ASSURANCE OF SALVATION
Middletown Bible Church
reprinted with permission
347 East Street (rte 217)
Middletown Ct. 06457
Assurance of Salvation by Theodore H. Epp
This message is addressed to all who think that they are saved but are not certain. It is possible for a person to know that he is a child of God.
It is necessary that you have the assurance of your salvation before you can serve God. You cannot live for him as long as you continue to grope in darkness and wonder, “Am I really saved?” Everything that you do is done to try to bring a little peace to your own heart. You live for self—not God.
I also want to make it plain that assurance of salvation does not in any way give you license to sin. This is an extreme position that some may want to take.
I want to discuss with you five distinct points.
1. Christ’s finished work on Calvary
2. Christ provides righteousness
3. Faith is the key to salvation
4. Salvation is kept by the power of God
5. Wherefore then shall we work?
I. CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK
It is essential that you understand Christ’s finished work on Calvary if you want to have the assurance of your salvation. I emphasize the word finished. Christ finished the work which was necessary for our salvation. We do not have to add anything to Christ’s finished work on Calvary. There are many people who are struggling to finish the work that Christ has already completed. That is quite a statement to make, but it is a fact that many people cannot see that Christ has finished the work of salvation.
LAW OF SIN AND DEATH
Our physical bodies are subject to the law of sin and death, i.e., the natural law that sin brings death. But the death we are speaking of is not merely physical death, but an eternal, everlasting separation from God, i.e., a spiritual death. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” God spoke these words to Adam and Eve in the garden. The law that sin brings death was already in existence when our first parents sinned. In fact, it was a law even before man was created. Sin brings death. That is an absolute fact.
We have then, this glorious statement in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” The last phrase does not belong in the first verse, but in the fourth. It is not in verse one in the original text. It has been put there by careless translators. (See the margin of the Scofield Bible, p. 1201) Continuing with verse two, we read, “For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” That is a plain statement of what Christ has done.
Christ, therefore, by His life, has made us free from this law of sin and death. How? “For what the law (the written law) could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh” (Romans 8:3). What did Christ do? Christ fulfilled the law of sin and death. He did not sin, but He took our sin upon Himself. He suffered the death penalty for our sins.
JESUS PAID IT ALL
Christ suffered all. I wish that we could understand that in the period of thirty-three years Christ, the Son of God, suffered all the sufferings of sin. We cannot fathom that. Nevertheless, Christ, who was God, had the capacity to suffer the consequences that sin had caused from the very day that Adam sinned until the day that the last man on this earth shall have committed the last sin.
What more did he do? He suffered once and for all. It is important that you understand this. You will not have the assurance of your salvation until you see that truly Christ paid the full penalty for sin on Calvary. He has already taken all the suffering for sin. Some people may feel they have only salvation for past sins and that future sin must be taken care of separately. We must be reasonable. How many sins had you committed When Jesus Christ died for them? You were not born, so you had not committed any sins. Then how could Jesus have died for your sins? God, in his for-knowledge, sees the whole of time—the past, the present, and the future—in one picture. He saw all the sins committed by everyone from Adam until the very last man who shall live on Earth. God placed on Christ all of these sins at one time, and Christ suffered for every last one of them once and for all. Jesus will never again suffer for sin. All the sin of your life and mine has been taken care of on the cross.
Have you accepted this Christ as your saviour, or did you accept a Christ who died for your past sins only? If you did the latter, you are not a child of God. A child of God has all his sins paid for by the Jesus Christ.
I do not want to sin, but I am just a plain human being like all the rest of you, and I am liable to fall into sin at any moment. I am trusting the Lord to keep me, however, but when I do fall into sin, that sin has already been taken care of on the cross by Jesus Christ. He has already, once and for all, suffered for sin.
I know that perhaps you are afraid of this truth. You are afraid it will give you license to sin. You think it will enable you to say,”Well, if that is the case, I can sin just as often as I please.” You do not have salvation if that is the way you feel, and therefore you do not have any right to assurance of salvation. You have no right to say, “Well, I am saved, so I can live to please myself.” You have no right to have assurance of salvation if you feel it gives you license to sin. I know that sounds like a mean thing to say, but if your going to be so selfish and rebellious as to talk to God like that, then I am going to be just as frank and hard with you. If we have accepted Jesus Christ as our saviour, then atonement has been made for all of our sins, and we have no right to go on sinning willfully.
I I CHRIST PROVIDES RIGHTEOUSNESS
When we come into the presence of God, we are going to need more than just forgiveness of sin. We must possess a righteousness which God can accept. How can we obtain it? We cannot produce it. God cannot accept our righteousness. But God provided the perfect righteousness of Christ for us, and it is Christ’s righteousness alone that is acceptable to God. We can secure this righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21,22) Christ purchased our salvation when he suffered for all of our sins once and for all. Then He provided us with His righteousness. All of this is in exchange for faith.
Suppose that somebody puts some money in the bank in my account and says, “Pay all the radio bills. I have put some money in your account.” It is not my money that is in there. It is money that someone else put there, and all I have to do is cash in on it and pay the bills. So it is that Christ has already put to your account all of his perfect righteousness, and all you have to do is accept it by faith.
We read these words in Romans 3:24: “Being justified freely by his grace.” God has given us justification. What does that mean? It leaves me just as if I have never sinned. I am free from all sin and have Christ’s righteousness put to my account. This is what Christ has done for you and me. This is the finished work of Calvary.
I I I FAITH IS THE KEY
God has finished the work of salvation, but salvation is not yours until you appropriate it by faith. You may ask,” What do you mean by ‘Appropriating salvation by faith?’ “
There are two kinds of faith, head faith and receiving faith (or appropriating faith). Let me illustrate the difference between the two. Suppose that you have a headache, and you get a headache pill. You take it and expect to have your headache relieved. Why? Because you believe that the pill will relieve the headache. If you believe this and yet leave the jar of pills sitting in the medicine chest, they will not take away your headache. You know that as well as I do. You take the pill. You receive it.
Friend, you and I are sinners by birth. There is no question about that. If you want to be released from the guilt of your sin and possess a righteousness acceptable to God, you must receive it by faith, even as you receive a pill for a headache. It is not enough to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ can save you and then leave him sitting on the shelf, so to speak. You must say, “Lord, I receive Your forgiveness and Your perfect righteousness, and I thank you for it.” That is what we call appropriating faith.
Someone may ask, “But how do I know that I will have Christ’s righteousness?” In Romans 3:22 we read, “The righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” God says, “I will put my righteousness to your account, but you have to receive it.” You should say, “I will receive Your righteousness by faith. Thank You , Lord, that it is put to my account.” That settles the matter. God will honor your faith, and that settles your salvation.
FAITH AND GOD’S WORD
Perhaps you would like to ask, “How can I get faith?” I read a letter the other day which was typical of hundreds we receive. The writer said, “Please pray for me that my faith might increase.” You could pray from now until doomsday, but your faith would not increase. I tried it for years, until I discovered Romans 10:17, which says that faith comes by the hearing of the Word of God. You can pray for faith, but your faith will not increase until you go to the Word of God and begin to study. Then you can pray,” Now, Lord, let me believe this. Give me faith to believe.” God will then give you faith.
IV. KEPT BY GOD’S POWER
In 1 Peter 1:5 we read, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith until salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Peter is speaking of those who have been above into God’s family and have been resurrected with Christ. If you have trusted Christ for your salvation and have been born again, you are kept by the power of God through faith.
GOD GUARDS OUR SALVATION
Let us examine the word kept. It’s meaning in the original language is especially important for some of you who have not yet understood God’s keeping power. Many people believe they can take themselves out of God’s hand but that no one else is able to do so. God, knowing the working of our minds and our ignorance concerning His great and magnificent power to keep, has placed in this little verse a word which completely shatters this theory. The word in the original Greek, which was translated “kept”, literally means “guarded, lest a person take himself away from God.” We cannot even touch our salvation, much less pull it out of God’s hands.
POWER LIMITS FREEDOM
Someone may complain, “That takes away my liberty. That takes away my free will.” I agree that it does. “Well” ,you answer, “I have a free will.” You do not have the free will you think you have. If you have enough free will, why do you not just jump over the moon? You do not have a free will to do that because you are physically limited. Your free will is bound by the limitation of your power. You do not have the power to jump over the moon. God has given you a free will to choose whether or not you will be saved. When you have chosen to be saved, however, you do not have the power to change your mind. Nowhere in the Bible does it say teach us that we can say, “Now, God, I am through with my salvation. I want no more of it.”
Some of you are thinking about Adam and his use of the power of choice. Indeed, this man had sovereignty, and he used it to break his fellowship and relationship with God. When he chose to sin, he became a lost man.
What did Adam lose when he sinned? He lost the created righteousness with which God had endowed him. His was a human perfection; therefore, his perfection was not permanent.
If Adam had possessed the righteousness of Christ (imputed righteousness) , he would still have had it after he sinned. His son, Abel, “offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous” (Heb 11:4) Abel’s righteousness was of God through faith.
When you and I were saved, we received what Abel had-”the righteousness of God” (Rom 3:22). God has not given us the liberty or the power to discard this righteousness.
CHRIST, OUR ADVOCATE
What is Christ doing in the presence of God? Why is He there? To answer these questions, let us look first at Hebrews 7:25. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” In 1 John 2:1 we read, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
The Devil accuses you of sin in the presence of God. What happens then? Jesus pleads your case each time. He says, “Father, You cannot accept this accusation against this man again, because he has appropriated by faith the finished work of Calvary and My righteousness. I have already taken his punishment for that sin, and he has been saved. You cannot also, punish him.”
You see, then, it is by Christ’s intercession for us in the presence of God that our salvation is made secure.
OUR RESERVED INHERITANCE
Peter tells us that, as children of God, we are begotten unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ, “to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” This means that we, in Christ Jesus, shall also be resurrected from the dead. We shall then be brought into the presence of God in heaven, where there is reserved for us a perfect inheritance, unspotted and everlasting.
Please note that the inheritance is reserved in heaven for you. The word reserved comes form the Greek word which means “to guard, lest anything take away part of it” God is taking the responsibility of guarding our inheritance.
THE UNFAITHFUL CHRISTIAN
Isn’t this a glorious truth-that we are kept by the power of God through faith? But suppose that my faith fails me? Let us turn to II Timothy , chapter 2 and read carefully, beginning in verse 11: “It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.” This verse clearly speaks of salvation by grace. It does not say anything about joining a church or living a better life It means that if we accept Christ’s death on the cross for our sins, we become children of God and also receive Christ’s eternal life. “We shall also live with him”
There is a second thought here, about which people become confused. “If we suffer (or endure), we shall also reign with him: If we deny (or disown ) him, he also deny us.” Many people are applying this verse to salvation. This cannot be done, because the sentence does not end with verse twelve. This verse refers to our works rather than faith. It concerns our faithfulness serving God. We know that this is correct, because the next statement completely explains the passage. “If we believe not (i.e. if we become unfaithful and cannot believe that God can keep us) , yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny Himself.” In other words, on the basis of our faith, God has accepted Christ’s finished work on Calvary for us. Furthermore, on the basis of our faith, God has put to our account all the righteousness of Jesus Christ, once and for all, and God is guarding it. God is keeping us, so that no man, including ourselves, will ever be able to take us out of His hands.
THE SINNING CHRISTIAN
Now let us suppose that a Christian falls back into sin. Suppose that he does not continue to walk with Christ. What will happen then? The Christian will probably lose his privilege of reigning with Christ, but his salvation will remain. God has promised to keep our salvation, and He will not go back on His Word. God may, however, deny the unfaithful Christian the privilege of reigning with Him in the Millennium and still remain true to his word.
Please note, therefore, the difference between salvation, which is the work of God, based on the covenant of grace, and rewards, which the Christian receives for his works and which depend wholly upon his faithfulness to God.
V. WHY WORK?
Now the question arises, “Wherefore then shall we work? Why should we work at all? Why not just go with the crowd, live in sin and revelry, and have a great time? We will not be here very long.”
In the first place, if you are a newborn child of God, how can you enjoy the things of the world? Your old flesh may, but that inner new person cannot continue to enjoy the things of the world. If you have eternal life, there is going to be a reaction to the things of the world. We had some fine children in our home recently, and the missionary parents were somewhat perturbed because the children were so lively. “ said, “Well, do not be so upset. You would not want them to be sickly, would you? It is good to see them so full of energy. It shows me that they are healthy and strong.” And so it is with the Christian who is healthy and strong. He shows it in his life. We work, therefore, because we live-not in order that we might live.
In II Corinthians 5:9,10 Paul says,” Wherefore we labor , that...we may be accepted of Him” (i.e., that we may please Him).
We work that we may have some trophies to lay at his feet. I can never repay Him for what he has done, but one of these days I would like to lay some souls at his feet and say, “Lord Jesus, thank you for saving my soul. In thankfulness, here are some souls that I have been able to tell about You, and You have given them the privilege of being saved through my testimony. These trophies I lay at your feet.”
WHO IS YOUR MASTER?
Who is your master now? Do you love God because He saved you? When you really understand that God has saved you once and for all, forever, for eternity, you will love him so much that you will say, “” Lord, I want to do what you want me to do. I want to be your slave.” You will give yourself to him completely. Christians who have not lived their lives for Christ will someday stand before his judgment seat and be dealt with according to their deeds. Only the Christian who yields to God’s will be truly happy.