That Ye May Know

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. 1 JOHN 5:13

Moody had no patience with the idea that a Christian must go through life hoping he is saved, and find out only at the judgement. He met it everywhere: in pious people who thought that certainty would be presumptuous, and in anxious people who had trusted Christ and still lived in fear. To both he said the same thing. God means His children to know.

The chapter of The Way to God called Assurance of Salvation is one of the most helpful things he wrote. It begins with a plain statement: “it is the privilege of every child of God to have beyond doubt a knowledge of his own salvation.”

Not everyone should have it

Moody begins, surprisingly, by saying who ought not to have assurance. There are two classes. The first are those in the church who have never been born again; assurance for them would be a false peace. The second are those who are not willing to do God’s will, who want some other place than the one God has marked out for them. Assurance is not a comfort for people who are running from God. It is the birthright of those who have come home.

Know, know, know

With that settled, Moody goes to the first letter of John. John wrote his Gospel, he says, so that we might believe; he wrote his letter so that we might know. In those five short chapters the word know occurs again and again, and Moody tells his readers to go through the letter and count it. The note of the whole epistle is not maybe but know.

In the third chapter he finds five things worth knowing. We know that Christ was manifested to take away our sins, and He did not fail in His mission. We know that we are of the truth. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. We know that He abides in us, by the Spirit He has given us. And, best of all, we know that we are the sons of God now, not only when we die.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 JOHN 3:2

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. 1 JOHN 3:14

Where doubts come from

Moody was a good physician of doubt, and he names its causes plainly.

The first is looking at ourselves. “If you want to scatter your doubts, look at the blood; and if you want to increase your doubts, look at yourself.” You will get doubts enough for years, he says, by being occupied with yourself for a few days. When he was a boy walking in the snow, he could make a straight track only by fixing his eyes on a tree ahead; the moment he looked down, he walked crooked.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. ISAIAH 26:3

The second is wanting a token beyond God’s word. If Moody promised to meet a man tomorrow and the man asked for his watch as security, it would be an insult to his honesty. God has made promise after promise. To ask for a sign besides is to doubt Him.

The third is living as a servant rather than a son. Many Christians, Moody says, never get beyond thinking of themselves as God’s servants. A servant does not walk freely about the house; a son does. God has not only adopted us; we are His by birth. Moody’s little boy was as much his son at a day old as at fourteen. “The children of God are not perfect; but we are perfectly His children.”

But I have sinned

The objection Moody heard most often was this: I believed, but I have sinned since. His answer was that there has never been a Christian who has not. God has made provision for it, and the provision is Christ.

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 1 JOHN 2:1

Moody makes a lovely point about confessed sin. When his son did wrong and asked forgiveness, he forgave him and kissed him. If the boy came back the next day to ask forgiveness for the same thing, it would grieve his father to be doubted. The past sins of Christians, confessed, are settled; they are not to be opened again.

He also distinguishes carefully between standing and growth. “Justification is instantaneous; but sanctification is a life-work.” A tree may be perfect in its first year without being mature. So a believer may be truly God’s child and still very unfinished. Assurance does not rest on how far we have grown, but on whose we are.

Kept by the Shepherd

Underneath all of Moody’s teaching on assurance lies the keeping power of God. Many young converts, he says, are afraid they will not hold out. He answers that it is not the sheep’s business to keep the shepherd. “It is the Shepherd’s business to keep the sheep.”

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. JUDE 1:24

He liked to quote Paul’s last letter: I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day (2 Timothy 1:12). It was, he said, a grand persuasion.

Yet Moody was not careless about the danger of drifting. The last chapter of The Way to God is on backsliding, and it is full of warnings. Christians fall, he says, on the strongest side of their character, as Peter did, step by step: first boasting, then sleeping, then following afar off, then warming himself among the enemies of Christ. But the same chapter is full of the tenderness of God toward those who have wandered. The Lord never left them, Moody says; they left Him. And the way back is open: only acknowledge your iniquity (Jeremiah 3:13).

A word of care

Moody’s teaching on assurance has comforted countless people. One sentence in it needs weighing. “No man is fit for God’s service who is filled with doubts.” It is true that settled peace makes a better worker than constant fear. But the Bible is full of servants who worked through dark nights of doubt, and some believers of tender conscience or troubled mind will find their assurance growing slowly over years. They should not be told they are unfit for service. They should be told, as Moody told most people, to stop looking inward and look at Christ. J. C. Ryle, whom Moody quotes in the same chapter, put it well: “Faith is the root, and Assurance the flower.” The root may be alive long before the flower opens.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Can you say that you know you have eternal life? If not, is it because you are not trusting Christ, or because you are looking at yourself?

2. Read 1 John through in one sitting and mark each time John says we know.

3. Is there a sin you have confessed and keep bringing back to God? Thank Him that it is settled, and stop asking again.

4. Look back over the last year. Is there any sign of Peter’s slide — self-confidence, prayerlessness, following afar off? Turn back today.

5. Read Assurance of Salvation and Backsliding in The Way to God, in the Ochorus library.

A PRAYER

Father, You have written so that I may know. Forgive me for dishonouring You with doubts I have fed by looking at myself.

I look away to the blood of Your Son, and I rest on what You have said: whoever has the Son has life.

Thank You that I am not a servant hoping for wages, but a child in my Father’s house.

Keep me from drifting, and if I wander, bring me back. You are the Shepherd, and I trust You to keep Your sheep. Amen.