Who hasn’t had doubts about whether or not they’re a Christian? I think, if we’re honest, all of us at one time or another have had those kinds of doubts. Perhaps you lied and inwardly the devil accuses you saying, “No one who is a Christian would have said that. You must not be a Christian,” Maybe you took something that didn’t belong to you but rationalized that they have so much and they won’t miss it. Once again, here comes the devil to accuse you in your conscience, “Did that belong to you? You just stole something that wasn’t yours. That violates the commandment not to steal. You deserve to go to hell.” With both of those scenarios, we may doubt our salvation because Christians don’t lie and Christians don’t steal. Maybe we aren’t really Christians after all!
Would it surprise you to know that one of the greatest Christians in history had those same doubts about his salvation? The Apostle Paul, in Romans 7:13, 19 laments, “For that which I am doing I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to but I am doing the very thing I hate.” “For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.” Ever felt like that? I know I have. I’ve said to myself, “That was stupid! Why did you do/say that?” The Bible tells me that it is the sin nature in me that never left even though I became a born-again Christian.
Paul’s solution to this internal war going on inside of him (and all the rest of us believers) is Romans 7:25 and 8:1, 2, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin.” “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death,”
The penalty for your sin and mine was laid on Jesus Christ when He died on the cross. We are free from the law of sin and death which demanded that the soul that sins shall surely die (Ezekiel 18:4)! Christ died for us, in our place! He took our penalty and paid the price for us. Theologians call this the vicarious atonement of Christ. He died in our place. Now we battle the flesh and the power of sin in our lives. The sin nature is still in us and won’t be removed until we receive our new bodies in heaven. And so we wage war against sin. This is called sanctification. To sanctify is to make holy. That is what God, the Holy Spirit, is doing in each believer. He is sanctifying us to make us holy by convicting us of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). Finally, the day will come when the trumpet will sound and we will rise in the rapture to meet the Lord in the air and we shall be forever sinless. The presence of sin will be no more. Heaven is our home and we will no longer battle sin. All doubts will be gone for we shall be like Jesus in His resurrected body (1 John 3:2, 3).
Like you, battling sin daily,
Irv