Hello everybody and welcome in to episode #327 of the Bible 2021 podcast. We are reading 2 Peter 1 today and our focus is on How Do We Make Our Calling and Election Sure? How Can We Make Sure We are Saved? Assurance of Salvation Reading 2nd Peter 1 #327 We are a daily 10ish minute podcast, where we will dig in to the truth of the Word of God by reading one Bible chapter a day and discussing it. Welcome to new listeners in Our goal is to encourage DAILY Bible reading, so you can jump in at any time and join with us. We want to invite as many people as possible to join us in daily Bible reading, so help spread the word and share the podcast! Don’t forget about our web-page, Bible2021.com – contact page, show notes, transcript and more– Click here for our Bible 2021 reading plan\
I will be honest with you – I am not comfortable with the title of today’s podcast, “how can we make sure we are saved,” but the thing about it is that is pretty much just a slight rewording of a command we have in Scripture to make sure our calling and election is certain. Which, at least on the surface is a bit of an odd command, because I believe that salvation is monergistic – that is to say, it is solely an act of God’s grace, rather than synergistic, indicating that man somehow contributes to his salvation with works or pursuit of God, or whatever. And yet, we do have commands in the Word to make sure that we are saved – and Peter’s command isn’t the only one. Consider also:
5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless you fail the test. 2nd Corinthians 13:5
This, of course, brings up a massively important question – HOW can we test ourselves? I find one clue to the answer to that question in passages like 1 Corinthians 15:
Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain 1Corinthians 15:1-2
What is the test of salvation in that passage? Very simple: Are you holding on to the good news of the gospel? If so, says Paul, then you are saved – if you have let it go, or reject it, then you are no longer holding on to the message.
Assurance of salvation is very important, and is one of the main reasons that the letter of First John was written, as he notes in 1 John 5 vss 12-13:
12 The one who has the Son has life.The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:12-13
In commenting on that passage, Spurgeon says:
It is our duty to obtain full assurance. We should not have been commanded to give diligence to make our calling and election sure if it were not right for us to be sure. I am sure it is right for a child of God to know that God is his Father and never to have a question in his heart as to his sonship. I know it is right for a soul that is married to Christ to know the sweet love of the Bridegroom and never to tolerate a cloud of suspicion to come between the soul and the full enjoyment of Christ’s love. For this reason, I would urge you onward to know that you have eternal life. John, being dead, yet speaks out of the Bible: he calls on you to know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and that we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. He bids us as believers firmly repose our souls upon the promise of our faithful God….The Bible is sent that you may have full assurance of your possession of eternal life. Do not, therefore, dream that it will be presumptuous on your part to aspire to it. Our conscience tells us that we ought to seek full assurance of salvation. It cannot be right for us to be children of God and not to know our own Father. How can we kneel down and say, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt 6:9) when we do not know whether He is our Father or not? Until the spirit of adoption enables you to cry, “Abba, Father,” where is your love to God? Can you rest? Do you dare rest while it is a question whether you are saved or not?
I ask you, make sure work for eternity. If you leave anything in uncertainty, let it concern your body or your estate, but not your soul. Conscience bids you seek to know that you have eternal life, for without this knowledge many duties will be impossible to perform. Are you not bidden to make your calling and election sure? Are you not a thousand times over exhorted to rejoice in the Lord, and to give thanks continually? But how can you rejoice if the dark suspicion haunts you that perhaps, after all, you do not have the life of God? You must get this question settled or you cannot rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. I ask you, as you would follow Scripture and obey the Lord’s precepts, get the assurance without which you cannot obey them.Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: 1 John, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
So HOW specifically can we have assurance? The good folks at Gotquestions.org can help us with that question:
A believer’s “calling” is God’s drawing him to salvation. Peter alludes to this calling earlier in the same chapter when he speaks of God “who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3). A believer’s “election” is God’s selection of him to be saved from before time began. The doctrine of election or predestination is taught elsewhere in the Bible, too (see Romans 8:29–30; Ephesians 1:5, 11; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; and 2 Timothy 2:10). God is the one who calls and elects, so the believer’s calling and election are already “sure” from God’s point of view; therefore, the command for believers to diligently make their calling and election sure must refer to the believers’ point of view. God wants us to have assurance of our salvation, and the best way to do that is to be pursuing godly virtues and actively growing in the Christian life….In summary, to make one’s calling and election sure is to live out the Christian life in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is to do more than simply pay lip service to Christ. Those who profess salvation but never grow in their walk with God will suffer a lack of assurance, always wondering if they are really saved or not. Those who grow ever more like Christ will be “sure” of their calling and election. They will know they have eternal life (see 1 John 5:13); they will be living testimonies of the power of God to change lives….Take joy in what God’s Word is saying to you: instead of doubting, we can live with confidence! We can have the assurance from Christ’s own Word that our salvation will never be in question. Our assurance of salvation is based on the perfect and complete salvation God has provided for us through Jesus Christ. Are you trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? editors. note: [Are you holding on to and believing the truth of the Gospel as 1 Corinthians 15 talks about?] If the answer is “yes,” rest assured, you are saved.
Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/make-calling-election-sure.html
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Bible Memory passage for the month of November: John 14:6 “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
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