Doubting Your Salvation Because of a Lack of Fruit

by Jon Buck

This question is a very common struggle. There are many places in the Bible where we are told that Christians will bear good fruit. This fruit is first and foremost a love for God and a love for others (see Matt 23:37-40). From this love for God and others flows a life of holiness, purity, and self-giving.

By the same token, the Bible teaches that believers still sin, even after salvation. There are many examples such as Peter’s sin of fear of man in denying Jesus, and the same sin later while at Antioch where Paul had to rebuke him (read Gal 2 for the story). We’re told that Paul considered himself the foremost sinner (1 Tim 1:15; the verb is in the present tense!), and that God is mindful that we are dust (Psalm 103:15). Paul sometimes struggled with fear and anxiety, Timothy with timidity, and the church in Corinth was full of believers who committed sin.

The tension in this issue can damage your assurance of salvation, because it can cause you to begin to believe that you are not growing enough or producing enough fruit. Perhaps you've had thoughts like this—you believe you should've changed more by now, or, your life is still a struggle, or, you're still struggling with sins that you struggled with from the very beginning.

All of these are very common!

So how are we to think of our need to bear fruit and our assurance of salvation?

This issue is actually a confusion about how justification and sanctification work together. Justification is the declaration of righteousness that God makes over his people because of the righteousness of Christ. Paul says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1), and that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ for us (Rom 8:38-39). This is the reality of our justification. It triumphs over our sins, many of which remain in our lives, even after we are converted. This is why Paul told the Romans that where sent abounds, grace abounds all the more (Rom 5:20-21).

After our conversion, this justification that we have received as a free gift from God begins to change us. Paul tells Titus that God's grace instructs us to deny on godliness and worldly desires, and to live righteously and godly lives (Titus 2:11)! Further, Paul tells us that our new life in Christ gives us new motivational power to change. Of course, this is not perfection! Instead, it is best to think of it as the direction of our lives. We begin to change because of the kindness of God, and His glory which is revealed to us, and His forgiveness and love of us.

If we start to blend justification and sanctification together, we get ourselves into trouble. Yes, our justification produces change in us, but that change is not our justification! Think of a tree - the fruit that the tree bears is not the tree itself, nor is it the root of the tree. The tree cannot bear fruit without roots that go into the soil, and yet, we would never say that the fruit is the tree itself. Instead, it's best to think of the fruit in our lives as a sign of the existence of true roots! In other words, our relationship with God is is constantly bearing fruit in varying degrees and in varying ways in our lives.

By the same token, a person who bears no fruit of righteousness, but still claims to be a believer cannot be. True faith always produces fruit (James 2:14). However, it is not always the same fruit, or the same amount of fruit. In fact, for some people who are true Christians, their concern over their lack of fruit is the very fruit they are seeking to see in their lives!

Further, it is important to remember that our war against sin will never come to an end until we are dead. The bodies that we have in our earthly lives are still under the curse of sin, and that sin principal resides in our flesh (see Rom 7:14ff). Our bodies (including our brains!) are constantly at war with our new inner selves, which joyfully delight in the law of God. We are no longer slaves to sin, but we often live according to the sin principle in our bodies, and fail to obey and glorify God.

Nevertheless, we can always fall back on the hope of the promise that God has made to us—that all of our sins, past, present and future, were laid on Christ, once and for all, at the cross (1 Cor 15:1-4). We can trust that we are forgiven because of Him and His life and death on our behalf. In fact, it is comforting to note that the love of Christ for us began while we were enemies, and still sinners according to the world (Romans 5:8)! If God would come all the way to us in our deepest moments of failure and sin, certainly He will do so for us now, having been justified!