1 John 5:13-21

To sum up, the purpose of this letter is to provide professing Christians with three assurances by which they may know for certain, and find reassurance, that they are genuine children of God. These three are the moral assurances (obeying the commands of Christ), the social assurances (loving fellow Christians), and the doctrinal assurances (believing in the incarnation). The letter is relevant for today. Not only are there heretics who erroneously claim salvation, there are also not a few people in the church who erroneously think that they are saved. And it is a common experience for some genuine Christians to doubt their salvation. All three groups—heretics, professing unbelievers, and real believers—can profit from John’s first epistle by applying his tests of salvation to themselves.