The Certainty of Eternal Life

When I was in Seminary I took a class on preaching that was for the Seniors who would be graduating soon. Since preaching is a big part of what a pastor does many seminarians considered it the single most important class that they took during seminary. I had never preached before and to add to the stress the seminary took the position that pastors should learn to speak without notes.

So, on the day that I was supposed to preach I took my stand in front of ten seminary students and one seminary professor and with sweaty palms and shaking knees started preaching. About half way through the sermon I just went blank. After a minute of frantically searching my mind for the errant next point, I said to the professor, "Prof, I just can't remember what comes next."

I felt so humiliated and confused. I had been sure that God called me to the ministry and yet I had failed at one of the most important skills that a pastor should master. I began to question whether God had really called me to be a pastor. God in his grace began to gently restore my confidence.

I mention this because I think sometimes Christians go through something similar when they fail morally. At that point Satan will often introduce the idea that we really don't deserve to be God's child and we certainly don't deserve to go to heaven. Most Christians after sinning have experienced this temptation at least once in their lives.

In the early church, during the apostle John's life, there was a particular problem arising out of persecution. Sometimes Christians would be called in and offered a choice. If they would acknowledge that Caesar was God in the flesh, they would be free to go. But if they refused to acknowledge this, they would go to jail, and sometimes they would be killed. Many Christians chose to go to jail rather than deny their Lord Jesus. But there were others who, fearing death, did what they were asked to do and in so doing, denied the Lord and Savior who had died for them. The guilt that followed was intense and Satan would often take advantage of this guilt to cause people to fall away from intimate fellowship with Jesus.

In light of this the apostle John wrote the following verse to speak to their guilt. 1 John 5:13 says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life."

John wrote this first letter so that people who read it could have confidence that they were going to enter eternal life if they had put their faith in Jesus Christ to save them from their sins; no matter what they had done, or failed to do.

People who think they have lost their salvation because of something they have done have fallen into the trap of thinking that what they do has some impact on whether they are saved or not. But what we do, or fail to do, has nothing to do with our salvation. It never did. It was always about what Jesus did on the cross. Our behavior can never make us acceptable to God before we are saved, and our behavior after we are saved can never make us less acceptable to God because we are only acceptable to God because of what Jesus did, not what we do.

Now, sinful behavior will affect my fellowship with God, but not my relationship with him. Think of the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-20. The younger son insulted the father by demanding his inheritance before the death of his father, and he shamed the father by going and wasting his inheritance on debauched living. The fellowship between the father and the son was definitely broken....but he was always his father's son. That never changed. And when he repented and returned home, his father ran to him and embraced him precisely because he was still his son, and because the father rejoiced at the prospect of renewed fellowship.

If you are a person who has put your faith in Jesus to save you from your sins then you have eternal life, and nothing can change that. But what if you have sinned? What if it is a terrible sin? What if you have cheated on your spouse? What if you have committed a murder? Then you are like the prodigal son, the moment you repent of your sin and start toward God, he will be running to embrace you....because he loves you.