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Godly Assurance of Salvation

Tenchi

Active Member
My assurance of salvation is based upon the life and work of the Holy Spirit evident in me, as described in Scripture:

Conviction by the Holy Spirit - Jn. 16:8; Rev. 2-3.
Illumination of God's Truth by the Holy Spirit - Jn. 14:26; 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:10-16.
Strengthening by the Holy Spirit - Eph. 3:16; 6:10; Ro. 8:13; Phil. 2:13; 4:13.
Transformation by the Holy Spirit - 2 Cor. 3:18; Ga. 5:22-23; Ro. 8:29.
Glorification of Christ in me by the Holy Spirit - Jn. 16:14; 8:54.
Comfort of the Holy Spirit - 2 Cor. 1:3-4; Ac. 9:31.

And so on. These are, I believe, the things by which a person may "test themselves whether they be in the faith" and examine the claims of a "second birth" that others may make, too.

2 Corinthians 13:5-6
5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
6 But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.


If a person has none of the above listed things evident in their life - and has never had them evident - then they clearly "fail the test" of genuine salvation, I think.

Romans 8:9
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.


1 John 4:13
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
 

KenH

Well-Known Member
My assurance of salvation is based upon the life and work of the Holy Spirit evident in me

In other words, you base your assurance on you and what you see in you, not in Christ and His finished work alone.
 

Silverhair

Well-Known Member
In other words, you base your assurance on you and what you see in you, not in Christ and His finished work alone.

Did you not see the words "work of the Holy Spirit evident in me". One can think they are saved but if they do not see any change in themselves then perhaps they should reevaluate whether they are truly saved or not.

By your comments you never look at your own life.
 

KenH

Well-Known Member
By your comments you never look at your own life.

You are incorrect. How can I not look at my life as I sin day after day after day?

Any "improvements" in this vile flesh of mine, if any, are not where my assurance is. My assurance is in the finished work of Christ alone. This vile, sinful fleshly body that I currently inhabit will not be redeemed until Christ returns:

Philippians 3:
20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21 who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

(emphasis mine)
 

Tenchi

Active Member
In other words, you base your assurance on you and what you see in you, not in Christ and His finished work alone.

No, please read again what I wrote. Your characterization here of my words is just a Strawman that ignores the plain statement of God's word.
 

Tenchi

Active Member
Any "improvements" in this vile flesh of mine, if any, are not where my assurance is. My assurance is in the finished work of Christ alone.

This is a very pious but slippery way of evading the import of a life vacant of the Holy Spirit's life and work. As the apostle Paul wrote, "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." (Ro. 8:9) The apostle John, too, wrote, "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit." (1 Jn. 4:13) If you cannot discern the life and work of the Holy Spirit within yourself, regardless of what statements from Scripture you want to claim as the basis for your assurance of your salvation, you either aren't saved, or have a great deal of sin crowding your life that is powerfully stifling your experience of God. Both conditions are in dire need of rectification.
 

KenH

Well-Known Member
Both conditions are in dire need of rectification.

My entire vile flesh has been in need of rectification from the moment I was born and will be until Christ returns and fashions my vile body to be like unto His glorious body.

An outright atheist can live a moral life, be a great neighbor, be extremely kind to others, etc., etc., etc.

But there is no salvation in such. The apostle Paul lived a "clean" life in the eyes of men, even while he was persecuting the church. And what did he say about his clean life?

Philippians 3:
4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

Now, should I try to be a better person? YES!!!! But there is no salvation in such a "cleaning" up my vile flesh to some extent, as no amount of improvement will EVER equal the standard of perfect righteousness that is Christ Jesus my Lord. Thus, I do not look to some "improvement" in my vile flesh no matter how much or how little, as evidence of salvation, or as a means to claim some credit before God.
 

Tenchi

Active Member
My entire vile flesh has been in need of rectification from the moment I was born and will be until Christ returns and fashions my vile body to be like unto His glorious body.

No, your flesh - your physical body - is neither good nor evil, it's just tissue. What would happen to your flesh (i.e. body) if you were in a coma for, say, six months? Would your flesh go out and commit adultery, or rob a bank, or lie, or gossip? No. Your flesh would just lie in the hospital bed, inactive (except for its natural autonomic functions necessary for it to remain alive). But when your consciousness awakens, it isn't long before the sin-stuff begins, right? So, then, what of this (gnostic) idea that your flesh is entirely vile? It isn't; YOU are.

Your body is, essentially, a tool, a "tent" the apostle Paul called it (2 Cor. 5:1-4), and, on its own, no more capable of evil than a garden hoe, or a rubber boot. The source of all the evil you engage your flesh in committing, is your "old Self" (Ro. 6:6), the person you are apart from God, rebellious and sinful, bound under the power of the world and the devil, and unable to regulate the impulses of the body in the way God intends (Eph. 2:1-3; Tit. 3:3; Ro. 8:5-8, etc.).

The nature of your "old Self" is disregulation, inordinate pursuit of self-interest, sensuality and self-rule that produces sin (and death). The "old Self" can't be remediated, it can only be replaced, which is what God has made possible through Christ. Just read Romans 6, Romans 8:9-14, Colossians 3:1-11, Galatians 2:20; 5:24; 6:14, etc.

"The me I see is the me I'll be," a wise man has said. If you see yourself as the person you've described above, your life will reflect what you see. But God says in His word that His children are "new creatures in Christ, old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17); they are priests (Rev. 1:6; 5:10), joint-heirs with Christ (Ro. 8:16), seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), "dead unto sin but alive unto God" (Ro. 6:11), and so on. When you begin, by faith, to stand upon the truths of who you are in Christ and learn to live in constant submission to the will and way of the Holy Spirit, your "vile body" will come under the control of your Maker, as it was made to be, and sin will begin to decline in your living, in time becoming the exception rather than the rule.

An outright atheist can live a moral life, be a great neighbor, be extremely kind to others, etc., etc., etc.

What the Bible describes of life in the Spirit has no parallel in the life of any unbeliever.

Now, should I try to be a better person? YES!!!!

Galatians 3:3
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?


Read Philippians 1:6; 2:12b-13, 4:13, Ephesians 3:16; Galatians 5:16, 25, Isaiah 40:28-30; Romans 6:11, 13; 8:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, Jude 1:24-25, etc.

But there is no salvation in such a "cleaning" up my vile flesh to some extent, as no amount of improvement will EVER equal the standard of perfect righteousness that is Christ Jesus my Lord. Thus, I do not look to some "improvement" in my vile flesh no matter how much or how little, as evidence of salvation, or as a means to claim some credit before God.

Then you don't understand the nature of sin and its terrible impact upon your daily experience of God and the Church. You don't "clean up" for "brownie points" with God, but in order to properly enjoy Him every day (He. 12:14b; 1 Pe. 3:12-14), to be useful to Him (2 Ti. 2:21), and to protect others from the corruption and death of your sin (1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9). Your sanctification, then, is a vital work of the Holy Spirit, marking his presence within you. If you are not increasingly changed, made progressively like Christ (Ro. 8:29) by the Spirit, you are a constant detriment to the Church, a source of poisonous "leaven" within it, progressively hardening into sin (He. 3:13), growing blinder and deafer to God's Truth (Rev. 3) and your own carnality, grieving and quenching the Spirit (Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19). This is what your statement above is making room for in your life.

Galatians 6:7-8
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption...


Hebrews 10:26-31
26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
 

KenH

Well-Known Member
Your sanctification

My entire sanctification is Christ Jesus my Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:
30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31 that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

(emphasis mine)


The only good works that I can do are those which God ordained before the foundation of the world that I would do:

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

(emphasis mine)

To quote from a hymn by Edward Mote:

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in Him be found:
dressed in His righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
 

Tenchi

Active Member
My entire sanctification is Christ Jesus my Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:
30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31 that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Yes, spiritually, in Christ, you are perfectly sanctified, if you've been born-again by the Spirit. Spiritual maturity is marked by your daily practical condition being well-aligned with your spiritual position in Jesus. In other words, your positional sanctification ought to be manifested in your conditional sanctification. If it's not, all the destructive things that I pointed out to you from Scripture that arise from your not being sanctified practically will fill your life.

The only good works that I can do are those which God ordained before the foundation of the world that I would do:

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

He has ordained that you should "walk in [that is, be in the daily practice of performing] good works"; He has not ordained precisely what works those will be (though, He knows what they will be). The choice is up to you what good works you will enact - or not, which is why God holds you responsible for the character of your living. You can't dump the responsibility for your sinfulness on the fact that God hasn't ordained better living for you, which is what your remark above implies.

To quote from a hymn by Edward Mote:

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in Him be found:
dressed in His righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.

None of this negates what I pointed out to you from God's word about life in the Spirit and the terrible consequences, to you and others, arising from your sin.
 
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