7.1 Isn’t it presumption for any person to say that they are saved?
If salvation depended in any way on a person’s own righteousness and works, then it would be presumption to say that they were saved. But when a true believer says they are saved, they are not boasting. They are saying in effect, “I did all the sinning and the unfailing Christ did all the saving.” They realize that their salvation depends entirely on the grace of God and not on themselves. The greatest presumption is to call God a liar by not believing the testimony that He has given concerning His Son (7a).
7.2 How will I know it when I am saved?
You know first and foremost through the Word of God. The Bible was written so that those who believe on the Name of the Son of God may know that they are saved (7b). But there are also these evidences:
- A desire to obey the Lord Jesus and a love for Christians (7c).
- A love of holiness and developing a hatred of sin (7d).
- A love for the word of God and prayer (7e).
- A consciousness of God’s guidance (7f).
- A steadfast continuance in the faith (7g).
- The witness of the Holy Spirit Who comes to live in the believer at the time of faith in Christ (7h).
- A desire to share the good news with others.
7.3 If I sin after I’m saved, don’t I lose my salvation?
- Jesus said that no sheep of His will ever perish (7i).
- All who are justified (that means made right in God’s sight through Christ) will one day be glorified (7j).
- Salvation is a spiritual birth (7k). A birth is final and unchangeable and is the commencement of a relationship.
- Salvation means eternal life (7l).
- Nothing can separate the believer from the love of God (7m).
These, and many other verses, show that a believer will not lose their salvation if they sin after they are saved.
7.4 But I know a man who was saved and then he sinned and was lost. What do you have to say to that?
- If he was genuinely saved, he couldn’t be lost. If, however, he was only a false professor of Christianity, then he could have experienced a sort of moral reformation. He may have turned over a new leaf, and then lapsed back into his old and sinful ways.
- We must not base what we believe on experience but only on the inspired Word of God. The test must always be, “What does the Bible say?”
7.5 You say that when a person is saved, he receives forgiveness of sins. But what about sins committed after he is saved?
When a person is saved, he certainly does receive forgiveness for all his sins as far as their penalty is concerned (7n). When Jesus died, He died for all our sins, past, present, and future as seen in Colossians c2v13b “… having forgiven you all trespasses”. At the time He died, our sins were all future. He died for them all. Now God, the Judge, cannot find any sins on the believer for which to punish or judge them with eternal death because Jesus bore the punishment or judgement when He was crucified at Calvary, which was a hill outside Jerusalem. 1 John c2v12 “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his (Christ’s – c1v7) name’s sake.”
Sins committed after salvation have various results:
- They break fellowship with God. This fellowship remains broken until the sin is confessed and forsaken. Galatians c3v26 was written to believers, “For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” This relationship with God, which is different to fellowship, cannot be broken because it depends on Christ alone. However fellowship can be broken but can be restored by confession and forsaking of sin (7o). Fellowship is a tender thread which God does help you to maintain but relationship is an unbreakable chain because Christ is its basis.
- Fellowship involves the enjoyment of spiritual things (7p). When a believer sins, their enjoyment of spiritual things is spoiled.
- They hinder spiritual growth as well as our prayers from being answered (7q).
- They make service for the Lord Jesus Christ unfruitful, if not impossible, and they seal our lips (7r).
- They bring dishonour and reproach on the Name of the Lord.
- If a person continues with a sinful way of life then that casts doubt on the reality of their conversion. It has been said that the only proof of past conversion is present convertedness.
- The unbeliever receives final forgiveness of sins by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a once-for-all forgiveness (7s). The believer receives parental forgiveness by confession to God which is something that we need as long as we are in this body (7t-u).
7.6 What happens if, after I’m saved, I die with unconfessed sins?
- As explained above, the penalty of those sins has already been paid. As God is just He will not demand payment twice. So your eternal salvation is unaffected.
- The fellowship that was broken by sins will be restored when you pass into the presence of the Lord. Unconfessed sins may result in a loss of reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ. The Judgment Seat of Christ is where believers will be rewarded or suffer loss for the life that they lived after they were saved (7v-w).
7.7 You say that Christ died for all. Why then aren’t all saved?
- The death of Christ was sufficient for all the sins of all people of all times (7x). But it is only effective when a person trusts in the Lord Jesus for salvation (7y).
- God doesn’t save people against their will. He isn’t going to bring to heaven people who, sadly, don’t want to be there.
7.8 If you Christians are right, why are there so few of you?
The question assumes that the majority is usually or always right. This is not true as the following shows:
- In the time of the flood, see Genesis c6-8, only eight people trusted God’s word and so were right and were saved but the rest all perished.
- At Calvary, where the Lord Jesus was crucified, the crowd was wrong and only a few disciples, who were fearful at that time, were right.
- Jesus said in Matthew c7v13, 14, “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait {narrow} is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.” The ultimate question is, “Who will we finally face at the end of life?”
7.9 Perhaps someone might say, “But you do not know how bad I have been. I am really too bad to be saved.”
As God knows everything He therefore knows every sin you have done, said or thought and how bad they are. As previously mentioned the same God says in Colossians c2v13 about those who have trusted in Christ as Saviour “having forgiven you all trespasses”. So God says that a believer’s sins are totally forgiven … amazingly without exception. After listing some sins the apostle Paul says to the Corinthian Christians in 1 Corinthians c6v11 says, “And such were some of you: … but you are justified (i.e. made right in God’s sight) in the name of the Lord Jesus.” 1 John c1v7 says, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin” (emphases mine).
Bible References:
7a 1 John c5v10 “He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself: he that believes not God has made him a liar; because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son.”
7b 1 John c5v13 “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.”
7c Colossians c1v4 “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints (i.e. believers in Christ).”
7d 1 John c3v7 “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he (Christ – see v5) is righteous.”
7e John’s Gospel c14v23 “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
7f Romans c8v14 “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
7g Philippians c1v25 “And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith.”
7h Romans c8v9 “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (i.e. they do not belong to God and so are not saved).”
7i John’s Gospel c10v27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
7j Romans c8v30b “And whom he justified (believers in Christ – Romans c5v1), them he also glorified.”
7k John’s Gospel c3v3 “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
7l John’s Gospel c3v14-15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
7m Romans c8v38-39 “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
7n Ephesians c4v32 “And be you kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.”
7o 1 John c1v8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
7p 1 John c1v4 “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”
7q Psalm 66v18 “If I regard iniquity {lawlessness or self will} in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
7r 2 Peter c1v5-8 “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
7s Colossians c1v14 “In whom (God’s Son, Christ – v13) we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.”
7t 2 Corinthians c7v1 “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
7u Romans c13v14 “… make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
7v 1 Corinthians c3v12-15 “ Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
7w 2 Corinthians c5v10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad.”
7x 1 John c2v2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
7y Romans c3v22 “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: …”