How Do I Know I'm Really Saved?

The second three-legged chair is called "assurance of salvation." These three legs aren't only for checking yourself; you can actually use them to measure any faith at all. I've thought about this for a long time, and the more I think about it, the more important these three points seem to me.

The first leg: Objective, unchanging truth

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Ephesians 2:8–9

Faith has to be built on truth first of all. A faith without objective truth will sooner or later go off course. This truth holds everywhere, and it doesn't change with the times.

Here's an example. Two thousand years ago Paul wrote, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." (Ephesians 5:25) In those days a Roman wife could practically be bought and sold, and Jewish society also valued men over women, so those words must have sounded almost unthinkable. But two thousand years later, it's still the truth. Even if we brothers don't always live up to it, it hasn't changed.

Our emotions, though, change every day. Today I'm in a good mood and feel like the happiest man in the world; tomorrow my wife hasn't made dinner and I feel like the unluckiest man in the world. If your assurance of salvation is built on feelings, it's like a house built on sand. I know I'm saved because God's word says so: by grace I'm saved, through faith, not because I'm so good.

The second leg: The subjective, inner witness of the Holy Spirit

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

Romans 8:16

Is doctrine alone enough? No. If a theory sounds wonderful but nobody has ever experienced it, it's just a utopia. Human history has seen plenty of beautiful ideals, attempts to build a perfect world by human effort, and they all failed, because the heart is deceitful above all things. Real faith has to be something a person can experience firsthand.

In this verse, "the Spirit" and "our spirit" are the same word in the original: spirit (pneuma). It's the Spirit of God and our own spirit bearing witness together. In class I asked: how many of you, after you came to faith, just knew, without anyone teaching you, that God is your heavenly Father? Quite a few hands went up.

I became a Christian in my last year of high school. I hadn't read much of the Bible yet, but suddenly I just knew: I have a heavenly Father. And the amazing thing is, at the same time I also knew that my father, who didn't say much, really did love me. He'd never said so. It was just like my heavenly Father, who had loved me all along and only let me know when the time came. How did I know? My spirit knew. The Holy Spirit had moved my spirit.

"Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:3) We begin by the Holy Spirit, and we keep going by the Holy Spirit too. That inner witness might look like this: after you pray, you know God has heard you; nobody taught you, but deep down you know you shouldn't curse people or hate them, and your conscience has grown sensitive; when you're under a lot of pressure, you pray and there's peace inside.

A brother in the class shared that for two or three years he kept doubting whether he was really saved. Bible study, classes, asking others to pray for him: none of it settled it. Then one day he said to God, "Whether you save me or not, I'm going to believe in you." The moment he let go, peace came in. From then on he experienced God more and more. That is the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.