[Note: editorial license has been taken to clarify this question from the audience.]
This is the final installment of the questions and answers that followed Professor Zane Hodges' Grace Evangelical Society speech in 2000. The speech is found in written form in two journal articles here and here.
Question from the Audience: I know that you’re right that assurance is of the essence of saving faith. You quoted a verse in First John, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God…” [1 John 5:1]. Is everlasting life a result of believing that Jesus is the Christ?
Answer from Professor Hodges: Yes.
Question from the Audience (continuing): Okay. What if a person believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He is the Only Begotten, that He is the Christ, but they still have trouble with assurance? What if they believe that Jesus is the Christ, but they still have trouble with assurance? How do you explain that?
Answer from Professor Hodges: My answer to that has always been that when [the Apostle] John says that, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ,” we must believe that He is the Christ in the sense in which John means that.
So then we must ask the question: What does John mean by the term Christ? And the easiest place to go for the answer to that is John 11:25-26. Jesus saying to Martha, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live: Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” And then He says, “Do you believe this?” And her answer is a Johannine confession: “Yes, Lord: I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”
That’s John’s way of telling us that to believe that He is the Christ means to believe that He is the One who guarantees resurrection and eternal life to everyone who believes in Him.
Now if I walk out on the street and say, “Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?” almost everybody is going to tell me, “Yes” because that [the term Christ] has become a personal name.
And so the key here is to understand the term Christ in the Johannine sense of the word. To believe that He is the Christ is to believe that He is the One who guarantees salvation. And, therefore, to believe that He is the Christ brings assurance.
Answer from Professor Hodges: Yes.
Question from the Audience (continuing): Okay. What if a person believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He is the Only Begotten, that He is the Christ, but they still have trouble with assurance? What if they believe that Jesus is the Christ, but they still have trouble with assurance? How do you explain that?
Answer from Professor Hodges: My answer to that has always been that when [the Apostle] John says that, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ,” we must believe that He is the Christ in the sense in which John means that.
So then we must ask the question: What does John mean by the term Christ? And the easiest place to go for the answer to that is John 11:25-26. Jesus saying to Martha, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live: Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” And then He says, “Do you believe this?” And her answer is a Johannine confession: “Yes, Lord: I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”
That’s John’s way of telling us that to believe that He is the Christ means to believe that He is the One who guarantees resurrection and eternal life to everyone who believes in Him.
Now if I walk out on the street and say, “Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?” almost everybody is going to tell me, “Yes” because that [the term Christ] has become a personal name.
And so the key here is to understand the term Christ in the Johannine sense of the word. To believe that He is the Christ is to believe that He is the One who guarantees salvation. And, therefore, to believe that He is the Christ brings assurance.
