Certainty of salvation On one side there is legalism, that seems to imply that you have to do works to be saved, like the Pharisees. The problem with that is since, if you are able to earn your salvation by works, then, there is no need for Jesus’s sacrifice and atonement. This is a false doctrine, because no amount of works could account for covering your sins. The sacrifice has to be spotless, from an innocent entity But, since man is a fallen creature, he cannot redeem himself, or ever present an acceptable sacrifice for his own atonement. Our salvation is based 100% on Jesus’s sacrifice at the cross, Him being the only one without sin. God received His sacrifice as sufficient to cover all our sins and bring us back in fellowship with him. So, we are saved by grace, without us doing anything to help it. All we have to do is accept his salvation, just like a prisoner is invited to walk free after someone else volunteered to be executed in his place. On the other side, now, someone might say – I don’t have to do anything, change my behavior, or do any works since Jesus did everything that was necessary. Any attempt for me to do something would imply that His sacrifice was not complete. All I have to do is accept his salvation as an intellectual exercise, and after that my salvation is sealed. I can now continue to do whatever I want, because I have liberty in Christ. This is also a false doctrine of libertinism at the opposite end of legalism. It describes someone that was never truly converted and is still living in the flesh. I presented above the two extremes that a lot of people fall into. The first one is “merit based salvation” characteristic to some legalistic churches with a heavy focus on works. According to them, the certainty of your salvation hangs in a very delicate balance and you can lose it at the moment’s notice – everything is on you and your performance. God is perceived as a tyrant ready to drop the hammer on you at the slightest slip. At communion time some pastors say that you should make yourself “worthy” and “feel” God’s presence and forgiveness or otherwise abstain from participation. The second extreme is more characteristic to some modern churches subscribing to this shallow Christianity where you are no different than the world in any respects. These churches have been permeated by the culture and have become like social clubs. The meaning of being a Christian has been diluted to the point of almost taking you out of the equation completely when it comes to behavior and works – God took care of all of that and your salvation is certain regardless of how you live. It’s like you can have your cake and eat it too. Someone put it this way: “don’t worry you are not that big to affect God’s plan for you”. Churches with a Calvinist bent will go that far to say that it is actually impossible to fall from grace – in other words, once saved always saved. We are faced with two concepts that collide with each other. Where is the truth? The sequence is not “obey – salvation” but rather “salvation – obey”. The works are not a requirement to be saved but rather the natural outcome of someone after being saved. The works or the fruits of the Holy Spirit are the proof of a genuine faith. The gratefulness in your heart produces works automatically just like the fruits come out on a fruit tree. The key here to understand is that the goal is to have a relationship with God, instead of us mechanically checking boxes of on a long list of restrictions and then feel good about it. When you were dating and in love with your future wife (or husband), you would spare no effort to meet her/his needs. Looking from inside you took pleasure to anticipate her/his needs – it did not feel like a burden at all. You would swim through shark infested waters to bring her lemonade. God desires that kind of love often symbolized in the Bible as between a groom and his bride. When you sincerely and passionately seek fellowship with God, your humble and loving heart will be in the right place, and works will be the only natural physical expression of your salvation. To you, as a sincere believer, God promised that there is nothing that will pluck you out of His hands and that is the origin of your certainty - not in you, or how you feel in the moment, or in your checklist of works, or in the shallowness of a fake conversion, but in God. Now let’s explore a little further what exactly constitutes genuine faith, the faith that guarantees your salvation: Martin Luther defined three levels of faiths, Notitia, Assensus and Fiducia (in latin). Notitia represents someone’s ability to understand linguistically the meaning of a doctrinal statement like: Jesus rose from the dead. I call this the cognitive level, or just being able to grasp what the sentence says, without taking any position on it. Assensus means someone is in agreement with a doctrinal statement like: Jesus rose from the dead. At intellectual level I agree with the doctrinal statement, but without being fully committed – it is merely an intellectual exercise without having your heart in it. This falls short of being a salvation faith. The danger for a lot of people is to stop here, became sort of lukewarm, shallow Sunday Christians with no change in their behavior and fooling themselves that they are saved. Fiducia represents a full commitment to the doctrinal statement: Jesus rose from the dead. At this level I totally surrender my will to the will of God and I trust him to be my Lord and Savior. My life has changed dramatically and I love God with all my heart, with all my mind and with all my strength. This is the genuine faith, the salivation faith that produces fruits: love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, self-control… Nick Rosioru - Seattle