Friday
Friday
True and False Assurance
I write 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 5:13
Is assurance a legitimate—even necessary—ingredient of Christian discipleship? Is it ever appropriate for followers of Jesus to say, “We know”?—not only in relation to the truth of the gospel but especially in relation to personal salvation? If our answer to these questions is yes, then how can we discern between true assurance and false, the authentic and the bogus? By what criteria may we judge which is which? It was Robert Law who entitled his 1885 commentary on 1 John Tests of Life. In it he set out the three cardinal tests, three criteria by which to discern between true and false teachers.
The doctrinal test was whether the teachers believed in the incarnation: “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (4:2).
The ethical test was whether these teachers practiced righteousness and obeyed God’s commandments: “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands” (2:3).
The social test was whether they were bound to the Christian community in love: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers” (3:14).
It seems that the apostle John, living in Ephesus in his old age, was being opposed by an early Gnostic named Cerinthus. John calls him a liar and a deceiver because he denied the divine-human person of Jesus, he claimed to have fellowship with God while walking in darkness, and he made arrogant claims to spiritual superiority, claiming to love God while hating his brother. By applying the three tests, John both undermined the false assurance of counterfeit Christians and buttressed the right assurance of genuine Christians.
Unless we Christians are marked by right belief, godly obedience, and brotherly love, we are counterfeit. We cannot have been born again, for it is those who are born of God who believe, obey, and love.
For further reading: 1 John 1:1–10