Salvation Summaries

Are you a Christian?  If you answered “yes,” are you living like one should? The information in this post, which is taken only from the short book of 1 John, can help you answer both questions.

What is a Christian?

A person can think of himself or herself as a Christian, but technically not be one. Surveys of citizens in the U.S. by Barna and others frequently show that most people in the U.S. view themselves as a Christian, but in reality, only a small percentage likely are when one uses the Bible’s definition of a Christian.  Too many people in our country have their own definition of what a Christian is (I go to church once in a while, therefore I am one).  Or, they themselves as one by default, since they are not a Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist or Atheist. However, there is no such thing as a default Christian.

So what is a Christian? In short, a Christian is someone who understands their sinfulness and the consequences of it, believes in Jesus as the only One who can forgive them from their sins, repents, and submits to Jesus in faith as Lord of their life.

When a person becomes a Christian, a number of spiritual changes take place, and I’ve included several below that John mentions:

• Has been forgiven from (the penalty of) their sins (2:12)
• Has received the Holy Spirit (2:27, 3:24, 4:4)
• Has assurance of eternal life (2:25, 5:13)
• Is a child of God (3:1, 2)
• Is born of God (4:7)

All of these changes that take place when a person becomes saved affect how a person thinks and lives. According to John, one way to prove whether you are a Christian is by your lifestyle.

How should a Christian live?

If the following traits describe how you live, then you can take comfort that you are living like a Christian should according to John.  However, if you are not doing these things, and instead partaking in some of the behaviors shown in the next section, it would be wise to reexamine yourself to determine if you really are a believer.

• Confess your sins regularly in order to be cleansed from them (1:9)
• Strive to not sin (2:1)
• Seek to know God by keeping His commandments (2:3, 5:3)
• Seek to abide in God by walking as Jesus walked (2:5, 28)
• Seek to have fellowship with God and other believers (1:6)
• Seek to live apart from the world and according to God’s will
• Walk (live) in the Light (this is holiness and truth according to John MacArthur) (1:7)
• Practice righteousness not sin (3:7, 9)
• Love other Christians and shows this by your deeds/actions (3:14, 18)

How does a non-Christian live?

Although the Bible identifies a number of traits and behaviors of non-Christians, John mentions only a few, and I’ve listed three of them below. Review the bullet points and the explanations to determine if your lifestyle more closely resembles that of a Christian or a non-Christian.

• Loves the world
• Walks in spiritual darkness and practices sin not righteousness
• May hate some people, especially Christians and Jews

What does it mean to love the world?

• 1 John 2:15-17 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world– the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does– comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

What is the world? According to commentator John MacArthur, it represents the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. In short, it’s lust and pride.

If you like to look at images or people in a lustful way or because of lust; if your primary goal in life is to make as much money as you can or be wealthy; if you are proud of your income or your wealth; or if you are proud of how you look or dress, these are signs that you are of the world and love the world, for this is what the world values the most.

Now, some of you may be asking, “OK, it’s true that I do some of these things, but everyone does, so it can’t be that bad, right?”

Let me put it this way. If you believe, like many people do, that pleasure or happiness (rather than God) is the highest aim in a person’s life, then it is a problem.  In fact, it’s a big problem. Why? Because it is hedonism. And what is so bad about hedonism? Hedonism is sinful according to the Bible, and promoted as good in The Book of Satan, which is part of the Satanic bible.

Dear reader. Please realize that you cannot be of the world and a Christian at the same time. John says in 2:15 that “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You are either of the world, or not of the world. If you are of the world, you are not a Christian, and if you are not a Christian, then you must understand the consequences that await you upon death.

If you are a Christian, but struggle to stay separate from the world, then join the team. The movies, the TV shows, the computer games, and the many people we may work or go to school with can pull us back into the world and cause us to get wrapped up in what it promotes. Do whatever you have to, fellow believer, to not be worldly.

What does it mean to walk in spiritual darkness and practice sin rather than righteousness?

• 1 John 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

• 1 John 3:6-10 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. 7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

Christians are to “walk” or live in the Light of God, which is holiness and truth.  Non-Christians walk or live in spiritual darkness, which is sinfulness, ungodliness and immorality.

What are examples of this?  If you party every week and get drunk, if you are a serial adulterer, or a practicing homosexual, these are sinful, ungodly and immoral lifestyles according to the Bible, and if you do this as a matter of practice, or on a regular basis, you are not, and cannot be, a Christian according to 1 John. I know this may sound harsh to some, and it’s certainly not politically correct to say, but it is what the Bible teaches.

Why would a non-believer hate a Chrisitian (or a Jew)?

• 1 John 4:20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
• 1 John 2:11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
• 1 John 3:15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

I think it is accurate to say that many in our national media hated Sarah Palin when she sought to be Vice President of the United States. She was ridiculed, mocked and rumors were spread about her.  A number of people in the media and our country expressed a certain degree of hatred towards President George Bush, and a number in the sports media did towards Tim Tebow.

Why do so many in our national media, and a number in our society, hate these people? While reasons may vary for each person, there is one thing they all have in common, and which – I believe – plays a large role in the hatred: Palin, Bush and Tebow are Christians.

Hatred is everywhere in our world today. Radical Muslims hate Jews and Christians wherever they may be located. Voice of the Martyrs details countless murders of Christians by Muslims throughout many parts of the Middle East and Asia.  Our national media ignore most of this, but pick up any copy of Voice of the Martyrs, and your eyes will be opened to the extent of this violence.

Many in the media and the Middle East hate the Jews. The Jewish people in Israel have been subjected to hundreds if not thousands of missle attacks and suicide bombers for years. Why? Hatred.

And what is the source of this hatred? It is this: hatred is present when a loving God is absent from that person’s life.

I personally do not have much in common with liberal democrats who are non-Christians, for example, but I do not hate them, and other Christians don’t either. Why? Because we used to be like them.  We used to live in spiritual darkness, and sinned often. We lived for ourselves, not the Lord.  We enjoyed our sinfulness, our lust and our pride…at least for a time. But at some point in our lives, and because of God’s grace, He changed us. He delivered us from our sinful way of life and brought us into a relationship with Him, and that changed everything.  Liberal democrats who are not a Christian have the same opportunity to be converted just as I and millions of others have been.  As Christians, we want this to happen to them as it did to us, for it brings about love, not hate.

Can you have assurance of your salvation?

According to John, the answer is “yes.”

As I mentioned in my post on 1 John – Part 1 of 2, the book of 1 John contains one of the clearest verses in the Bible on the subject of the assurance of salvation.

John wants his readers to know that because they believe in the name of Jesus, they HAVE eternal life.  This can be clearly seen in the following verse:

• 1 John 5:13 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.

If John knows that his readers have eternal life, and if they know they have eternal life (especially after reading his letter to them), and if there has been no change between then and now in terms of how a person is saved, then we, too, can know whether we have eternal life.  And how would we know?  In the same way…if we truly believe in Jesus.  I’ve written about what “believe in Jesus” means from my review of the book of John.  If you’ve not read my posts on John, you may want to do so now.