Our Source of Assurance

 “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

(Colossians 1:21–23 ESV)

The assurance of salvation is something that we desperately need. It’s needed because, quite frankly, we don’t always feel saved. Circumstances arise that cause us to question or even to doubt it. 

It could be our outward circumstances. Our life situation may not be everything we want or hope it to be. And it causes us to feel that we’re outside of God’s blessing.

A struggle with sin can have this effect as well. As we face an ongoing battle with a certain temptation or sinful tendency, we begin to wonder if we are, in fact, saved. We begin to wonder if our hope has been misplaced.

We know that we’re saved by the grace of God. And we know that we receive this grace through faith in Jesus. But, as we face these struggles, where is the assurance of our salvation found?

Our tendency, when we face these struggles, is to look at our behavior. We think that, if we’re truly saved, it will be seen in our life. We think that an internal change should be evident.

While it’s true that the grace of God indeed produces fruit in our life, and while it’s true that it produces changes within us, the ongoing presence of sin can lead us to lose our sense of assurance. When change seems slow or even nonexistent, we begin to question our faith. When it seems that, perhaps, we’re less sanctified today than we were last week, we begin to question or to doubt our salvation.

It does so because, internally, our hope has shifted from Christ to ourselves. It’s shifted from a dependence upon Christ and the salvation he accomplished for us upon the cross, to a dependence upon ourselves and the works that we perform. It has shifted from a reliance upon the grace of God to a reliance upon our own inherent goodness. And this contradicts the very gospel we confess.

However, as we see in the above passage, we can have an assurance of salvation. We can, in fact, know that we are saved. And this assurance is provided by our faith.

Just as we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus, so too are we assured of our salvation. Paul tells us that our salvation is certain as long as we have faith. It is certain as long as we remain stable and steadfast in our faith. It is certain as long as we do not shift from the hope of the gospel we have heard.

This makes perfect sense. It aligns perfectly with the message of the gospel. Because we are saved through faith, we are assured of our salvation by that same faith.