Can I Be Sure I'm Saved? (Crucial Questions)

by R.C. Sproul

Yet we also remember that the magisterial Reformers of the sixteenth century, such as Martin Luther, said we are justified by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone.

So the Catholic view is that faith plus works equals justification. But in the Protestant view, faith equals justification plus works.

Universalism teaches that everyone is saved and goes to heaven.

But no one taught more clearly about the last judgment and a division between heaven and hell than Jesus Himself.

But if there’s anything unredeemed human beings want to repress psychologically, it’s that threat of final, comprehensive judgment, because none of them wants to be held accountable for his sins. Therefore, nothing is more appealing to human beings than universalism—the idea that all are saved.

Unfortunately, a person’s works are a counterfeit basis for assurance. The Scriptures make very clear that no one is justified by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 3:11).

The biblical standard of goodness is the righteousness of God, and we are judged both by our behavioral conformity to the law of God and by our internal motivation or desire to obey the law of God.

Paul warns in the New Testament that those who judge themselves by themselves are not wise (1 Cor. 10:12).

Since we always can find people who are more sinful than we are, it would be easy to conclude that we’re doing pretty well.

They assume that since joining a church includes them in the visible body of Christ, they must be part of the invisible church as well. So they put their confidence in their church membership. But membership in a church does not justify anyone; this is another illegitimate and false method of assurance.

The danger is that people who say the prayer, raise a hand, walk the aisle, or make a decision sometimes end up trusting in that particular act. Outward professions can be deceiving. One can go through the external motions of a profession but not truly be in possession of the inward reality of salvation.

If we have a sound understanding of election, and if we know that we are numbered among the elect, that knowledge provides unbelievable comfort to us as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12) and as we encounter the various afflictions that are placed before us in our Christian lives (2 Tim. 3:12).

If we are called to make our election sure, then it follows that we are able to make our election sure.

None who are saved are not elect, and none who are elect fail to be saved.

Salvation flows out of election, so if we want to be sure of our salvation, we need to know whether we are numbered among the elect.

This is true because election does not simply make salvation possible, it guarantees the salvation of the elect. In other words, the purpose of God in election is to save the elect. That purpose cannot and will not be frustrated.

I believe that the saints do in fact persevere, but they persevere because they are preserved by God.

What was the goal of this predestination? It was that those God foreknew would be conformed to the image of Christ.

For God to elect someone, He must have some idea of whom He is electing. So foreknowledge must precede predestination, because God is predestining specific individuals whom He loves and chooses.

Prior to regeneration, we follow “the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. . . fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (vv. 2–3a, NKJV). That describes the life of the fallen person who is not reborn.

But after the new birth, we are “no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (v. 19, NKJV).

When we read Scripture’s teaching on our natural state, we see such descriptions as “bondage to corruption” (Rom. 8:21), “dead in transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1), and “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).

By nature, the Scriptures tell us, we are at enmity with God, and the word enmity is a description of a hostile attitude.

In just the same way, it’s possible to love a caricature of Jesus rather than Jesus Himself.

Consider this question: “Is it possible for an unregenerate person to have any true affection for Christ?” My answer is no; affection for Christ is a result of the Spirit’s work. That is what regeneration is all about; that is what the Spirit does in quickening.

God the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our souls and the inclination of our hearts.

Love for God is kindled by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, who pours the love of God into our hearts (Rom. 5:5).

One of the most popular views of regeneration in the evangelical world today holds that at regeneration the Holy Spirit simply comes into your life; He indwells you. But even after regeneration (according to this view), you have to respond to the Spirit, to cooperate with Him and put Him in charge of your life, because it’s possible for you to be regenerate, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and yet never bring forth any fruits of obedience. You can become what some call “a carnal Christian.”

When we are in the flesh, the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our hearts. He doesn’t immediately annihilate the flesh; the carnal dimension still wages war with us. The flesh battles with the Spirit throughout the entire Christian life, and there are times when we are more or less carnal (Gal. 5:17). There is no dispute about that.

However, some use the term “carnal Christian” to describe a person who remains unchanged by the presence of the Holy Ghost. When the term is used this way, it does not describe a Christian but an unregenerate person.

So I reject this view of regeneration out of hand as involving no regeneration at all, because although the Spirit supposedly enters into the person’s life, it does not produce a supernatural work of grace t...

It is critical to understand that regeneration is something that the Holy Spirit does that really and truly changes a person; it changes the very disposition of his soul. If a person is truly regenerate and manifests faith, it is impossib...

The idea in 2 Corinthians 5:5 is that the Spirit, when He regenerates us, not only changes the disposition of our hearts and the inclination of our souls, He becomes for us the earnest, or the guarantee, of full and final payment.

This is the language Paul is using when he says that when we’re born of the Spirit, not only does the Spirit change our hearts, our souls, and our wills, but He gives to us the pledge—the guarantee—that the fullness of our salvation will be realized.

When He makes a down payment, the rest will be paid—guaranteed. This is a firm basis for our assurance.

Paul tells us here in 2 Corinthians that the King of the universe places His indelible mark on the soul of every one of His people. He not only gives us an ironclad guarantee, He seals us for the day of redemption.

But in the final analysis, the bedrock of our assurance of salvation comes from the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, for He bears witness to our spirits (inside us) that we are the children of God.

The farther we get away from the Word, the less assurance we will experience in this life.

The more we are in the Word of God, the more the Spirit who inspired the Word and who illumines it for us will use the Word to confirm in our souls that we are truly His, that we are indeed among the children of God.