Archives for February 2010

Questions:

• Is telling a person he is saved unbiblical?
• Is there more to assurance than saying “Yes, you’re saved because…”
• When a child states that he is saved already, at what point should a parent “let” him be saved?
• Should a parent ever bring up salvation with a child? At what point developmentally?

A quick survey of the New Testament epistles demonstrate that Paul speaks to the recipients of his letters as believers. In essence, he’s saying that they are in fact, saved. Of course, he is speaking to a group, but even in the case of his personal letter to Philemon, he calls him a brother.

On what basis does Paul make assumptions of Philemon’s salvation? Evidently on his profession and testimony: I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints…. Philemon 4

In fact, we make assumptions about people’s salvation all the time. Otherwise, every time we talk about the Lord, we’d be prefacing our comments with absurd qualifications  “assuming you’re saved, don’t be weary in well doing…”  or “if you’ve trusted in Christ as your Savior through faith alone, then you can be asssured he will not test you beyond your ability to bear it.”

When we have reason to doubt someone’s salvation (either because of a lack of testimony or lack of evidence of a regenerate life), we sometimes include these conditions. At some point, though, these are insulting and cynical. At some point, we simply trust God with the details. God’s Word never returns void, whether a person is saved or unsaved.

So, a friend of mine was recently saved. At one point, when Lee and I asked her if she was saved, she wasn’t sure. As we talked with her, it became clear that she was indeed trusting Christ for her salvation, that she was not depending on her own efforts to reform herself. Hurray! When we were discussing salvation later, we talked through a number of passages focusing on salvation.

• Is this what you’ve done? I asked.
• Yes, exactly.
• So…. what does God’s Word say about a person who does these things?
• She’s saved.

Fun conversation. What’s interesting to me is the process of finding assurance. Just like in my situation, my mom didn’t tell me I was saved because I trusted in Christ. She gave me Scripture and said, “Here’s why you might not be sure you’re saved. Now you determine whether you’re saved or not.” In other words, she put her trust in the Holy Spirit’s ability to convince me of my salvation (or lack thereof) through God’s Word. Likewise, for my friend, I didn’t know for sure whether she had trusted God. So it made sense to let God’s Word make that call.

But now, I’m thinking about my children. For some inexplicable reason, my children are rather private about spiritual things, and I’m wondering whether letting Scripture manage their salvation is a good idea. That takes a good deal of pressure off me, because I don’t feel the pressure to correctly identify the point of salvation for my children. (I’m talking about my two older children who are 6 and 5; since I’m not convinced my 3 year old understands the basic components of salvation, I’m not including her in this conversation yet.)

I’m still thinking on this. Perhaps next I’ll consider some objections to this approach.

I’m going to begin a series on helping children come to an assurance of salvation. This topic has been percolating for awhile, and Lee and I have been discussing it at length together. We’ll see how it all comes together.

When I was a teenager, I started having doubts of my salvation. The trouble was, I couldn’t really remember exactly what happened when I was saved. I remember sitting with a Sunday school teacher, and her opening the Bible on a step. That’s it. I was four years old. When I was six, I wanted to be baptized, and I remember much more clearly the questions of the pastor. Does baptism save you? I remember being horrified by the question! Absolutely not. I knew then that I was trusting in Jesus Christ for my salvation.

But as I got older, I started to worry. What if I hadn’t prayed right? What if my memory was a fabrication of my imagination? What if… I tried a number of means to reassure myself, but finally one night I woke up my mom and told her my problem.

She didn’t tell me I was saved. She didn’t tell me I wasn’t saved. She did open her Bible and explain that people doubt their salvation for a number of reasons.

• First, some people doubt their salvation because they are not saved. That one is pretty obvious, and the solution is to get saved.
• Second some people doubt their salvation because they do not understand who God is and the nature of their salvation. First John, and First Peter, directly address some of those fears. The solution is to learn. The more we learn about God and salvation, the more confidence I have in what He has done.
• Third, some people doubt their salvation because they have sin in their lives or are not growing spiritually. The guilty feeling is a gift from God to tell us that something is wrong. We’re told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We’re told to examine ourselves, to see if we are in the faith. Peter tells us that people who are not growing forget about their salvation! The solution, for this problem, of course, is to repent and/or grow! Peter commands us to give diligence to adding spiritual disciplines to our lives.

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
¹⁰ Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; ¹¹ for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  II Peter 1:5-10

This discussion with my mom was extremely helpful for me, although it didn’t completely answer whether I was saved or not. I still wasn’t entirely sure what category I was in! That came several years later, in college. A pastor in my church mentioned that what we think about to reassure ourselves that we are saved can indicate what we’re trusting in for our salvation: baptism, church membership, the word of a parent, the words of a prayer we said. For a saved person, assurance comes from what Christ has done and said. At that point, I understood completely that as long as I looked to my memory and what I did, I’d continue to have doubts. But if I looked at God’s Word, I would find assurance (assuming I had obeyed His Word in the matter of salvation).

I Timothy 1:12 says For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

God used this passage to give me assurance. I knew I believed, and was trusting in Jesus Christ for my salvation. Thus, I could rest assured that God is able to keep me saved. Several times after this sermon I had doubts, but I found immediate relief when I turned to Scripture. Then the doubts stopped completely.