Can we know we are saved? The first paragraph of the 18th chapter of the 1689 Baptist Confession answers yes. Scripture offers numerous examples of believers who express confident assurance in their present salvation and their perseverance unto the end. Some may suppose such certainty belonged only to the apostles or to believers specially enlightened by God, but John’s first epistle addresses this directly. Writing to all the Christians in his audience, he states, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). The Apostle John not only tells us we can know our salvation; he wants us to know it. This assurance lies at the very heart of why he wrote.
As for how we know we are saved, we turn to the second paragraph of the chapter:
This certainty is not merely an inconclusive or likely persuasion based on a fallible hope. It is an infallible assurance of faith founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel. It is also built on the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit about which promises are made. It is further based on the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God. As a fruit of this assurance, our hearts are kept both humble and holy.
The Confession presents three grounds for our assurance. We have, first, the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel. Second, we have the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit about which promises are made. Third, we have the testimony of the Spirit of adoption.
Faith and the Objective Reality
We established that the first ground of assurance is Christ’s blood and righteousness, the one objective ground of our assurance. What makes it objective? Regardless of our personal experiences or feelings, Christ lived a sinless life, died, made propitiation for sins, and rose again from the dead. God the Father accepted His sacrifice on behalf of His elect people. This is a historical reality, unaffected by our personal experiences. That is why Hebrews declares, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19).
But this raises an important question: How does that help my personal assurance? Jesus died for sinners, but am I one of them?
Notice what the Confession says: “It is an infallible assurance of faith.” Faith is what joins the sinner to the historical reality of Christ’s death and resurrection. What unites us to Christ Himself so that God accepts us for His Son’s sake? Faith. As Paul writes in Romans, “[We] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith“ (Romans 3:24-25).
Faith makes the objective, historical reality of Christ’s blood and righteousness a subjective, personal experience for us. It unites the two together. The Puritans employed syllogism effectively to demonstrate this principle. A syllogism takes a major proposition and joins it with a minor proposition to reach a logical conclusion. Consider a simple example: “All human beings are sinners” is the major proposition. “I am a human being” is the minor proposition. Therefore, the conclusion follows: “I must be a sinner.”
Thomas Brooks used this same approach to explain assurance:
The Scripture doth plainly and fully declare, that he that believeth, feareth, loveth, obeyeth, &c. is blessed, and shall be happy for ever. But I am such a one that doth believe, fear, love, obey, &c. therefore I am blessed, and shall be happy for ever. Now although it must be granted that the major of this Proposition is Scripture, yet the assumption is from experience, and therefore a godly man being assisted therein by the holy Ghost, may safely draw the conclusion as undeniable.
Applied to salvation, our first proposition is biblical: Whoever believes shall be saved. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16), and Paul declared, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
The second proposition is personal: I believe.
The conclusion follows naturally: If everyone who believes shall be saved, and I believe, then I shall be saved.
John Owen articulated this same syllogism with precision:
All believers may have assurance that Christ died for them with the intention and purpose of saving their souls. For example, every believer may reason as follows:
Major premise: Christ died for all believers, that is, for all who choose him and rest upon him as an all-sufficient Savior. This proposition is plainly taught throughout Scripture in countless places.
Minor premise: I believe in Christ. I choose him as my Savior, cast myself entirely upon him for salvation, and give myself up to him to receive mercy in his appointed way. The truth of this proposition in the believer’s heart is confirmed by the witness of the Spirit, and Scripture itself provides many testimonies to its certainty.
Therefore, the conclusion follows: Christ died for me in particular, with the intention and purpose of saving me. This is a conclusion that all believers, and only believers, can rightly draw. It belongs to them alone, and this treasure of consolation is intended for them alone.
He continues,
At the same time, the sufficiency of Christ’s death to save every person who comes to him is more than enough to support all the invitations and appeals of the gospel. Sinners are urged to believe, and when, by Christ’s grace, they do believe, embracing the promise, then this infallible assurance of Christ’s intention and purpose to redeem them by his death is made known to them.
By faith, historical reality becomes personal. The objective becomes subjective. And that is precisely why we must look to Christ rather than ourselves. He alone is the object of our faith. What good does it do to say, “I believe,” if we lose sight of the first proposition? Apart from Christ, His blood and His righteousness, there is no salvation and no assurance of it. As Hebrews reminds us, “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
Yet our faith is not always accompanied by assurance. The final paragraph of the Confession acknowledges this reality: “True believers may in various ways have the assurance of their salvation shaken, decreased, or temporarily lost.” When that happens, the remedy is to return to the gospel, to the cross, to the resurrection, and to the promises of God given to all who believe. Look to Christ as you run the race. He is the founder and perfecter of our faith.
Justification, Sanctification, and the Spirit’s Indwelling
While I previously categorized the first ground as objective and the remaining two as subjective, there is also a subjective dimension to the first because the blood and righteousness of Christ become a ground of assurance only to the sincere believer. These three grounds might be better understood in different terms.
First, “the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel” speaks to our justification. What is justification? It is God’s legal declaration that a sinner is righteous in His sight solely because of the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone.
Second, “the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit” speaks to our sanctification. Sanctification is the ongoing work of God’s grace by which believers are renewed in the whole person after the image of Christ and increasingly die to sin and live unto righteousness. This work is progressive throughout the Christian life, with believers continually conformed to the image of Christ.
Third, “the testimony of the Spirit of adoption” speaks to the Spirit’s indwelling, that is, the Spirit’s permanent presence within every believer, uniting us to Christ and empowering faith, holiness, assurance, prayer, obedience, and so on. To be clear, the Spirit does not merely influence us from without but actually lives within the believer as God’s temple.
These three grounds of assurance might be summed up in three questions:
Do I believe?
Am I growing?
What is the Spirit showing me?
The Inward Evidence of the Spirit’s Graces
The Confession tells us that assurance “is also built on the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit about which promises are made.”
Notice the word also. These grounds of assurance are not presented as alternatives but as complementary realities. If the first ground concerns justification and the second concerns sanctification, the Confession reminds us that the same God who justifies also sanctifies. The two work together. As we pursue assurance, we ask not only “Do I believe? Do I trust in Christ for salvation?” but also “Have I experienced the sanctification that follows my justification?”
Notice too the word inward. When we think of sanctification, we often envision external changes—reading the Bible more, praying more frequently, being baptized, performing good works. Yet the Confession points us first to the inward work. Why? Because, as the chapter’s opening warns us, “Temporary believers and other unregenerate men may deceive themselves in vain with false hopes.” Judas Iscariot exemplifies this danger. He did enough externally that Jesus’s own disciples could not believe he would betray Him. Even after Jesus revealed Judas’s identity, the disciples looked inward, asking, “Is it me?” Evidently, Judas presented a convincing outward appearance of faith.
The internal work of God does produce external evidence. Jesus said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). But this is not where we begin. The Confession directs us first to the Spirit’s work in the soul—to regeneration, a new heart, faith and repentance, a love for God, a hatred of sin, and a hunger for the things of God. Why the inward focus? Because there are unregenerate people who go through the motions of religion without a genuinely changed heart.
Notice also the word evidence. The Confession does not claim these graces cause or merit our salvation or replace God’s gracious work. Rather, they serve as evidence or witnesses. Consider fire. When it burns, we feel the heat and warmth it produces. The warmth is evidence that fire is burning, but it does not cause the fire. Similarly, the graces of the Spirit are evidence that the Spirit has done a saving work in us. We feel the warmth from the Spirit’s fire.
Finally, observe that these are graces “about which promises are made.” What does this mean? Consider the promises scattered throughout Scripture. John 3:36 says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” If you possess the grace of faith, the Lord promises you eternal life. If you have received the grace of repentance, God promises, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). If you love the church, God declares, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers” (1 John 3:14).
These promises support our assurance. When we observe the Spirit at work in us through these inward graces and look back to God’s promises, we can say, “That promise is for me. It applies to me personally.” God desires that we possess this assurance. He wants us to see the evidence of it and even commands us to pursue it: “We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end” (Hebrews 6:11). When the evidence is present, and we look to God’s promises, we find the comfort God intends for His people.
The Test of True Confession
John wrote 1 John to help believers distinguish genuine Christianity from false profession so that we can enjoy confident assurance of eternal life. Throughout the letter, he provides a series of marks, or tests, by which a believer can examine himself. These marks are sharp enough to expose false faith, yet gracious enough to comfort a true believer. Five of these marks warrant our attention.
The first mark concerns what we confess about Christ. True believers confess the true Christ. John writes, “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23). Later, he states, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1).
This may seem self-evident. Scripture itself teaches this plainly: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself declared, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Yet countless people profess to believe in Jesus while believing in something far removed from the Jesus revealed in Scripture.
Consider the Mormons, who affirm Jesus as Savior but teach that He is a created being, the spirit-child of the Heavenly Father, and the brother of Lucifer. This bears no resemblance to what the Word of God declares: that Jesus is the eternal, uncreated Son of God, “begotten, not made.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses identify Jesus with Michael the Archangel and deny that He is fully God, whereas Scripture teaches that Jesus is eternally divine and shares the same divine nature as the Father.
Islam reveres Jesus as a prophet but denies that He is the Son of God, rejects His crucifixion, and denies His deity.
Then, there are those within Christianity itself who speak highly of Jesus as a moral teacher or social reformer while denying His miracles, virgin birth, bodily resurrection, deity, and substitutionary atonement. Paul warned of those who proclaim “another Jesus than the one we proclaimed” (2 Corinthians 11:3).
If only the true Christ can grant salvation, then assurance of salvation is impossible apart from faith in the true Christ.
The Test of Obedience
The second mark John identifies is obedience. He writes, “And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4).
It might seem odd to mention obedience when discussing inward evidence of God’s grace, yet this is precisely where we should begin evaluating our obedience. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses this very issue. Speaking of those who profess His name, He says,
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21-23)
Jesus is referring to people who appear obedient by all external measures. They claim allegiance to Christ. They prophesy and cast out demons in His name. They perform mighty works in His name. Outwardly, they appear to be faithfully following Christ. Yet Jesus makes the crucial distinction: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father.” Despite all appearances, these men were not obedient. They were not doing the will of the Father. What appeared on the outside did not reflect what was happening on the inside. Jesus made a similar assessment of the Pharisees, saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8).
We must be externally obedient to the will of God, but that obedience begins internally in the heart and mind. Does our sin grieve us? Do we hate what the Lord hates and love what the Lord loves? Are we trusting that His way is right? Does our heart maintain a posture of repentance? Do we feel conviction? Do we long to follow after Christ in His ways?
The Test of Love for the Brethren
John’s third mark, perhaps the clearest in the whole letter, is love for one’s brothers and sisters in Christ. He says, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14). Later he writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). And he states plainly, “If anyone says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20).
This love for one another extends far beyond enjoying the company of those who share our interests or temperament. It shows itself in fellowship, yes, but also in service and sacrifice, in forgiveness and patience, in prayer for one another. We love Christ, and so it naturally follows that we love His body, His people. This does not mean our relationships are free from strain, but there remains a strong desire for unity and a willingness to bear with one another.
The Test of Separation from the World
The fourth mark is the believer’s relationship to the world. John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
While this could be considered alongside obedience, it warrants its own attention. John does not merely speak of following the pattern of this world; he addresses love for the world—love for its values and priorities, or a clinging to what is temporal. We might ask ourselves, “Do we think of this world as our home? Do we regard this world and its things as our greatest treasures?” A believer may certainly be tempted by these things, but when the Spirit of God is at work in us, there will be conflict. We simply cannot be satisfied with what this world has to offer.
The Test of Perseverance
The fifth and final mark is perseverance. John addresses those who had abandoned the church: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).
John does not see this as genuine believers losing their salvation. Rather, their departure reveals that they never possessed a saving union with Christ. They never truly belonged to God’s people. Yet there is encouragement for those who remain: “You’re still here. You haven’t abandoned the faith. You haven’t left the church.” What does that say about them? Their perseverance does not mean they are perfect, that they have never doubted, that they have never stumbled. Rather, their desire to trust in Christ through doubt and failure, their willingness to press on in the faith—these reveal that they do belong to God’s people. They do, in fact, belong to God.
This is not an exhaustive catalog of the graces of the Spirit. Second Peter lists faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. Galatians speaks of the Spirit’s fruit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Yet John’s list, drawn from his first epistle, serves a particular purpose. Since John wrote specifically to give believers confidence in their salvation, his marks are wonderfully suited to that end. While not exhaustive, they provide an excellent starting place as we examine the evidence of the Spirit’s graces within us.
Five Practices for Self-Examination
The Bible calls us to examine ourselves. Paul writes, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5). The implication is that if Jesus Christ is in you, if you have been born of His Spirit, if you are a true disciple, you will pass the test. You will see evidence of the Spirit working within you. When you see that evidence and return to the promises of God throughout the Bible, you can know that you have eternal life. You can possess what the Confession calls both “certainty” and “infallible assurance.”
As you practice self-examination, consider these five suggestions.
First, begin with Christ. Do not examine the quality of your faith apart from the object of your faith. Look to the Savior. Rest on His blood and righteousness, and then ask whether His grace is bearing fruit in you.
Second, examine yourself by Scripture, not by other Christians. Imposter syndrome affects even believers in the church. We often feel that other Christians are stronger than we are, and this can make us question whether we are legitimate Christians at all. Yet the Bible confirms that we are all in various stages of growth. Some have stronger faith; others have weaker faith. We are not called to compare ourselves to one another. Instead, we examine ourselves in light of what Scripture teaches. Do we confess Christ? Do we trust in Him for salvation? Are we repentant? Do we love the brethren? Do we strive to obey? Are we persevering? These are the marks by which we examine ourselves, not how we compare with other Christians.
Third, look for direction, not perfection. The question is not whether you are perfect because none of us is. The question is what direction you are moving. Are you fighting against your sin? Do you repent when you stumble? Do you love Christ? Do you desire holiness? Do you return to God after sinning? The point is whether you are moving toward conformity to Christ, no matter how far away from it you may be right now.
Fourth, look for sincerity, not sinlessness. Sincere love can still harbor fears and doubts. Sincere obedience may be full of imperfections. Weak faith is still faith. Remember the tenderness of Christ: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench” (Matthew 12:20).
These last two suggestions protect us from the mistaken belief that self-examination is a form of legalism or bondage. Self-examination, accompanied by the promises of Scripture, does not lead to bondage. For sincere believers, it leads to nothing but assurance.
Fifth and finally, do not examine yourself apart from prayer. Pray as David did in Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). Self-examination apart from prayer can feel like bondage, even torture. You seek assurance, yet you must question yourself: Can I really trust my own heart? Jeremiah reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Yet Jeremiah also writes, “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:10). God knows us better than we know ourselves. Why would we not ask for His help?
A Word to Three Kinds of People
The Confession speaks a different word to different people. To the presumptuous—the person who rests on his profession, his attendance, his knowledge, his respectability, his outward activities—the Confession essentially says, “You should not rest on these things. What about the graces of the Spirit? Do you believe in the true Christ? Do you repent? Do you love the brothers? Do you fight against sin, or have you made peace with it? Do not be content to say, ‘Lord, Lord, look at all of the wonderful things I’ve done,’ while your heart remains a stranger to grace.”
But to the one who is doubting, the Confession offers hope: “Do not despise real grace simply because it seems weak. You may sin, but do you also see repentance? You may feel that you love Christ so little, yet do you grieve that your love is so little? You may stumble in obedience, but do you sincerely desire to obey?”
And to the one who feels assurance of his salvation, the Confession says, “These evidences of grace should both humble and encourage you. They humble you because not one of these graces is yours apart from the grace of Christ. They encourage you because they are real evidence of your salvation. But whatever you do, do not grow careless. Your salvation cannot be lost, but your assurance certainly can. Keep walking close to Christ. Make use of the Lord’s means of grace—the Word, prayer, fellowship with the saints, the Lord’s Table, and so on.”
One more ground of assurance remains, but we will consider it next time.
