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Occasionally someone will ask me how the Christian faith differs from other religions. One difference is the emphasis on assurance of salvation, the certainty of eternal life. Most Christians equate eternal life with salvation. Salvation is ‘receiving the fullness of the Father’ and being in His presence for eternity. It is both a present reality and a future hope. Are you confident of your salvation? Many will say no. To them it is arrogant to assume that any can know because they believe that no one can ever know if they have done enough good works. They lack assurance because they are aware that no matter how ‘good’ they are they still fall short of the standard they believe is necessary for salvation. But the Christian hope is different - it offers the believer confidence not based in what they have done, but in what Christ has done. While as a Christian there are many ‘works of righteousness’ that I will do, these are not done to bring me assurance of my salvation, but rather they are a fruit of my righteousness. Consider John’s words concerning our hope, “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, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:13) The biblical message is very clear – our hope, our assurance, is not dependant upon what we do but on what Christ has done. Were it dependant on my performance then I could not have any hope at all; instead it is based in a covenantal promise from God. Those that I speak with about their lack of assurance will often tell me that they are striving to have assurance by keeping their covenant promises. But this is a curious understanding of the covenant testified of in Scripture. The most notable covenant in the Bible is the one that the Lord gives Abram. The Lord promises him that he would have offspring as numerous as the stars in heaven even though he and his wife were old and childless. We are told in Genesis 15 (repeated in Romans 4) that ‘Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD declared him righteous because of his faith.’ Abram was justified (declared righteous) by God because of his faith; the Lord then establishes his covenant with Abram. A covenant is a legal agreement between two parties. But the Lord’s covenant is different. Though a human covenant usually assumes a ‘reciprocal relationship between two free parties’, in the covenant that God made with Abram, we see that Abram makes no promises. This is significant on several accounts. First, Abram does not have a peer relationship with God to establish the covenant, and second, he is incapable of satisfying his end of the covenant even if he were able to make the promise. Man was merely a recipient of the gift of Yahweh, and his sole qualification was a willingness to receive God’s gift of mercy. Hence, from a biblical view, salvation is received by faith as a gift. The Bible offers us assurance, because if salvation is given as a gift rather than a wage (Romans 4-6), then it is not dependant of the receiver but the giver. Some will still insist that there must be some part that we must play beyond confess and believe (Romans 10:8-10) but the biblical text offers no support for these beliefs. Most religious systems require man’s good works to be saved; have you ever considered why? Scripture gives us the answer, so that they may boast in themselves rather than God (Ephesians 2:8-10) Has anyone ever told you of their need to ‘renew their covenants’ so that they may gain assurance? But our covenant hope of salvation is established by Christ not man ‘so that none may boast’; because of this, there is nothing for us to renew. Renew means something has expired. I need to renew my driver’s license, my vehicle registration and my library book because they have expired; but not my covenant. Why not? Because the covenant was not established by my effort but Christ’s; it is not kept by what I may do, but by what Christ has done. There is great hope in the biblical understanding of the covenants that the Lord establishes with us. There is hope and assurance because it is dependant upon His faithfulness and not my own.
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