Audio
Youtube
Can a Christian really know that he has eternal life? For many believers, assurance seems to rise and fall with circumstances. We remember past failures, struggle with present weakness, or wonder whether we are doing enough to please God. Yet John writes something wonderfully direct in 1 John 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” Our assurance is not meant to rest upon how strong we feel today. It rests upon Jesus Christ and what He has already accomplished for us.
Throughout 1 John, the apostle gives believers reasons to recognise genuine faith. He speaks of fellowship with Christ, obedience to His commands, love for one another and, above all, right belief concerning Jesus Christ. These things were especially important because false teachers were unsettling the church with claims of special knowledge and distorted teaching. The same danger remains today whenever Christianity becomes Jesus plus something else—Jesus plus our good works, a particular experience, hidden revelation, religious tradition, success or some other requirement for acceptance with God. Good works certainly follow genuine faith, but they do not purchase salvation. We are saved by grace through faith, and our confidence must remain in Christ alone.
Job gives us a remarkable Old Testament picture of that kind of confidence. After tremendous loss and suffering, he could still declare, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” His circumstances did not give him assurance; his Redeemer did. Scripture later shows us the fullness of that redemption in Christ. We have redemption through His blood and forgiveness according to the riches of His grace. Jesus is the One who has bought us back, and because He lives, those who belong to Him have an eternal hope that suffering, failure and even death cannot finally take away.
Jesus then gives us an even more personal picture in John 10: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Assurance is not merely intellectual—it is relational. The Shepherd knows His sheep, gave His life for them and calls them to follow Him. So rather than constantly studying every counterfeit teaching, we learn the genuine article: Christ revealed in His Word. Read the Word, pray and obey what the Lord shows you. Our confidence is not confidence in ourselves; it is confidence in our living Redeemer. John tells us what we believe, Job reminds us in whom we believe, and Jesus shows us the relationship in which we live. In Christ, the believer need not merely hope that eternal life might be theirs. We may know.
