How You Can Know You're Saved

John wrote his first letter so a shaken church could stop guessing

When you want to know for sure that you're born again, don't ask your neighbor. Don't ask your buddy. And don't ask Google, because you'll get a different answer on every front, and most of them will be pretty foggy.

A lot of people find that out in a dorm room at one in the morning.

The Bunk at 1:05

His roommate has been asleep for an hour. The overhead light is off, and the only light left is the clip lamp he's turned down low on the frame of the top bunk so it won't wake anybody. He's sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk with his phone in both hands, scrolling past the same answers again.

He's typed the same question four different ways. How do I know I'm saved. Am I really saved. Signs you're not really saved. Every answer seems to start with what he has to do. Pray the right prayer. Mean it more. Look at your life and see if there's enough fruit. On the desk across the room, under a cup of ramen he never finished, is the Bible his grandmother gave him when he left for school.

He believes in Jesus. He's pretty sure he does. But "pretty sure" at 1:05 in the morning feels like a door that won't quite latch.

Why John Wrote This Letter

Here's something worth knowing before you read 1 John. The church he was writing to had just been through a split. Some people they'd worshiped with had walked out, and John describes it plainly: They went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John 2:19). You can imagine what the ones who stayed were asking each other in the parking lot. If they weren't real, how do we know we are?

So John tells them why he's writing, and he saves it for the end.

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:11-13)

Watch where John puts the knowing. Not in how strong your faith feels, or how sincere your prayer was, or how much fruit you can count tonight. He puts it in a testimony God gave. God has given eternal life, and that life is in His Son. Do you have the Son? Then you have the life. John wrote all five chapters that you may know, and he wrote them to ordinary believers, not to the ones who felt sure of themselves.

Jesus said it this way: the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out (John 6:37). The question isn't how tightly you're holding on, because He's the one doing the holding.

"If We Keep His Commandments"

There's an objection, and it comes from the same letter, a few chapters earlier, where John can sound like he's handing out a checklist.

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. (1 John 2:3)

That's the verse a lot of those search results are built on. Look at your obedience, and if there's enough of it, you can know.

But John tells you what the commandment is. And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another (1 John 3:23). Believe on His Son, and love each other. That's the shape of a life Jesus is living in. It isn't a scorecard, and it isn't the ground John stands on for assurance. Before any of those tests, he's told his readers why he's writing to them: because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake (1 John 2:12). Not for your sake. For His.

Fruit is real, and over time you'll see it. But fruit grows out of a tree that's already alive. If you're digging around the roots every night to see whether the tree's still there, you'll end up with a lot of dirt and no sleep. (Paul's "examine yourselves" in 2 Corinthians 13 gets the same misuse; I walked through it in When Obedience Becomes the Test.)

The Confirmation Number

Think about making a dinner reservation online. You pick the night, click submit, and a confirmation number comes back. That number means one thing. When you show up, they know you're coming and they're expecting you.

So you pull up that night, walk to the front door, and give the host your name, and he finds it on the list and walks you straight to your table.

How nervous are you walking up to that restaurant? Not at all. Nobody stands in the parking lot thinking, I know I sent it, but I wonder if they got it.

That's how a lot of believers are living. I know I received Christ. I think I did. But what if I get to heaven and they don't have me at the door? God didn't leave you with a maybe. He confirmed His promise with an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation (Hebrews 6:18). It isn't about you being the promise keeper. God is.

Some nights the question will come back at one in the morning anyway. On those nights you answer it with what He said, not with how strong you feel.

What's on the Desk

The answer he's been searching for is on the desk across the room, under the ramen cup, in a letter written to people exactly as shaken as he is.

He gets up, moves the cup, and opens his grandmother's Bible to the back, to 1 John, looking for the place where John says why he wrote it.