Did Paul have assurance of salvation?

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What’s Your Question? for Dec. 15, 2010

Paul said, “Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air” (1 Cor. 9:26). That is the assurance a Christian should have. The next verse says, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” (rejected, v. 27). In the next chapter he said, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (10:12). He surely applied that to himself! Hebrews 3:12 says, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.” Paul said some of the Galatians had fallen from grace (Gal. 5:4). Just as an unbeliever can choose to believe, a believer can choose to quit believing, therefore depart from God.