ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

JESUS TAUGHT ASSURANCE OF SALVATION - 2

Today we continue to look at what Jesus taught about the security of the salvation we have in him.

John 6:35 – 40: In these verses Jesus makes multiple promises:

Verse 35 – those who come to him, those who believe in him, will never be spiritually hungry or thirsty again.

Verse 37 – he will never drive away those who come to him.

Verses 38, 39 – he came to do his Father’s will, and it is his Father’s will that he shall lose none of those that the Father gave to him.

Verse 39 – it is his Father’s will that he should raise up on the last day all the Father gave him.

Verse 40 – it is the Father’s will that everyone who believes in the Son shall have eternal life, and that the Son will raise them up on the last day.

The security of our salvation is not in our hands – it is secure in the hands of the Son of God and the will of God the Father.

John 8:31, 32, 35, 36: Here Jesus speaks of the freedom of those whom he has redeemed from spiritual slavery:

‘If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. …a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’

I hope that you can see the permanence of this new status of those who truly believe in him. Jesus does not leave any room for a person losing this new status as a child of God. Note that Jesus said these words to people who appeared to believe in him (verse 30, 31), but whose supposed faith Jesus knew to be empty. [Read right through to the end of the chapter, and notice how Jesus deliberately exposed their fake ‘faith’ – by the end of the chapter they had stones in their hands ready to kill him.] We will look at the issue of fake faith in a later meditation.

John 10:27 – 30: In these verses Jesus teaches that the security of our salvation is in both his hands and his Father’s hands:

‘My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.’

John 11:25, 26:

‘Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die …’

Note again the permanence of spiritual life – ‘will never die’. The only thing that is necessary for this ‘never’ to apply to us is that we believe in Jesus Christ.

John 14:1 – 4:

In these verses Jesus is reassuring the troubled eleven disciples, encouraging them to trust him – and that is what everyone who believes in him is challenged to do: to trust his promises – to not only believe in him, but also to live with the calm, confident assurance that our salvation both today and on the day of his return is not in our hands, but in his. He has saved us, he will keep us saved, and he will save us on that day.

If we look at ourselves, we will only rarely see anything worth trusting. But we do not trust ourselves; we trust only Jesus, and because he alone is our security, we are secure.

John 17:3:

‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.’

In John 20:31 John tells us what motivated him as he put his Gospel together:

‘These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’

As we saw last week, ‘life’, ‘eternal life’, is the present and permanent possession of all who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is not something that can be lost or taken away. To know Jesus Christ is to have eternal life.

© Rosemary Bardsley 2025