Depending on your age and what you read, a word like “certainty” may make you squirm a little bit. It’s a concept that, philosophically, runs against the grain of modern culture, specifically speaking in religious or ethical terms. But Christians can’t back away from certainty, for we have much to be certain about. Indeed, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote in Fellowship with God, “Christians are men and women who are certain.”
So, what should we be certain about? First and foremost, we can be certain of ourselves. As Lloyd-Jones wrote,
We know that we are of God. What is a Christian? Are Christians just people who pay a formal respect to God and to public worship? Are they just mechanically attached to a church? Do they just try to live a good life and to be a little bit better than others? Are they just philanthropists, people who believe in a certain amount of benevolence? They are all that, of course, but how infinitely more! Now, says John, we know this truth about ourselves as Christians. ‘We are of God’; by which he means nothing less than this: we are born of God; we are partakers of the divine nature; we have been born again; we have been born from above, we have been born of the Spirit, we are a new creation.
Our identity matters. Who we are before God is essential to our very being. If we follow Christ, we are “of God.” We belong to him. As people born again of the Spirit, we are his forever. There are plenty of things to be uncertain of, but our identity before God isn’t one of them. If there’s one thing to be certain of, let it be this.
