An Unwarranted Certainty

We all want to be certain of our final destiny, we all want to be able to answer the question: "Where will you spend eternity?" with a resounding "With Jesus!" And it's entirely justified to want that. It's also possible to have that, but not perhaps as some seem to have it.

In our rush to have this certainty, many present the gospel as some sort of fix for our ailment of sin, which requires only a 'sinner's prayer' to then be certainly healed. The problem is that this isn't the gospel at all.

The gospel is that Jesus is Lord, demonstrated to be so by his resurrection from the dead. Who by his life, death and resurrection has dealt with our sin and thereby made peace between God and man such that God and man may once again know each other, and that for eternity. What this means is that those who accept Jesus as Lord and bow their knees to him, receive from him that peace with God. The problem is that there must be an acceptance of Jesus as Lord, and simply praying the sinner's prayer says very little about whether Jesus is Lord of your life.

Time and again the bible gives us ways to know whether we have genuinely accepted Jesus as Lord. 2Corinthians 13.5 calls us to test whether we are of Christ, the whole of 1 John is a 3 fold test as to what our lives will look like if Jesus is Lord of them.

Certainty about where we will spend eternity is something which the bible says comes from seeing our transformed life, not from some formulaic confession or prayer.

Let me caveat at this point that we will only be able to submit to Jesus as Lord if the Holy Spirit works in our hearts to grant us that repentance. So this is not something we can freely do, rather something God does in us, yet it is still something that happens in us which has visible quantifiable results, hence the tests in 1 John, Hebrews etc.

Let me leave you with a favourite passage from 'the life of God in the soul of Man by Henry Scougal:


"These are the highest perfections that either men or angels are capable of--the very foundation of heaven laid in the soul; and he who hath attained them, needs not desire to pry into the hidden rolls of God's decrees, or search the volumes of heaven to know what is determined about his everlasting condition; but he may find a copy of God's thoughts concerning him, written in his own breast. His love to God may give him assurance of God's favour to him; and those beginnings of happiness, which he feels in the conformity of the powers of his soul to the nature of God, and compliance with his will, are a sure pledge that his felicity shall be perfected, and continued to all eternity; and it is not without reason that one said, "I had rather see the real impressions of a God-like nature upon my own soul, than have a vision from heaven, or an angel sent to tell me that my name was enrolled in the book of life."

May God grant us such a changed life.