8 Nov 2012
I John 5:13
I John 5:13: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”
Here John repeats that he’s writing this letter to believers, not to the lost. The reason he wrote this epistle is so that “ye may know that ye have eternal life”. That is a very, very important topic.
How do we know that we’ve actually been saved? Many people base their salvation on an emotional experience that they had, but that’s a poor thing to base your eternity on; after all, people in false religions also have “amazing emotional experiences”. Nowhere in the Bible does anyone ever defend their salvation on the grounds that “I had an amazing emotional experience that day”. Even Paul does not defend his conversion on the basis of the feeling that he had on the road to Damascus!
In the book of I John we are given a completely different way of verifying our salvation – one that the Church has largely ignored. What the apostle John does is lay out specific signs that only appear in the lives of genuine believers. All we have to do is examine our lives and see if these signs are present.
This book, then, should be a great comfort to us. How can we know if we are really saved? By reading I John and evaluating our life based on its principles. If you want to be sure of your salvation then this is the book to read.