Heaven: Can We Really Know We’ll Make It?

You can’t really know, can you?  I mean, isn’t it a bit presumptuous to state emphatically: “I know I’m going to heaven!?”  

I used to think so.  Like many I had been struggling with what I later understood to be “the doctrine of assurance.”  The Bible teaches we receive salvation and the guarantee of heaven by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not on the basis of our own goodness or good deeds (Ephesians 2:8-9).  I believed that, but I still wondered whether I could really be so certain that when I died I would go to heaven. 

I often wondered whether I had “repented enough” or whether I was really “sincere enough.”  While outwardly I professed faith in Christ, inwardly I yearned for peace.

Then I read 1 John 5:13.  The first time I read that verse the proverbial “light” went on and I experienced a newfound joy that calmed my troubled heart.  In the New Testament book of 1 John, the writer relays a number of different truths about the Christian life and then, in something of a summary statement he declares, “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.”

I re-read that last phrase several times: “…so that you may know you have eternal life.”  It was as if God had included that verse just for me.  I remember thinking, “So I really can know I have eternal life!” 

My assurance of salvation would never come by my own efforts, because I would never be certain I had “done enough” to please God.  My assurance was based solely upon my believing what Christ had done for me; that I was accepted by God not on the basis of my performance, but on the basis of Christ’s infinitely perfect righteousness credited freely to me.

To put it frankly: assurance of heaven comes when we believe what the Bible says.  Of course, belief is more than just nodding in agreement.  Saving faith is the surrender of our wills to Jesus Christ and it results in a changed lifestyle.  But at its core, assurance comes when we believe what the Bible says, “taking God at His word.” 

In the words of one Christian writer: 

Some think so, they hope so, they trust so, they guess so
But I know—I know I’ve been saved;
For I’ve opened my heart’s door and Christ has come in
And I know that He saves me and keeps me from sin.
Some think so, they hope so, they trust so, they guess so
But I know—I know I’ve been saved.

Everek R. Storms

What About You?

• Why do you think many Christians struggle with having assurance that they have been saved?
• What other Bible verses teach the doctrine of assurance?
• Do you know–really know–you’ve been saved?  If not, trust Christ today.