Objection: How do I know if I have been chosen by God for salvation?

Question: How do I know if I have been chosen by God? If I cannot truly repent of my sins without being led there by God, do we assume that all that have repented are "the chosen" people? I assume that everyone in a Calvinist church believes they are going to heaven, then they have been predestined by God and were given a regenerate will. So does that mean that everyone who has repented is "predestined" to go to heaven?

Answer: 1 John 5:13 says that "these things were written so you may know you have eternal life." This means that we are able to know that we are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. But sometimes, we have our doubts and we wonder. So how do we know if we are elect? There are two ways a person can know that they are one of God's elect. The first deals with doctrine, and the second deals with practice. 1 Cor. 2:14 says, "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." The natural man is the unbeliever. So the word of God is telling us to unbelievers cannot receive and believe in the spiritual truths that lead to salvation. The spiritual truths include such things as Jesus dying for sin, Jesus being God in flesh, Jesus being physically resurrected from the dead, etc. An unbeliever can understand the concept, but an unbeliever does not accept and receive them. So, if a person who claims to be Christian acknowledges these types of spiritual things, that is a sign of his regeneration. Only regenerated people are saved.

The second thing to look at is the person's life. Christians seek to abandon their sins and to war against them. Unbelievers don't do that. Only Christians are worried about spiritual issues about being right before God. Christians are the ones who, because they are saved and regenerated, have repentance from sin and a changed life. So, we would see that Christians would be people who would avoid lying, stealing, etc. Unbelievers don't worry about their sin, and unbelievers, those who are not regenerated, don't war against their sin.

So, though we cannot look into the heart to tell if someone else's saved, we can look into our own hearts and see if we affirm the basics of the Christian faith, those things which are discernible and believable only by Christians. And, we can no that we are warning against sin, seeking to do away with it (even though we sometimes fail), and bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Return to the Home Page