At some point during their discipleship journey, nearly everyone will wonder about whether they are really saved, whether they have given their lives to Christ, and how they would know one way or the other. If it is true that we are not saved by anything that we have done but because we believe in Christ and have put our trust in him, how can we know for sure that we have done this? After all, it would be a tragedy if we think we have come to believe in Jesus only to find, after it is too late, that our faith was not genuine and we will not be saved.
The first generations of reformers usually taught some form of the idea that, if you really have saving faith, you will know it. The problem is that most people have doubts from time to time that their faith is all that it should be. Does that uncertainty mean that we are not saved in that moment? It can be a real, practical difficulty. How can we have assurance of our salvation?
John Wesley took this question extremely seriously and gave a balanced and robust answer, perhaps most clearly in his sermon “The Witness of the Spirit, Discourse 1.” The sermon seeks to unpack what is meant in Romans 8:16, when Paul says, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.” He unpacks the verse further in two other sermons, but the nerve of the whole line of thought is in this one.
Essentially, Wesley says that these two witnesses are two ways we can evaluate whether we are the children of God. One of them, the witness of the Holy Spirit, is the kind of thing where we hear God assure us, in our hearts, that we belong to him. How do we know that we love God and our neighbor? Wesley suggests that the answer to that question is more or less similar to the question, “How do you know that you are alive?” The answer is that there is no one specific thing that we can point to, but that we know it deep in our bones to be true. This, at its core, is what the witness of the Holy Spirit is like. We may not be able to point to specific pieces of evidence that we trust in Jesus but we know, deep in our bones, that we do.
So far, this is much like what other Protestant leaders have taught. Wesley goes further, though, and says that “the witness of our own spirit” is something like the witness of a clear conscience. It might also be seen as being the evidence of the transformation of one’s life. In my own life, I was not raised as a Christian or in the church so I am very much aware of what my life was like before Jesus. Even if nobody else I meet knew me back then, I can point to the change in my heart as evidence that this faith that I have is not merely an illusion. After all, it is a faith and trust that has actually impacted my life.
Someone might respond that Wesley’s teaching on the witness of our own spirit is really nothing more than teaching that we are saved by our works, since that is the tangible evidence we can point to. However, he is clear that neither witness by itself is sufficient for us to rely upon because each, on its own, could be interpreted incorrectly. I imagine that most folks have met someone who claims faith but whose life shows no evidence of transformation. If we think we have the witness of the Holy Spirit, but our lives show no change, it is quite possible that we have imagined that witness and that it is not genuine.
In the same way, someone may have all kinds of works to point to that give evidence that they are a disciple. And yet, if that is all they have, they may be caught up in an attempt to be saved because of what they have done. If they have only this witness, they will not be able to trust in their salvation, but will always be frantically pursuing more evidence that they belong to Jesus.
It is because of this that Wesley teaches the need for both witnesses. If you believe the Holy Spirit is telling you that you are saved but your life is not changed, you cannot trust it. If you believe your actions show that you are saved but you do not feel assured by the Holy Spirit, you should not rest without it. However, if you have both witnesses in your life, Wesley believes that this should be sufficient to assure you of your salvation.
That all being said, there is another question that is closely related to all of this and that is, “Is it possible for someone to lose their salvation?” At a 30,000 foot point of view the simple answer, from a Wesleyan perspective, is “yes.” However, that needs to be unpacked.
There are moments, such as in his sermon, “The Great Privilege of Those That Are Born of God,” where Wesley treats our salvation as very brittle indeed, sending the message that, the moment we give way to outward sin, we are not saved. There are other places, though, where Wesley has a more resilient view. A crucial, but often overlooked, distinction needs to be kept in mind.
In the Bible, especially the New Testament, the word “salvation” is used in two distinct, but related senses. One of them is to describe the idea of receiving justification, “being forgiven” in the here and now. There is a sense in which we can say that we are saved. However, there is another sense in which “salvation” only happens at the end, at the final judgment. There are some books in the New Testament that tend to emphasize one or the other. Paul, for example, tends to focus on the former and the book of Hebrews tends to focus on the latter.
This is important because Wesley held these two understandings of “salvation” together better than some have. There is no way to lose our salvation in the second sense because we only fully have it when there is no longer any opportunity to lose it. However, Wesley would say that if we turn from Jesus devote ourselves to sin, it would be irresponsible to say that we are still saved.
What does this mean for the assurance of our salvation? It all depends on what kind of assurance that we want. If we want assurance that we are saved today, while we are following Christ and having our lives transformed, we can certainly have that, with the two witnesses we have already talked about.
However, if what we want is an assurance that we will be saved, no matter what the future brings, even if that future means that we have forsaken Christ and devoted ourselves to sin, then Wesley would almost certainly say that there is no such assurance. The only assurance of salvation we can possibly have is one that flows from, and is dependent on, our remaining in Christ. To say anything else would be to say that we can be assured of our salvation while we pursue life outside of Christ, which is clearly false.
The real assurance that we have is that, if we remain in Christ, we will certainly be saved. It is like Jesus says in John 15. We have our life in Christ and, apart from him, we can do nothing.
