John 6: 47
” Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.”
This is one of those verses that presents the Gospel in its simplest form. The one who believes has eternal life. Wow. That is pretty simple! But simple is not always easy to do, nor is it always something we can easily grasp.
Q: Can you tell what someone believes by what they say or do, or is belief something only God can truly know?
Faith is an act of our hearts, only God fully knows those who believe.
Thanks Ron!
Doesn’t that take a load off of us? No more worrying about who is “in” and who is “out”!
I think Ron nailed the answer.
I’ll add that I’m encouraged by others who proclaim Christ in faith and action.
Yeah, I think only God can know. It is true that we are identified by our fruit (John 15). It is likewise true that we can know something by someone’s profession of faith (1 John 4: 2; 1 John 5: 11 – 13), but even so, only God knows who is really His. We can be assured of our salvation by our profession of faith and placing our faith in Jesus (Romans 19: 9 – 10, 13; 1 John 5: 13; John 5: 24). Obviously, someone who says they love Jesus and then show that with their life is in a better position than the one who says they hate God or don’t believe in Him and then live life from a worldly point of view. This is why when someone dies and we go to their funeral and they have lived a godly life and identified with Jesus that we can have some assurance rather than just throw up our hands and say “who knows.” But yes, God is the final arbiter of the eternal and only He is the final judge.