ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

JOHN’S FIRST LETTER – 3

John wrote his first letter to reassure genuine Christians of the salvation they had in and through Jesus Christ. Two facts had apparently undermined their confidence: one, the presence of false teaching, which diminished Jesus Christ, and two, the fact that some people who had been considered Christians had now left the fellowship of believers.

John mentions his purpose for writing to the remaining believers several times:

‘We write this to make your joy complete’ – 1:4. In verses 1 – 3 John had reassured them about the truth of the gospel – that the eternal Son of God had become a real human being, and that he was ‘eternal life’. John’s purpose was not to unsettle their faith, which he knew was genuine, but to increase their joy by reaffirming the truth about Jesus Christ.

‘My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin’ – 2:1. As we saw in the previous meditation, a life of on-going sin indicates a failure to know the real Jesus. John wrote to genuine believers with the purpose of warning them against individual acts of sin. But, at the same time, verses 2:1 & 2, he assured them that, if they should commit individual acts of sin, Jesus Christ was both their advocate with the Father, and the atoning sacrifice for their sins.

‘I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name’ – 2:12. John expresses his confidence that they are genuine believers, and therefore, are forgiven because of Christ. (Note that ‘have been forgiven’ is in the Perfect Tense, which speaks of something already done in the past, the results of which are still in place in the present.)

‘I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning’ – 2:13, 14. They really do know and believe that Jesus is the eternal One.

‘I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one’ – 2:13, 14. Overcoming the evil one means that they, in believing the truth, have overcome his deceptions about God which began in Genesis 3 and continue to this day.

‘I write you, young men, because … the word of God lives in you’ – 2:14. Having overcome the devil’s deceptions, they now have God’s truth as the centre of their lives, determining what they believe and how they live.

‘I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it ...’ – 2:21. They do know the truth. Unlike those who have left, they are not swayed by the errors of false teaching.

Summing it all up, John says:

‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life’ – 5:13.

John’s purpose was not to strike fear into their hearts (or into our hearts). Rather his purpose was to produce confidence assurance in those who believe in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As we have seen in the two previous meditations on John’s first letter, there are two facts that determine whether or not a person is ‘saved’: (1) personal belief that the man Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son of God who became ‘flesh’, (became a human being); and (2) that any claim to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will, if it is genuine, be demonstrated in a person’s actions and attitudes.

John’s assurance of salvation detailed in his stated purpose in writing, is addressed only to those with real, biblical faith, in the real, biblical Jesus.

He is not reassuring those whose ‘Jesus’ is not the real Jesus.

He is not reassuring those whose way of life continually contradicts the love and the light and the Lordship of Jesus.

But to those who have acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord, both in their verbal confession of his name and in the normal ebb and flow of their daily lives, he says: ‘We write this to make your joy complete … I write these things … so that you may know that you have eternal life’ – 1:4; 5:13.

Joyful confidence. Not fearful lack of assurance.

© Rosemary Bardsley 2026