Day 50: Scripture and Assurance, God Speaks Certainty

Scripture
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13 ESV

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Romans 8:16 ESV

Confessional Summary
The Belgic Confession describes the believer’s assurance as resting entirely on the promises of God received through faith. It teaches that believers “feel this certain assurance of salvation in their hearts” not from any worthiness of their own, but from the faithfulness of God who cannot lie (Belgic Confession, Article 24). Assurance is not manufactured inwardly. It is received from what God has declared outwardly in His Word.

The Canons of Dort affirm that the assurance of perseverance is “not produced by any peculiar revelation … but springs from faith in God’s promises” along with “the testimony of the Holy Spirit, witnessing with our spirit” and from “a serious, holy desire to keep a good conscience and to do good works” (Canons of Dort, V.10). Dort is careful to assert assurance has both an objective foundation in Scripture and a subjective confirmation through the Spirit. Neither stands alone.

The Westminster Confession of Faith adds that this assurance “is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion” but an infallible assurance grounded on the divine truth of the promises of salvation (WCF 18.2). God does not speak vaguely. He promises with certainty, and those promises are the ground on which the believer stands.

Together, the confessions agree that assurance is not found by searching feelings but by returning again and again to what God has said. The Word spoken by God becomes the anchor when everything else is shifting.

Reflection
John states his purpose plainly: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” The verb “know” carries the weight of settled conviction. Scripture was written so that believers would know, not suspect or hope, but have a solid place to stand when doubt comes.

Assurance starts in the promises God has spoken, not in anything you generate inward. Romans 8:16 describes this movement. The Spirit bears witness with your spirit. He takes the objective declaration of God and applies it personally, so that the believer makes it their own. When assurance fails, the temptation is to search harder inwardly, looking for more feeling, more sincerity, more evidence of change. But Dort drives you back to the promise. The ground of assurance is not the quality of your faith but the faithfulness of the God who promised. The promise does not weaken when your grip does.

This is why casual familiarity with Scripture will not hold you in seasons of doubt. If the promises of God are vague to you, only heard but never owned, they will not be available when assurance wavers. But the believer who has fed on specific promises, who knows where John wrote that he may know, who has let
Romans 8 speak into their own life, has somewhere to return when the ground feels unsteady.

God has not left His people to figure out their standing from their own fluctuating experience. He has written it down.

Application
Take 1 John 5:13 and read it as personally addressed to you. Ask one question: Do I believe in the name of the Son of God? If yes, then John wrote these words for you, so that you may know. Let the certainty of those words settle in you.

If assurance has been unstable, identify where you have been looking, whether feelings, performance, the opinion of others and redirect that gaze to a specific promise in Scripture. Pray it back to God. Ask the Spirit to bear witness with it in your heart. Put your confidence where God has put it and not in how steady you feel on any given day.

Prayer
Lord, You have written Your Word so that those who believe may know they have eternal life. You do not speak in vague terms or uncertain promises. You have declared what You will do and who Your people are. Where my assurance rests on feeling rather than on Your Word, correct me. Where doubt has driven me inward, send me back to what You have said. Let Your Spirit bear witness with my spirit that I am Your child, not because I am steady, but because You are faithful. Through Jesus Christ, in whom every promise is yes and amen. Amen.