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The Certainty of Christian Assurance
(1 John 2:3-6)

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. (2:3-6)

“Assurance,” wrote the seventeenth-century English Puritan Thomas Brooks,

Assurance causes believers to rejoice with the hymn writer, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!” To possess assurance is, in a sense, to experience heaven on earth.

But sadly, as Brooks goes on to lament, assurance

Assurance is not only a privilege; it is also a birthright that Christians possess as members of the body of Christ (Rom. 5:1; 8:16; cf. Ps. 4:3; John 10:27-29; Phil. 1:6; 1 Thess. 1:4). Not having it, on the other hand, and thereby doubting one’s salvation, produces uncertainty and fear that brings misery and despair.

Though the assurance of salvation is part of redemption and vital to joy and comfort, God’s Word teaches that it is possible to forfeit it, unless one pursues it. The apostle Peter wrote, “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you” (2 Peter 1:10; cf. Heb. 10:22). Peter revealed that this certainty comes to those who pursue all the features of holiness with increasing diligence (vv. 5-8).

Yet, in spite of such biblical mandates, many in contemporary Christianity simply ignore the biblical understanding of assurance. Teachers frequently assure them that if they have repeated a certain prayer, gone forward at an evangelistic rally, made a profession of faith, given mental assent to the gospel, or even been baptized, they are definitely saved and should never question their salvation. Such people do not want to examine themselves as the Bible teaches (2 Cor. 13:5), because to do so, they reason, might damage their fragile self-esteem or make them guilty of doubting God. As a result, the entire subject of assurance is often de-emphasized or ignored altogether.

But that has not always been the case. Throughout church history, the personal assurance of salvation has been a major issue (see John MacArthur, The Gospel According to the Apostles [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993, 2000], chap. 10). On the one hand, Roman Catholicism has always adamantly denied the possibility of assurance. This perspective stems from the Catholic heresy that salvation is a joint effort between God and sinners. God will always do His part, but the sinner might not continue to do his or her part; thus no one can be assured of salvation in this life. In the words of the Council of Trent (1545-63), any “believer’s assurance of the pardon of his sins is a vain and ungodly confidence” (cited in J.C. Ryle, Holiness [1877, 1879; reprint, Moscow, Idaho: Charles Nolan, 2002], 123). Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine, a Jesuit theologian of that era, once stated that assurance is “a prime error of heretics” (ibid., n. 1). In other words, according to Roman Catholicism, no one can truly know whether or not he or she has received salvation until the afterlife—and to think one can is heretical.

When the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers recovered the true gospel from the Roman harlot and reasserted the biblical doctrine of salvation, they also accurately expounded the issue of assurance. Contrary to Roman theology, they were convinced by Scripture that believers can and should enjoy the confident hope of salvation. John Calvin correctly taught that such confidence is not some addition to but is actually the essence of faith—since those who truly trust the gospel do so because they inherently enjoy a measure of assurance in it. When people experience saving faith, they recognize both the truth of the gospel and the wickedness of their sinful condition (cf. Eph. 2:4-6), and they repent of their sins and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord (Luke 18:13; Acts 2:37-39; cf. 8:35-37; 16:27-34). When that divine work (of conversion and regeneration) takes place (Acts 11:18; 16:14; 18:27), energized by the Holy Spirit, believers sense their new-found faith and are assured of their salvation based on Scripture’s promises (e.g., Luke 18:14; John 1:12-13; 3:16; 6:37; 10:9; Acts 13:38-39; Rom. 10:9-13). By setting forth the promises of God upon which salvation rests, the Word of God provides believers with an objective source of certainty and, additionally, the Holy Spirit gives subjective assurance through manifest spiritual fruit.

Nearly a century after Calvin, the writers of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648) composed the following paragraph:

Moving beyond some of the earlier Reformers (who had primarily focused on refuting Rome), the Westminster divines addressed the antinomian tendencies of their day by stressing subjective assurance in addition to John Calvin’s (and Scripture’s) teaching on objective assurance. They emphasized personal examination that would lead believers to recognize practical evidences in their lives of obedience to God’s moral law and commands. But some in the church pressed to the extreme the Westminster idea “that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties” before gaining full assurance. For example, the seventeenth-century English Puritans’ sober, searching preaching caused many people to be generally lacking in assurance, unable to enjoy the confidence even of the evident fruit of salvation. As a result, some became frightened, insecure, and obsessed with morbid introspection, stringent self-examination, and heavy doubts as to whether or not they were elect, or even could be. Puritan pastors wrote many treatises to exhort, encourage, and comfort such troubled souls, especially expositing what the apostle Paul wrote concerning the Spirit’s witness:

The witness of this assurance entails the Holy Spirit’s working in believers’ conscience and emotions so that they feel the joy of their forgiveness and long to be in God’s presence, like children with a beloved father. They sense how the Spirit leads and directs them (1 Cor. 2:14-16; Gal. 5:16-18, 25; cf. Luke 24:44-45; Eph. 1:17-19; 3:16-19; Col. 1:9), not through their own wisdom and discernment, but through granting them the desire to live godly lives and obey the Scripture.

To be sure, the Bible clearly teaches that those who are truly saved can never lose their salvation (cf. John 10:28). They have been permanently sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13), and nothing can separate them from the love of their Savior (Rom. 8:38-39). At the same time, however, God’s Word also commands every professing Christian to examine his or her life, to see if the salvation that is claimed is actually authentic (2 Cor. 13:5). If salvation is indeed genuine, there will be signs of the Spirit’s working in that person’s life, both in attitude and behavior. The Bible refers to these attitudes as the “fruit of the Spirit.” Paul lists them in Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Assurance of salvation, in the subjective sense, comes by examining one’s life to see if there is evidence of the Spirit’s working in one’s attitudes. Such spiritual dispositions manifest themselves in corresponding acts of “love, joy, peace,” and so forth, in submission to the commands of Scripture.

John’s purpose in writing this epistle is clearly stated in 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” It is to give assurance of salvation to those who might otherwise be led to doubt. So again in verses 3 to 6 of chapter 2, John addresses manifest assurance—from the perspective of obedience, which constitutes visible, objective evidence that someone is a Christian. That is a crucial element in John’s moral test for believers, an aspect that he divides into three parts: the test stated, the test applied, and the test exemplified.

THE TEST STATED

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. (2:3)

By this is a transitional phrase John used to introduce a new set of tests that verify salvation and encourage assurance. John presented his readers with some additional ways they could verify that they were walking in the light and had a genuine relationship with God.

The apostle states the case with certainty; he does not say “we hope,” “we think,” or “we wish,” but we know. We know translates the present tense form of the verb ginōskō, and means to continually perceive something by experience. Assurance comes from obeying God’s commandments in Scripture. Those who fail to do so will and should wonder if they are converted and the Holy Spirit is truly leading them. But obedient believers can be assured that they have come to know Him (Christ). The perfect tense of the verb ginōskō (have come to know) looks back on a past action (savingly believing in Jesus Christ) that has continuing results in the present.

The knowledge of which John spoke is not the mystical “hidden” knowledge of Gnosticism (which promoted a secret, transcendent knowledge whose possessors were members of an elitist religious fraternity), the rationalistic knowledge of Greek philosophy (which taught that unaided human reason could unlock the mysteries of the universe, both natural and supernatural), or the experiential knowledge of hedonism (which claimed that ultimate truth was discovered through experiencing the pleasures of the physical world). Instead, it is the saving knowledge of Christ that comes from being in a right relationship with Him. John’s point, then, is that external obedience provides evidence for whether or not an internal, transforming reality—that of coming to know Jesus Christ in salvation—has taken place.

Writing to Titus, Paul emphasized the difference between false knowledge and true knowledge: “[Some] profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed” (Titus 1:16; cf. 2 Tim. 3:5, 7).

But that is not true of the Christian faith that John and the other apostles taught. The people who truly know God are those who pursue holy lives, consistent with God’s new covenant. The prophet Jeremiah spelled out the nature of that covenant:

New covenant people have God’s law written on their hearts, and what is in a person’s heart controls how he or she lives. As the writer of Proverbs observed, “For as [a person] thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7, NKJV; cf. 2:10; 3:1; 4:4, 23; Pss. 40:8; 119:10-11; Matt. 6:21; 12:34-35; Rom. 6:17). Israel illustrated well the connection between knowing God and obeying Him. Even though the nation claimed to know Him, she demonstrated the emptiness of that claim by her continual disobedience (Ex. 32:9; Num. 14:11; 25:3; Deut. 9:7, 24; 32:16; Isa. 1:2, 4; 2:8; 29:13; Jer. 2:11-13; 3:6-8; 6:13; 8:5; 31:32; Ezek. 16:59; 33:31; Matt. 15:7-9; Acts 13:27; Rom. 10:3; 2 Cor. 3:13-15). Of course, the obedience that accompanies salvation is not a legalistic obedience, imposed externally or observed superficially and hypocritically; it is a gracious attitude of obedience that flows from the truth embraced internally, following the Holy Spirit’s revealing of it through the Word. Even though believers still wrestle with sin (cf. Job 13:23; Ps. 19:13; Rom. 8:13; Heb. 12:1, 4), they can agree with Paul, who wrote,

The word rendered keep (a form of the verb tēreō) stresses the idea of an observant, watchful obedience. It can also be translated “guard,” which would in this context mean guarding His commandments. Since keep is a present, active subjunctive, it conveys the sense of believers continually safeguarding the commandments because they consider them precious (5:3; Ezra 7:10; Pss. 19:7-8; 119:1, 34, 77, 97, 113, 165; Rom. 7:22). John did not want his readers to settle for a marginal or minimal standard of righteousness. Rather, the apostle emphasized an extensive obedience that stems from a genuine reverence for God’s commands (Ps. 119:66, 172; cf. Acts 17:11; James 1:25).

Commandments is from entolē (“injunction,” “order,” or “command”), not nomos (“law”). The term refers not to the Mosaic law, but to the precepts and directives of Christ (cf. Matt. 28:19-20). But of course the moral and spiritual precepts the Lord taught were consistent with those revealed to Moses (cf. Matt. 5:17-18; John 5:46), all reflective of God’s immutable nature.

Under the new covenant God accepts believers’ loving and sincere, albeit imperfect obedience (cf. 1 Kings 8:46; Prov. 20:9) and forgives their disobedience (cf. Pss. 65:3; 103:3; Isa. 43:25). By His grace they display a consistent, heartfelt devotion to the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16; cf. Hos. 6:6) as revealed in the Word (Pss. 1:1-2; 112:1; 119:1-2; Isa. 48:17-18; Luke 11:28). That willing obedience to Scripture in daily living is a reliable indicator both to self and others that one has come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. Matt. 7:21; John 8:31; 14:21). It differentiates the unregenerate from the regenerate; Paul called the unregenerate “sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), whereas Peter identified the regenerate “as obedient children” (1 Peter 1:14).

God-honoring obedience is really reflective of genuine love; as John wrote later in this epistle, “we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (5:26–3). But this principle was not new to John, as he had heard it from Jesus years earlier in the upper room and recorded it in his gospel:

THE TEST APPLIED

The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: (2:4-5)

In keeping with the nickname Boanerges (“sons of thunder”) that Jesus gave him and his brother James, John thunders at those who claim to have come to know Christ but do not keep His commandments. As he had earlier done in 1:6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth,” John warns that their claim to fellowship is completely unfounded. Anyone who makes such a claim and lives in disobedience is a liar. The apostle’s epithet boldly exposes the danger of self-deception concerning salvation, which is damning to those who fail to realize their blindness, repent of their sins, and embrace the truth (cf. Gal. 6:7; Titus 3:3).

Plainly, those in God’s kingdom hear His voice and obey it. Jesus told Pontius Pilate, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37; cf. 1 John 3:18-19). In sharp contrast, those who do not obey His commands demonstrate that the truth is not in them. John therefore exposed the empty pretense of those who assumed they had ascended to a higher level of “divine truth.” For such false teachers, present with the readers, their so-called knowledge elevated them above prosaic earthly matters and rendered unnecessary any concern for moral conduct or godly living. But as James declared, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead” (James 2:17, 26; cf. Eph. 2:10; Heb. 12:14; 1 Peter 1:14-16). Those whose faith is genuine will obey the truth.

Verse 5 then applies the test for assurance positively. Whoever sincerely and lovingly keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. It is best to understand the phrase translated the love of God as an objective genitive, meaning the love for God. John describes the genuine love believers have for God as perfected, not in the sense of finished perfection, but salvation accomplishment. In fact, this Greek verb teteleiōtai is translated “accomplished” in John 4:34; 5:36; and 17:4. It can even mean “initiate.” The supernatural granting of this love (Rom. 5:5) results in obedience to Scripture, and is not merely an emotional or mystical experience.

It is by this genuine love that believers know that they are in Him. The little phrase in Him [Christ] occurs many other places in the New Testament (vv. 8, 27-28; 3:6; 4:13; 5:20; 1 Cor. 1:5; 2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 1:4, 7, 13; 4:21; Phil. 3:9; Col. 2:6-7, 10-11; 2 Thess. 1:12; cf. Col. 1:28) and indicates a central truth of the Christian faith. Commentator John Stott summarized the significance as follows:

THE TEST EXEMPLIFIED

the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. (2:6)

The only person who can pass the test of obedience and realize full assurance is the one who … abides in Him—because Jesus Christ is the perfect role model for obeying the Father. In John 15:4-5 Jesus commanded,

Believers draw spiritual life from the Lord Jesus Christ, even as branches do from a vine. To abide in Christ is to remain in Him—not a temporary, superficial attachment, but a permanent, deep connection (cf. Luke 9:23; John 6:53-65; Phil. 1:6; 2:11-13). Such authentic abiding in the Savior characterizes those who “continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that [they] have heard” (Col. 1:23; cf. 2:7; Eph. 3:17), because they are truly regenerate—new creatures who possess irrevocable eternal life.

John made it perfectly clear that those who claim to abide in Christ must walk in the same manner as He walked. Walk is a metaphor for daily conduct by believers (1:7; John 8:12; 12:35; Rom. 6:4; 8:4; 1 Cor. 7:17; 2 Cor. 5:7; Gal. 5:16; Eph. 2:10; 4:1; 5:2, 8; Col. 1:10; 2:6; 1 Thess. 2:12; 4:1; 2 John 6; cf. Mark 7:5). The Lord Himself perfectly exemplified this principle during His earthly ministry. In every way He obeyed His Father’s will:

Obviously, believers’ obedience will not be perfect, as Jesus’ was. Nonetheless, He established the perfect pattern they are to follow. If anyone claims to know Him and abide in Him, it will be evident in his life. He will walk in the light—in the realm of truth and holiness—and guard (obey) His commandments because of his passionate love for the truth and the Lord of the truth. Therein lies the key to real assurance of salvation.