Assurance of Salvation

Assurance

Assurance
Assurance Found
Assurance is not based on feeling, emotion or any internal evidence. It is not attained by any level of
sanctification nor based on the condition of the believer. Assurance is based on the believers’
position in Christ and rests wholly on Christ’s finished work on the cross and the testimony of Gods
word. These two pillars that assurance rests on are both outside and beyond the grateful recipient
of salvation and assurance and are in no way dependent on the recipient. Receiving Gods word as
absolute truth is faith. Casting any doubt is unbelief; to ask or seek signs as evidence is unbelief
and is not taking Gods word for what it is: the word of God and absolute truth. Faith receives Gods
word and testimony. Unbelief says “I have to see it to believe it”. “Except I shall see in his hands the
print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I
will not believe”. (John 20:25). Faith says “believing is seeing”.

Assurance is the result of the realization, becoming aware (awakened), to what God has done.
Assurance is based on what God has done, not what you have done whether good works or sin.
Neither is it based on obedience. The disobedience of Old Testament saints bare witness to this fact.
Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Noah and David were all disobedient and yet considered righteous through
faith. Assurance is found by looking away from oneself and short comings and looking to Christ.
Turning away from self and even self reliance is the first step in seeing the sureness of the believers’
position and destiny in Christ with certainty.

Biblical Support of Assurance
Gods word gives testimony to the assurance of the believer. In fact it is not very commendable to
have doubt. It is far from being spiritually arrogant or presumptuous to be assured of one’s own
salvation. The lack of assurance actually implies a “keeping power” on behalf of the believer to assure
his own salvation on his own accord. When praying a lamentation to God, David said “Restore unto
me the joy of thy salvation” (Psalm 51:12), he did not say the joy of ‘my’ salvation. Salvation and
assurance are of the Lord and in His power. Salvation is given by God and is kept secure, not by any
human effort, work, power or even obedience, but rather Gods power. Salvation has always rested
on the work and power of God. Believers that continue to hold the view of no assurance of salvation
never seem to turn from their own work and merit and turn to a complete dependency on Christ and
His finished work on the cross. If salvation relies on obedience there would not be one saved; no not
one.

We are purchased with His blood, we have been bought, we have been sealed, we have
been given a promise, we have a blessed hope, we are His possession.

But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of
whom thou hast learned them; (2 Tim 3:14)

And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto
the end: (Heb 6:11)
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Heb 10:22)

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in
whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, Which is the
earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his
glory. (Eph 1 :13,14)

And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
(Eph 4:30)

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck
them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. (John 10:28-30)
See also (John 3:36, Acts 13:38,39 )

The Holy Spirit testifies
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (Ro 8:16)
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God. (1Co 2:12)

Assurance Displaced
There are two areas that warrant attention when addressing the issue of how assurance is lost.
First is the overall doctrine of assurance and how doubt crept in, or rather was taught as a belief
system. Imparting doubt and fear has never been a method used of God, nor scriptural teaching.
Casting doubt and fear was introduced in the dark ages when Gods word was withheld and kept
concealed from the common population until “Martin Luthers’ translation of the Bible appeared in
1522”(Nelsons New Christian Dictionary 2001). Non Biblical, Pagan practices and traditions were also
introduced during this period; such as purgatory, sacramentalism and the selling of indulgences.
Catholicism had taught that no assurance of salvation could be obtained in this life and used this to
impart fear and doubt among the population as an instrument to extort money and insure
submission. Praise be to God that assurance of salvation is within grasp and not beyond the reach
of all who believe and call on the name of the Lord; for Romans 10:9,10,13 says “That if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved.”

There is also the discovery of the utter sinfulness of self and the believers’ two natures as in
Romans 7. After the joy of salvation has settled over time and the believer stumbles and falls into
temptation he becomes aware that the old self, the sin nature is still there, raising its’ ugly head.
The believer thought this nature had been done away with and falls into despair. All seemed to be
going well and then one day we were faced with our failures and complete inability to improve upon
our condition. The battle between the two natures of old self and new divine nature (flesh and Spirit,
Adamic nature and new divine nature) is realized but our focus is on the condition in which we find
ourselves in so we begin to question our salvation. The struggle between the two natures has the
effect of shifting the believers’ assurance from an eternal position to a temporal state. However,
eventually this discovery of the sin nature leads to the believers’ understanding that deliverance
from the “body of death” (Ro 7:24) is only through Jesus Christ. In other words the discovery of
self enables the believer to face his own utter sinfulness which in turn leads to the discovery that
there is no hope in himself leading to a complete dependence on God. This leads to the
understanding of Ro 6:11 - to be crucified with Christ; there is nothing good in this body, we
cannot improve on the old nature, this body must die and we must receive our incorruptible body at
the resurrection. Christ is not part of our life, He is our life. The believers’ position in Christ is that
the old self, our nature in Adam, is crucified with Christ. When the believer arrives at this point after
many trials, failures and suffering, the Holy Spirit has worked to enable him to appropriate divine
provisions of Gods attributes and grace toward every need of a sin cursed life. It is the need of
every believer in every denomination to arrive at a decision and make a choice to “stand in Gods
grace alone or something in themselves”. (Lewis S. Chafer)

continue to..... Security