After over 65 years of ministry we have developed the top 27 questions people ask us so we would like to share these questions each week for our weekly blog and share the answers as a resource for you all to use in your ministry, churches, and family.

Top ? #2 Can I Know with Certainty that I am Saved?

Answer:  Yes, we can know with absolute certainty that we are saved and have the hope of eternal life.

Many people believe that eternal life is something which they cannot be certain of.  They feel that they must continue to do good works, or abstain from certain bad deeds and at the end of their life they will find out if they can spend eternity in heaven.  However, one of the main points of the New Testament is that a person can know without a doubt that they are saved and have eternal life.

The key to understanding assurance of salvation is to know the role which the death of Jesus Christ plays in obtaining eternal life and the way in which God has made the benefits of his death available to us.

Because all humans are born with a sinful nature and born separated from God and His glory (Romans 3:23), it is impossible for any person to earn his own spiritual salvation.  In His love, God made the provision for eternal life through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Through His death, burial and resurrection Jesus paid the penalty for sin and satisfied God’s demand for justice (a word the Bible calls propitiation).  According to the Bible the benefits of salvation are made available to all people through faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

God offers eternal life by His grace.  Grace means undeserved favor.  We did not deserve the gift of eternal life, but because of God’s love He has made it available to us based on what Christ has done and not our own merit.

Since the basis of our salvation is the perfect work of Jesus Christ and it is offered to us by grace through faith, there is no room for questioning whether we can have it or not.  There is nothing more which we need to do to obtain eternal life.

Several verses in the Bible make it clear that we can have total assurance of our salvation.  1 John 5:13 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.”  When Jesus was dying on the cross he said to the thief at his side, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

In Ephesians 2:8-9 we read, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

These and many other passages make it abundantly clear that we can know with certainty that we have eternal life.

Please read the following verses:  2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Corinthians 4:14; Romans 5:1-2; Romans 5:9; John 20:31; Romans 8:16.