Understanding Salvation: Beyond Emotional Experience

1. “I know I’m saved because I feel it right here.” “I would not trade the feeling I have right here for a stack of Bibles as high as this car.”

2. “How does one know that she has had a religious experience? I think I have had one. Last night as I prayed by the side of my bed, I was overcome with a tremendous sense of calm. I felt as if I were as light as a feather. Do you think I had and experience and I am saved?”

3. Does the Bible teach that feelings are sure and certain indicators of the forgiveness of our sins? Is it True That Our Feelings are Evidence of the Forgiveness of Sins? Is one acting in harmony with the teaching of the N.T. when he accepts as assurance of salvation the subjective urging of his emotions?

4. FEELINGS CAN MISLEAD • Jacob felt that Joseph was dead – Genesis 37:24ff • Saul felt that killing Christians was the right thing to do – Acts 26:9 • Saul consented to death of Stephen - Acts 7:58; 22:20 • Saul persecuted the church - Acts 8:3 • Paul said he killed Christians with a clear conscience – Acts 23:1 • Paul was later converted to Christ – Acts 9:6ff; 1 Timothy 1:15 • Apollos felt that John’s baptism was the right one – Acts 18:25 • Aquila & Priscilla helped – Acts 18:26

5. FEELING PRODUCED BY EVIDENCETHEY ARE NOT THE EVIDENCE • On Pentecost – Acts 2:41,46 • The Samaritans – Acts 8:6,8 • The Ethiopian Eunuch – Acts 8:28,39 • It was not until Paul was obedient to the “heavenly vision.” – Acts 26:19; Acts 9:6-19 • Antioch of Pisidia in Galatia – Acts 13:48, 52 • Philippian jailer – Acts 16:34 • At Thessalonica – Acts 17:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:6

6. Nowhere in the Bible is there any indication that an alien sinner was assured of his redemption through his experience with his emotions.

7. HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE SAVED? • Predicated on God’s Word – 1 John 5:13 • John 20:31 – “that you may believe” • 1 John 2:3- “if we keep His commandments” • 1 John 2:5 – “keeps His word” • 1 John 2:17 – “does the will of God” • 1 John 2:23-25 “promised us – eternal life”

8. HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE SAVED? • 1 John 3:18,19 - “know that we are of the truth” • John 6:68- “word of eternal life” • John 17:17 – “Your word is truth” • Acts 13:48 – “glad and glorified the word of the Lord” • Tit 2:11-13 – “grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men”

9. Answering Objections • “The N.T. teaches that conversion is a better felt than told experience in John 3:1-8.” • Two agents in the “new birth” – John 3:3,5 • Baptism and the Gospel – Ephesians 5:26; Mark 16:16; Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:22,23 • Water cannot be physical birth – John 3:6

10. Answering Objections • “The N.T. teaches that the Holy Spirit gives us an inner –witness that we are the children of God in Romans 8:16.” • “WITH” not “TO” • Two “spirits” which give concurrent testimony – John 8:17,18; Deuteronomy 19:15; 2 Corinthians 13:1 • Testimony of believer – John 3:11; Acts 26:19 • Testimony of H.S. – John 15:26; 1Peter 1:11; John 5:39

11. Answering Objections • “1 John 5:10 says that the believer has the witness if God within himself.” • Yes – but what is the witness? • “The record God gave of His Son…which He hath testified of His Son” 1 John 5:9,10; 5:13 • This is the witness of the Spirit which is “the truth” – 1 John 5:6