ASK THE PASTOR WITH DALE RATZLAFF | Pastor and Founder, Life Assurance Ministries (1936–2024)
How can you have what you call “life assurance” when you are not keeping God’s commandments?
Athorough answer to this important question is beyond the scope of this page. I assume that by “God’s commandments”, the questioner refers to our understanding of the Sabbath. We have addressed this part of the question many times both in Proclamation! and in our books. However, there are theological crosswinds blowing against the assurance of salvation which I believe can push us off either side of the road ahead.
The East Wind
There are those who take the biblical teachings of sovereign election and the perseverance of the saints out of context and tend to ignore the need to be born again. These people say the elect of God will keep His commandments (understood to be the eternal moral laws of God) and cannot fall away. Thus, people who once appeared to be loyal, committed believers who later renounce Christ and no longer walk with him never were part of God’s elect. Christians are admonished to make certain of their calling and election, and since the new birth is often overlooked in this paradigm, they measure their “election” by obedience. Without consistent obedience, they have no assurance that they are God’s elect. This view moves the basis of assurance away from the righteousness which is in Christ to personal obedience—a precarious foundation for assurance with God.
The West Wind
There are others who believe that the assurance of salvation is based upon genuine belief in Christ. They, too, are admonished to a life of obedience. In this paradigm, however, believers who are no longer walking with God have “fallen away” and have lost their salvation because they no longer have active faith. If this understanding is true, then there really is no assurance because one does not know if he will remain faithful and endure future tests. In this paradigm as well, the significance of the new birth and the Spirit’s confirmation that we are children of God (Rom. 8:14-17) is missing.
The North Wind
There are yet others who promote the simple gospel. Using John 5:24 and other such passages, they teach that once a person has “believed” that Jesus is the Christ they have eternal life and can never be lost because they will not come into judgment. Believers who appear to fall away are still saved, even if there is little or no noticeable evidence. A one-time profession of “belief” is all that is necessary. Obedience, they teach, simply adds to the rewards of discipleship here as well as future rewards in heaven. The problem with the North Wind is that it equates salvation with a statement of belief without stressing the need to trust and receive a new birth. This paradigm may give assurance to people who may not have been born again by the Holy Spirit.
The Road Ahead
So where is our assurance based? It is based in Christ. “He who has the Son has the life” (1 Jn. 5:12). If we really believe and trust that Jesus is the Christ, died for our sins, and rose from the grave, we have life assurance now and forever because we have the guarantee of the Holy Spirit testifying to our spirits (Eph. 2:13-14; Rom. 8:14-17). Further, if we are truly born-again there will be a change in our lives. If we focus on what the New Testament teaches regarding being “in Christ”, there will be more evidence of faith in our lives than if we focus on our own obedience.
“And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son…These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 Jn. 5:11, 13). †
Books by Dale Ratzlaff are still available at SabbathInChrist.com.
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