The Three Ws of Assurance

Christians sometimes struggle to gain assurance of their salvation. There are three main grounds of assurance:

The Word of the Father

The Work of the Son

The Witness of the Spirit

The first two Ws are easier to grasp than the third.

The Word of the Father promises salvation to those who believe. We can rest on God’s word because he doesn’t lie (Titus 1:2). John 3:16 is one example of a promise that ought to give believers great assurance of salvation: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The Work of the Son, carried out on the cross, provides salvation. Isaiah 53:5–6 teaches believers that through the cross, “the punishment that brought us peace was upon him.” There’s nothing left to pay. It’s rather insulting to the cross when believers wonder if they’re too guilty to be saved.

The third W needs a longer explanation.

The Witness of the Spirit is our personal experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who preserves salvation. If you experience the Spirit’s power in your life, helping you resist sin and live to please God, you can be confident that you have the Spirit (Romans 8:6–9). Those who have the Spirit can be sure they will be saved because the Spirit is given to preserve our faith until the end: “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13–14).

Another way to think about the witness of the Spirit is to consider the way you think about Jesus. If you see in Jesus the glory of God (2 Corinthians 4:4–6), and if the sight of that glory has stirred up at least some Christlikeness in your life (2 Corinthians 3:18), then the Spirit testifies that you have eternal life. That’s because it’s only by the Spirit’s illuminating power that people truly believe in Jesus as God’s Son.

Assurance is one of the spiritual blessings that God graciously gives his people. It’s like a muscle that grows stronger with use. The more that we meditate on the word of the Father, the work of the Son, and the witness of the Spirit, the more we’ll be persuaded—with great rejoicing—that our eternal future is secure.

Yours in Christ,

Bernard