ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

1PETER 1:3-5

Have you ever read 1Peter 1:3-5?

If you have, did you notice that these three verses contain multiple truths that affirm that the salvation we have in Jesus Christ is secure?
Peter tells us:

That our salvation comes from God’s mercy. That is, it does not depend on our merit. We do not earn it by our personal good works or by our personal obedience. If God related to us on the basis of our merit, none of us could have any real assurance of salvation. Actually, none of us would be saved.

God has given us new birth. Our salvation is here called ‘new birth’ – not a ‘new birth’ that we have brought about by ourselves, by our own striving or our own hard work. No ‘birth’ is something we do or accomplish. It is something done to us, an action in which we are the passive recipients. This spiritual ‘new birth’ is a gift of God. It is not something that can be reversed. It is not possible to become unborn.

This new birth produces in us a living hope. Our confidence, our assurance, our certainty, is not a dead hope, nor even a shaky or dying hope; it is not a hope without foundation.

It is grounded in ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’. Christ’s resurrection confirms the two central truths of the Christian faith: one, that Jesus Christ is God, just as he claimed (read Romans 1:4); two, that his death accomplished completely the salvation that God had planned for us before time began. As Paul points out in 1Corinthians 15, without the resurrection of Christ our faith is futile and we are still unforgiven. Without his resurrection there is no salvation. But, because he did rise from the dead, our salvation is secure.

Our salvation, which Peter here calls an ‘inheritance’, can never perish, spoil or fade. Notice Peter’s ‘never’ – that is, not ever, not at any time. It is not like our physical or financial inheritance, subject to wear and tear, to moth and rust, to the changing circumstances of our lives and of the global economy. Nothing can diminish our salvation. Nothing can alter it. Nothing can damage it. It retains for ever the same power and perfection and completeness that it had when God first gave it to us.

It is kept in heaven for us. God himself is ‘keeping’, that is keeping safe, guarding, our salvation. And he is guarding it for us. The certainty of our salvation is in his hands, not ours. He does not leave the continuance and preservation of such a costly treasure in our puny and powerless hands.

But that is not all that God is keeping safe. We ourselves, who believe in Jesus Christ, are shielded by God’s power. God himself is protecting us, shielding us. God is determined that we will not get away from him. As Paul points out in Romans 8 – nothing, not even the accusations of the evil one, true though they may be – can ever separate us from his love.

But, for how long? How long will God stand guard over us and over the salvation we have in Christ? Peter tells us ‘…until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.’ God is keeping us, protecting us, shielding us, right up until Jesus Christ returns and establishes the new heavens and the new earth. God is making sure that we will be there when we are finally saved from the presence of the sin and the suffering that entered the world in Genesis 3.

As a flow-on from this guaranteed salvation Peter says to his readers: ‘In this you greatly rejoice …’, and says that they were ‘filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy’ even though they were suffering greatly – because they were ‘receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls’ – 1Peter 1:6-9.

May that same assurance and that same joy be ours.