It affected many people in a deep and harmful way.
00:27:40
Speaker
That's the impact of a deliberate rejection, and that is what Hebrews 6 is referring to here. Luke Timothy Johnson says, the enormity of apostasy is measured by the greatness of the experience of God it abandons. That is why it's impossible to renew to repentance people who have proven capable of turning away from their own most powerful and transforming experience.
00:28:04
Speaker
He's saying if you can walk away from the most powerful and transforming experience of your life, there's no turning back. There's no back and forth. There's no hopping back over that fence. There is no renewing to repentance because you have tasted it all and you've chosen to reject it.
00:28:24
Speaker
So what's the alternative then to apostasy? Well, Ben Witherington says it's perseverance all the way to death or the eschatological finish line, the return of Christ, whichever comes first. So your choice is to persevere in faith in Christ. And obviously this is an Arminian position, but really either way, it's the same answer for Calvinists, for traditional Baptists, and for Arminians, persevere by the Holy Spirit's power until death.
00:28:51
Speaker
That is salvation. Or, as Eugene Peterson said, it's a long obedience in the same direction. A long obedience. Not a long emotion, not a long feeling, though you might have feelings and emotions towards the Lord, and that's a good thing. You're not doing what you're doing in faith by emotion. Your faith in God is not an emotion. It's a choice. It's an acknowledgement of his lordship over your life. And that's why it results in obedience.
00:29:19
Speaker
because if it doesn't result in obedience, he never was your Lord in the first place. And there's a bigger problem. So, let's look at what Wesley said about this. John Wesley said that those who hear God's voice and respond by faith are known, that is, approved by Christ. Wanna stop there. I love this definition of known by God.
00:29:42
Speaker
We hear the word known, and we could think, yeah, I know my neighbor. I know them. I see them come and go. I know what their job is. But that's not what is meant here. Approved by Christ. Through Christ's salvation, you are approved by Him. You are loved by Him, and you follow Him, keeping His commandments with a believing, loving heart.
00:30:01
Speaker
This is how you walk out your salvation. And John 15a actually illustrates this. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Probably heard me harp on this in the Holy Spirit for dummies passage. By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
00:30:23
Speaker
What does this mean? Prove. This word, prove, in the Greek means to emerge, become, or transition from one point, realm, or condition, to another. Okay, this is so cool. When I found out this was the general meaning of this word in the Greek, it just blew my mind. So what it's saying is, if you
00:30:45
Speaker
Remain in me, Jesus is saying, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit having transitioned from one realm to another as my disciples.
00:31:06
Speaker
becoming my disciples, emerging as my disciples. So as you bear fruit, you are becoming more and more a disciple, all the while being a justified saint. Your identity is saint, but you are becoming more and more a saint.
True Discipleship and Repentance
00:31:24
Speaker
You're becoming more and more a disciple by persevering to the end, as Jesus says in Revelation, over and over and over to the churches, he says, he who perseveres to the end shall be saved, shall receive the reward,
00:31:36
Speaker
There is a perseverance that has to happen. And here there is an acknowledgement of identity that you have transitioned from one realm, you've been picked up out of one realm and transferred from the domain of darkness to the dominion of light. So that's who you are now. That's where you are and who you are.
00:31:55
Speaker
So if a Christian is not bearing fruit, it follows that there was no real surrender in the first place or no acknowledgement of his lordship. Or if there was, at that particular moment, they are quenching the Holy Spirit's voice and not living in submission and obedience to his leading. This is again why mental belief in Jesus is not enough. Even the demons believe. This idea of faith, of belief in God, is surrender
00:32:25
Speaker
And it is loyalty, allegiance to a king that leads to that long obedience, that perseverance that every Christian tradition would affirm, that you must continue to walk by the Spirit in your faith. The difference being that some Arminians would say, if you don't, you could lose your salvation.
00:32:45
Speaker
And even for Calvinists, they would still say, you still have to persevere. You still have to walk it out. You still have to be acting like a disciple because that is the fruit of the spirit. So knowing all of this that I've shared with you theologically, let's now move on to your own personal journey. How do I actually know that I'm saved? We know doctrinally what scripture says. We know what Jesus said, how simple it is, what it means to be saved.
00:33:16
Speaker
But what do you do when you do sin? Now, I could get into a whole tirade on what to do when we sin because you know I love talking about that topic, but I would encourage you to go back and listen to the Verity podcast episode on repentance. What is biblical repentance? Because I deal with that in depth on that episode. So I'm not going to talk about how to repent, when to repent, what to repent for, because I've already done that. Go back and listen to that episode.
00:33:46
Speaker
But say you have sinned and you have repented, but now you continue to have these doubts and thoughts. Am I truly saved? Have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit? Have I lost my salvation? What do I have to do to lose my salvation? Well, here's what you do when this happens. Number one, ask the question, what does Christ say about my salvation? Galatians 3, 24, you are justified by faith.
00:34:18
Speaker
Acts 15, 11, you are saved by Jesus alone. John 14, 6, Jesus is the only way and you rely completely on him. And John 15, 8, the spirit's fruit in you proves that you have transitioned from the realm of darkness to glorious light. Now, if these things are true,
00:34:42
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You can do one of two things. You can trust them and reject the lies and reject the doubt or the lie that it is, or you can believe the doubt and what it tells you about God. You can stay there and let it bend you into a pretzel of confusion and pain and shame and anxiety.
00:35:05
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That is your choice. God is not going to force you to choose one or the other. He's going to let you choose. And He'll stand there the whole time and invite you to walk with Him into peace. But you have to choose it. If you choose to trust what God has said and believe that the salvation that's offered to you is real,
00:35:29
Speaker
there will be some fruits that begin to evidence in your life. Number one, you'll begin to hate your own sin. Now, I do not mean a shame spiral. I mean, hate your own sin more than you hate other people's sin. That you will be aware of the sin in your life by the Spirit's conviction and when you notice it, you will bring it to the Lord and then you'll walk free.
00:35:52
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and you will walk with him into obedience. Secondly, you will live more and more as a transformed person. And that process may be slow. There will be specific areas of our lives that God is working on at different times, but you will continue to grow in maturity. So here are the truths about eternal security and assurance of salvation. Number one, salvation cannot be earned.
00:36:19
Speaker
2. Salvation is a gift of grace to those who bow their knees to Christ. 3. If you have bowed your knee to Christ, Scripture says salvation is applied to you. 4. If salvation has been applied to you, you have received the Holy Spirit.
00:36:39
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Number five, if you have received the Holy Spirit, you will bear fruit more and more gradually over the course of your life. It will not be instantaneous. It will take time.
00:36:50
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Number six, you can quench the spirit by rejecting his voice and backsliding. If you continue in unrepentant backsliding, even when confronted, and then reject Christ completely to become apostate, an Arminian would say, your salvation is removed. But here's the deal, friends. 100% of the people who have asked me about this issue
00:37:14
Speaker
have been repentant, and if anything, in complete anxiety over their fear of not being saved. If you are afraid of not being saved, you are not the person Hebrews 6 is talking about. You are not the person in the passage about blasphemy of the Spirit. If you are afraid of blaspheming the Spirit, you didn't do it. Because the person who's blaspheming the Holy Spirit is the person who has seared their conscience. They don't care about God anymore.
00:37:43
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The person in Hebrews 6 is the person who says, you know what, God, I'm giving you the finger. I'm done with you. I don't want anything to do with you anymore. I reject you. I have nothing to do with you. If you are concerned about your salvation, if you're concerned about your sin, that's the spirit. That's the Holy Spirit in terms of conviction of sin. That's the Holy Spirit. That is not a spirit of blasphemy. That is not a spirit of apostasy.
00:38:10
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So knowing that, you can recognize, okay, these passages aren't talking about me. And so when those lies of doubt come to me, I can ask myself, have I repented of any sin? Do I need to repent to a person in my life? Do I need to allow the spirit to call me to something better, some better, more holy attitude, something that God is working on in me? Okay, if that's the case, Lord, help me to be more patient. Help me with my anger.
00:38:38
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whatever it is, bring it to the Lord. That's exactly what first John talked about. He said, you are guaranteed that God will hear you because you are saved and have eternal life in him. So his, his ear is open to you. Jesus said the exact same thing. So ask anything according to his will. He hears you. You can say, Lord, I need your help with my anger. Instead of spiraling into, Oh my gosh, I was angry. I must've lost my salvation. No, you say, Lord,
00:39:07
Speaker
I sinned in my anger. Please forgive me. Should I repent to this person over how I acted in anger? It's that simple. 1 John 1.9. Let's go a couple pages back here. My favorite verse in the New Testament. I clung to it when I was getting free from pornography. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There you go.
00:39:30
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It's that simple. You confess your sins, he's faithful and just. He forgives your sins and he cleanses you. There is no spiral into questioning salvation.
Trusting Scripture over Feelings
00:39:40
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So knowing that,
00:39:43
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that knowing all this, that salvation cannot be earned. If you are saved, you have the Spirit. If you have the Spirit, you'll bear fruit. If you sin, you can repent and be restored. John 16, 33, Jesus said, I've said all these things so that you can have peace. 2 Thessalonians 3, 16, the Lord of peace gives us peace. Isaiah 26, 3, and this one's important. He gives peace to those whose minds are fixed on him. When you get into some kind of spiral about assurance of salvation,
00:40:12
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That is your first sign that you are not listening to the voice of Christ. If you have confessed it, you have repented of anything in the past, you're saved, you don't need to get into a shame spiral. You can say, you know what? I'm in Christ. I know I'm walking in the peace of Christ.
00:40:32
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This voice of doubt that says maybe you're not really saved, maybe you're quenching the spirit, maybe you're not really walking with God, maybe you need to just pray that prayer again. That voice of chaos is not the Lord. And Jesus said, my sheep know my voice and they listen to me and they follow me. Know his voice well enough to reject the voice that isn't his and walk in confidence and peace in your salvation.
00:40:57
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Is your mind fixed on Christ, or is it fixed on the lies about your identity and the lies about your sin? Are you making your sin bigger than Christ's sacrifice? Acknowledge these patterns of thought and reject them. Check your feelings against the truth. Your feelings are not the guide here.
00:41:18
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The truth is the guide, and you measure your emotions and your feelings and the spiraling thoughts against what is true about you through Christ. And if you need a good measure for this, I've got one for you, right out of Philippians. Is it true? Is it honorable? Is it just? Is it pure? Is it lovely? Is it commendable, excellent, worthy of praise? If it's those things, then yes, you can think about them.
00:41:49
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But if not, reject it and replace it. Like Jesus in the wilderness, you get to preach truth to the enemy and say, no, I know who I am and I know whose I am. I may fall in sin, but when I do, I can confess and I will be cleansed of all in righteousness. And in the meantime, I get to walk securely. I get to persevere in my faith.
00:42:19
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and the fruit of my works by the Spirit proves that I am Jesus' disciple.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:42:28
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Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Verity Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, would you take the time to leave us a review? It helps so many other women around the world find out about Verity and about every woman a theologian as a ministry and a shop. We appreciate you and I hope you'll be back next week as we continue to go deeper into God's word and the heart of Jesus Christ.