How can we be certain of our own salvation?

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him (1 John 3:6).

This is a sobering passage. It is meant to be. However, it should not be a passage that causes the Christian believer to despair. John is not condemning the one who is seeking to overcome sin, but the one who habitually gives into sin without repenting. John purposefully describes here the one who is (or is not) continually sinning (as is evident from the “linear present”, or continuing action, of the verbs in the original language).

We also know this from some other passages which have gone before in this same epistle: “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10) and “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

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