Augustine (354-430): “To be assured of our salvation is no arrogant stoutness; it is our faith. It is no pride; it is devotion. It is no presumption; it is God’s promise.”
Patrick Hamilton (1504-1528): “Faith is a sureness; faith is a sure confidence of things which are hoped for, and a certainty of things which are not seen. The faith of Christ is to believe in him, that is, to believe in his word, and to believe that he will help you in all your need, and deliver you from all evil.”
Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531): “We believe that by faith the forgiveness of sins is most assuredly granted to us when we pray to God through Christ. For if Christ told Peter that we are to forgive unto seventy times seven, that is, without limit, necessarily he himself will always pardon our offences. But we said that it is by faith that sins are forgiven. By this we simply meant to affirm that it is faith alone which can give the assurance of forgiveness. For even if the Roman pontiff were to say six hundred times, Thy sins are forgiven thee, the soul can never be at rest or enjoy the certainty of reconciliation with God until it knows within itself and believes without doubt and indeed experiences the fact that it is pardoned and reconciled. For as it is only the Holy Ghost that can give faith, so it is only the Holy Ghost that can give the forgiveness of sins … Now since none of us knows who believes, none of us knows whose sins are remitted except the one who by the illumination and power of grace enjoys the assurance of faith, knowing that through Christ God has forgiven him and having therefore the assurance of forgiveness. For he knows that God cannot deceive or lie and therefore he cannot doubt his grace to the sinner. For God spoke from above: ‘This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, or, by whom I am reconciled.’ And that means that all who believe in God by Christ the Son of God and our Lord and Brother, know for a certainty that the remission of sins is given to them. Hence it is futile to use words like, I absolve you, or, I assure you of the remission of sins. For the apostles preach everywhere the forgiveness of sins, but it is obtained only by the believing and elect. Therefore, seeing that the election and faith of others is always concealed from us, although the Spirit of the Lord gives us the certainty of our own faith and election, it is also concealed from us whether the sins of others are forgiven or not. How then can any man assure another of the forgiveness of his sins? The popish inventions concerning this matter are all deceits and fables” (“An Exposition of the Faith” in Zwingli and Bullinger, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 24 [London: SCM Press, 1953], pp. 268-269).
Peter Brulie (d.1545): “How it is faith that brings salvation to us; that is, when we trust God’s promises, and believe steadfastly, that for Christ his Son’s sake our sins are forgiven us.”
Martin Bucer (1491-1551): “[Faith is] an undoubted persuasion of the mercy and fatherly good will of God towards us, made through the Holy Spirit and founded on the propitiation of Christ” (Commentary on Romans).
John Rogers (c.1505-1555): “[Faith is a] particular persuasion of my heart that Christ Jesus is mine, and that I shall have life and salvation by his means; that whatever Christ did for the redemption of mankind, he did it for me.”
John Knox (c.1514-1572): “The Apostle defineth and declareth what faith is, saying, ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped or looked for: the argument or matter of things not seen, without the which it is impossible to please God’ [Heb. 11:1, 6]. That is, faith is the true and perfect thought of the heart; truly thinking and believing God, the which a man doth when he believeth his Word, and putteth his sure trust in the mercy of God, which is to believe that his sins are forgiven him for Christ’s sake only, the wrath of the Father pacified, and he received in favour, and accepted as just; and firmly and undoubtedly believeth the Father of heaven to be ever merciful, gentle, helpful, and favourable unto him for Christ’s sake, without all deservings of his deeds or merits, either preceding faith, or following the same” (“A Treatise by Balnaves on Justification by Faith, revised by Knox in 1548,” in The Works of John Knox, vol. 3 [Edinburgh: Banner, 2014], p. 478; spelling modernized).
Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583): “If you mean that we cannot say with certainty that one will be saved, you are right when speaking of others; but with regard to oneself, or one’s own conscience and convictions concerning oneself, such a conception is both shocking and blasphemous, and subverts the very foundation of faith. Whoever has taught you such an idea, has instructed you as would a devil, even though he came from heaven. I will say even more; if you are not certain in this world that you are an heir of eternal life, you will not be one after death. From such a fate the Lord deliver you. For faith itself is that certainty which is the beginning of eternal life, which beginning everyone must possess in this life who would have it hereafter. If you would remember the meaning of the word hope, that it is a certain expectation of eternal life, you would not write to me what causes my hair to stand on end. I would not accept a hundred thousand worlds and be so far away from my Lord as not to know certainly whether I am His or not” (in a private letter, quoted in Otto Thelemann, An Aid to the Heidelberg Catechism, pp. 452-453; and in Fred Klooster, Our Only Comfort, vol. 1, p. 228).
Theodore Beza (1519-1605): “The faith of which we speak does not consist only in believing that God is God, and that the contents of His Word are true:—for the devils indeed have this faith, and it only makes them tremble (James 2:19)—But we call ‘faith’ a certain knowledge which, by His grace and goodness alone, the Holy Spirit engraves more and more in the hearts of the elect of God (I Cor. 2:6-8). By this knowledge, each of them, being assured in his heart of his election, appropriates to himself and applies to himself the promise of his salvation in Jesus Christ … Whosoever truly believes trusts in Him alone and is assured of his salvation to the point of no longer doubting it (Eph. 3:12)” (The Christian Faith).
Andreas Essenius (1618-1677): “There is, therefore, in saving faith, a special application of gospel benefits. This is proved against the Papists (1.) From the profession of believers, Gal. 2.20, ‘I live by that faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’ — Psalm 23.1, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; in cotes of budding grass he makes me to lie down, etc. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil; for you are with me,’ etc. And Job 19.25; Phil. 1.21-23; Rom. 8.33-39, 10.9, 10; 2 Cor. 5.1-6, with 2 Cor. 4.13, etc. … 4. That according to the promises of the gospel, out of that spiritual desire, the Holy Spirit also bearing witness in us, we acknowledge Christ to be our Saviour, and so receive and apply him, every one to ourselves, apprehending him again, who first apprehended us, 2 Cor. 4.13; Rom. 8.16; John 1.12; 2 Tim. 1.12; Gal. 2.20; Phil. 3.12. This is the formal act of saving faith. 5. Furthermore, that we acknowledge ourselves to be in communion with Christ, partakers of all and every one of his benefits. This is the latter act of saving faith, yet also a proper and elicit act of saving faith. 6. That we observe all these acts above mentioned, and the sincerity of them in us; and thence gather that we are true believers brought into the state of grace …” (Compendium Theologiae, chap. 2. sect. 12, 21).
Thomas Boston (1676-1732): “… most of the words of the Holy Ghost, made use of in the Old and New Testament to express the nature of faith and believing, signify the confidence or persuasion in question; and consider that confidence and trust, as used in the Old Testament, are expounded as faith and believing in the New Testament; and the same things attributed to the latter, as were commonly attributed to the former. Diffidence and doubting are, by nature, acts and effects contrary to faith; peace and joy are the native effects of believing; the promises of the gospel, and of Christ in his priestly office held forth in it, are the proper objects of justifying faith; faithfulness in God, and faith in the believer, being relatives (and the former being the ground of the latter), our faith should correspond to his faithfulness, by trusting his good word of promise for the sake of it. It is certain that a believer, in the exercise of justifying faith, believes something in reference to his own salvation, on the ground of God’s faithfulness in the promise. No other person whatsoever does or can believe if it is not to this purpose — that now Christ is and will be a Saviour to him, and that he shall have life and salvation by him; — we are utterly at a loss to conceive what other purpose it can be. Such persuasion, confidence, and assuredness are greatly attributed to faith in the Scripture; and the saints in Scripture ordinarily express themselves in their addresses to God in words of appropriation.”
Ralph Erskine (1685-1752): “Observ[ation]. That true faith carries its own evidence, or witness, along with it. See for illustration of this, besides the text [i.e., I John 5:10], the following scriptures: Eph. i. 13. ‘After ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.’ Romans viii. 16, ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ I think it was this evidence the apostle’s faith carried along with it, when he said, 2 Tim. i. 12, ‘I know whom I have believed.’ And the believers, mentioned in the close of this chapter [i.e., I John 5], verse 20, ‘We know, that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (Sermons by Rev. Ralph Erskine, vol. 2 [Philadelphia, PN: Office for the Sale of the Leighton Publications, 1863], vol. 2, p. 285).
Octavius Winslow (1808-1878): “Faith brings assurance, and assurance is faith. The measure of our assured interest in Christ, will be the measure of our faith in Christ. This is the true definition of assurance, the nature of which is a question of much perplexity to sincere Christians. Assurance is not something audible, tangible, or visionary—a revelation to the mind, or a voice in the air. Assurance is believing. Faith is the cause, assurance is the effect. Assurance of personal salvation springs from looking to, and dealing only with Jesus. It comes not from believing that I am saved, but from believing that Christ is my Savior … One simple, believing sight of Christ will produce more light and peace and joy than a lifetime of looking within ourselves for evidences and signs of grace. All the sinner’s merit, all his worthiness, beauty, and salvation, is centered in Christ, is from Christ, and Christ alone. And, by simply believing the great truth of the gospel, that Christ died for sinners—receiving Christ, not purchasing Him,—as God’s ‘unspeakable gift’ of free and sovereign grace, will awaken in the soul the assured and grateful acknowledgment, ‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me'” (Soul Heights and Soul Depths, pp. 2-3).
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920): “Examining more closely what these two points [in Heidelberg Catechism, A. 21] have in common, we find, not that the one is knowledge and the other confidence, but that both consist in being persuaded … Wherefore it is not first knowledge and then confidence, but both are an inward persuasion by the Holy Ghost. And the man thus persuaded believes. He that is persuaded of the truth of the divine testimony concerning the Guide of souls believes all that is revealed in the Scripture. And being also persuaded that the saved sinner described in Scripture is himself, he believes in Christ as his Surety. Hence the peculiar feature of faith in both its stages is to be persuaded. Saving faith is a persuasion, wrought by the Holy Spirit, that the Scripture is a true testimony concerning the salvation of souls, and that this salvation includes my soul … Being persuaded that the Scripture is true, and believing the divine testimony concerning Christ, we at once possess certain and undoubted knowledge regarding these things. And being persuaded that that salvation includes my soul, I possess by virtue of this persuasion a firm and assured confidence that the treasure of Christ’s redemption is also my own … When I say, ‘I believe,’ I mean thereby that this or that is to me an undoubted fact. In order to believe one must be assured, convinced, persuaded—otherwise there can be no faith; and the fruit of this being persuaded is rich knowledge, glorious confidence, and access to the Lord” (The Work of the Holy Spirit, trans. Henri de Vries [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1946], pp. 399, 400, 401; italics Kuyper’s).
Herman Bavinck (1854-1921):
[1] “When those who are preordained by God are called in time—efficaciously, as Paul himself had experienced it on the way to Damascus—when they, as the apostle puts it elsewhere (Phil. 3:12), have been taken hold of by Jesus Christ himself, then at that very moment they obtain faith and by that faith they receive justification and the adoption as children (Rom. 3:22, 24; 4:5; 5:1; Gal. 3:26; 4:5; etc.), with the assurance of sonship by the witness of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:6; 2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30)” (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008], p. 50).
[2] “Scripture repeatedly alternate[s] ‘believing’ with ‘knowing’ (John 6:69; 7:3-4; 1 Cor. 1:21; 2 Cor. 4:6; etc.) … Actually, no more beautiful definition is conceivable than that faith is a firm and certain knowledge of the mercy that God has shown us in Christ. Essentially, what else is Christian faith but the assurance—based on God’s witness and worked in our heart by the Holy Spirit—that ‘the eternal Faith [i.e., Father] of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and still upholds and governs them by his eternal counsel and providence, is our God and Father because of Christ his Son’ (Heidelberg Catechism, answer 26)” (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008], p. 128).
[3] “This certainty [of faith], which relates both to the objective grace of God in Christ and to the believer’s subjective participation in it, is not an external additive to faith but is in principle integral to it from the start. It is not obtained by looking at ourselves but by looking away from ourselves to Christ. It is grounded in the promises of God, not in changing experiences or imperfect good works. Doubts and fears do certainly arise from time to time in the believer’s heart (Matt. 8:25; 14:30; Mark 9:24), and believers must certainly fight against them throughout their lives. However, they can only wage that struggle and only prevail in that struggle by the power of the faith that holds on to God’s promise, rests in the completed work of Christ, and is thus by nature certain” (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008], pp. 131-32).
[4] “Faith that really deserves the name brings its own certainty. Within faith we can again distinguish between what our fathers called the outgoing and the returning acts of faith, between the shelter-seeking and the assured trust of faith, between the being and the well-being of faith. But as fine as these distinctions may be, they must not be made into divisions. Faith is not an assemblage, which like a machine is put together from different parts and gradually molded into a unit. Nor is it a gift that is imposed from the top upon our own nature, always remaining inwardly alien to it. But it is a restoration of the right relationship between God and man, the return of the trust a normal child places in his father. In the state and attitude of the soul which the Holy Scriptures call faith, certainty is included by its very nature—certainty first of all regarding God’s promises given us in the gospel, but also certainty that by grace we too share in these promises. The latter form of certainty does not come to faith from the outside; it is not mechanically added on; it is not joined to it by a special revelation. This certainty is contained in faith from the outset and in time organically issues from it. Faith is certainty and as such excludes all doubt. Whoever is stricken by guilt and crushed and honestly seeks refuge in Christ is already a believer. To the degree that he exercises a shelter-seeking trust he also possesses an assured trust. How else would a sinner convicted of his own guilt ever dare to approach God and evoke His grace unless in the depth of his heart, without being consciously aware of it himself, he shared in the certainty of faith and the hope that the Father of Jesus Christ is merciful and great in loving kindness? … The assured trust is thereby included in this shelter-seeking trust. And both develop together. The stronger the shelter-seeking trust becomes, the stronger becomes the assured trust. And if the latter is small and weak, we may confidently conclude that the first too is needy and incomplete. Faith, therefore, does not attain certainty regarding itself through logical reasoning nor through constantly examining itself and reflecting on its own nature. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason hardly helps to establish our certainty. But certainty flows to us immediately and directly out of faith itself. Certainty is an essential characteristic of faith; it is inseparable from it and belongs to its nature. Nevertheless, even in the most sanctified Christian, faith is often mixed with doubt; this doubt, however, does not originate in the new man but in the old. When, in the light of the Spirit, the object of faith places itself before the eye of the soul, that same light illuminates faith and raises it beyond all doubt. Just as the Israelites in the desert were healed not when they looked into themselves but when they looked up at the raised snake, so the believer becomes sure of his salvation when he expects it not from his faith but through faith from God’s grace. This certainty is and will always be a certainty of faith, very distinct in source and nature from scientific certainty, but no less fixed and unshakable for that. It doesn’t rest on human reasoning, but on the Word, the promises of God, the gospel, which poses no conditions but only proclaims that everything has been accomplished” (The Certainty of Faith, trans. Harry der Nederlanden [St. Catharines, Ontario: Paideia Press, 1980], pp. 85-87).
Louis Berkhof (1873-1957): “In the eighteenth century the religious life of Europe suffered from the blight of Rationalism. Religion became a matter of the intellect only, and religious truth was made to depend on rational arguments. Religious certainty was identified with a rational insight into the truth, and divorced from the experience of a supernatural change, and the resulting testimony of the Holy Spirit. Under this chilling influence real spiritual life fast declined, and alongside of it there appeared a luxurious growth of a purely historical or a merely temporal faith. It was but natural that reaction should follow. When a spurious faith became alarmingly prevalent, the question forced itself upon serious minded Christians with an ever increasing insistency: How can we distinguish the true from the false? The proper method was found in a close and sustained self-examination. The life of the soul was submitted to a very careful scrutiny and to an analysis surprising in its minuteness. A constantly growing number of marks were discovered by which true faith might be recognized, many of them based on an unwarranted generalization and therefore of a very questionable character. The spiritual experiences of those who were regarded as established Christians became the standard by which others were judged. But, though this method was undoubtedly applied with the best intention, it did not promote the glad assurance of salvation in the Church of God; in many cases it even led to hopeless confusion. Perplexing doubts and uncertainties became so common that even these were finally looked upon as a mark of true piety. Scripture warrant for this was found in the word of Solomon, ‘Happy is the man that feareth alway,’ Prov. 28:14. A distinction was made between the being and the well-being of faith; between a faith merely fleeing for refuge to Christ and an assured faith. The general conviction was that assurance was not of the essence or of the very being of faith, and was certainly not included in any sense in a faith that merely revealed itself in a fleeing to Christ for salvation. Assurance was, in fact, regarded as a high and rare privilege, the prerogative of a few favored souls, sometimes obtained only in a special way” (The Assurance of Faith).
Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965):
[1] “The relation between [‘having believed,’ in Eph. 1:13] and [‘ye were sealed’] is not to be conceived as following in temporal order. There may be a logical order here; but as far as time is concerned, the [‘having believed’] and the [‘ye were sealed’] must undoubtedly be conceived as contemporaneous … As soon as they believed in Christ, it stands to reason that they also have the Holy Spirit; and as soon as they have the Holy Spirit, they are sealed” (“Chapel Talks on Ephesians 1 and 2” [Grandville, MI: Protestant Reformed Seminary], p. 28).
[2] “But although faith is assured in itself, and although it is in itself a hearty confidence that I belong to Christ and that I am partaker of all His benefits of righteousness and eternal life, I can nevertheless be assured from the fruits of good works of the fact of my faith, or rather, of the blessed fact that I am in the faith. This is also exactly what the Heidelberg Catechism teaches in the 86th answer of Lord’s Day 32 … But He works that assurance of faith in our hearts, so that we are confident that we are in the faith, not in the way of sin but in the way of sanctification only … From this [i.e., Romans 8:12-16] is it very plain that the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the assurance of faith, cannot possible be our experience, unless we walk in the way of sanctification, not living after the flesh, but mortifying the deeds of the body” (The Triple Knowledge, vol. 3, pp. 50-51).
Homer C. Hoeksema (1923-1989): “First of all, we must remember that any real assurance is the work of God. The question is not: how do I obtain assurance, as though the obtaining of assurance were my own work. Fundamentally the question is: how does God assure His children? For any assurance that has its origin in me is not worthy of the name; it is like lifting one’s self up by his own bootstraps. If God, who is really GOD, assures me, then I may be sure. Hence, the question is: what is God’s way of assurance? Then, when I know this, and when I walk according to this, I can grow in assurance day by day. For in order to enjoy assurance, I must be in God’s way. I must walk by faith in the way in which God always assures His children. What is that way? There is, in the first place, the element of the speech of God Himself, objectively, in His Word, the Word of the Scriptures, the Scriptures which are inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption. This does not merely mean that the way of assurance is the way of faithfully reading the Scriptures. No, it means that the way of assurance is the way of faithful use of the means of grace, primarily the preaching of the Word. These are the means through which God is pleased to assure us. There is, in the second place, the testimony of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, with our spirit [Rom. 8:15-16]. The Spirit takes that objective revelation of God’s promises in the Word and He applies it effectually and irresistibly—for He is God!—to our hearts. In the third place, there results the faith-testimony of our own spirit (for the Spirit testifies with our spirit), ‘I am a child and heir of God. I am and forever shall remain a living member of the holy catholic church. I have the remission of sins and life eternal.’ That brings us to the place of sanctification, or rather, a walk in sanctification in relation to assurance. What is that place? Why is assurance possible only in the way of sanctification? Is it thus, that here at last the matter of assurance becomes after all dependent on man, on the Christian? Is the exercise of a good conscience and of good works—briefly, sanctification—the condition of assurance, the ground of assurance? Here we must be reminded that our [Belgic] Confession warns against this in Article 24: ‘Moreover, though we do good works, we do not found our salvation upon them; for we do no work but what is polluted by our flesh and also punishable …’ It also warns that this is precisely not the way of assurance, but of doubt: ‘Thus then we would always be in doubt, tossed to and’ fro without any certainty, and our poor consciences continually vexed, if they relied not on the merits of the suffering and death of our Savior.’ Nevertheless, the exclusive way of assurance is the way of sanctification. Outside of the latter there is no assurance possible. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord! And without holiness, therefore, no man can be sure that he shall see the Lord! Why? The root answer is that the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit who assures us of our salvation through the Word is the HOLY Spirit, and He always operates as such. He operates to assure the people of God, therefore, only in the sphere of holiness, in the light, not in the darkness of sin and corruption. Further, He is the Author of holiness also in the heart and life of the elect. He applies the blessings of Christ to God’s elect. And when He does so, He not only gives assurance of adoption, but He realizes our adoption and changes us into actual children of God, renewed after the image of Christ. His work is such that its sure fruit is the production of a sanctified and holy child of God, a saint. Now the Spirit’s work and the Spirit’s testimony can never be separated. He does not assure children of the devil, who are and remain children of the devil, that they are children of God. No, He changes children of the devil into children of God; and to those children of God, and to them only, He gives the assurance that they are God’s children and heirs. It is, therefore, because sanctification is the sure fruit of the operation of the Spirit of adoption, that assurance springs from an earnest and holy exercise of a good conscience and of good works. This also explains the fact that the degree of assurance can and does vary in the life of the child of God sometimes. If the life of sanctification is not strong and bright, then the degree of assurance is also not strong and bright. And if for a time a child of God departs completely from the way of sanctification and walks in sin, he may even lose his assurance for a time altogether. But in the way of a sanctified walk God’s people enjoy the testimony of the Spirit with their spirit, through and in connection with the Word, that they are children and heirs!” (“Sanctification and Assurance,” Standard Bearer, vol. 64, issue 12 [15 March, 1988], pp. 285-286; italics Hoeksema’s).
G. C. Berkouwer (1903–1996):
[1] “This gift of the Spirit which is from Christ, so often joyously announced in the New Testament, is related to the full, actual life of the believer. Believers are continually admonished in relation to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They should not quench the Spirit (I Thess. 5:19). When they are in danger of sinning, they are reminded that they are the temple of the Holy Ghost (I Cor. 6:19; Rom. 8:9, 11). The Spirit’s work includes all of life. The children of God are led by the Spirit (Rom. 8:14). They have the mind of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5). The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16) … in the children of God there is an eager longing for the coming glory (Rom. 8:19ff.). This longing does not arise from any deliberations of the human heart; it is awakened by the gift of the Spirit, who is shed abroad in believers’ hearts (Rom. 8:23; cf. Gal. 4:6; Rom. 5:5). It is important to observe that in connection with this longing for glory, there is mention of hope and persevering in hope: ‘But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it’ (Rom. 8:25)” (Faith and Perseverance, trans. Robert D. Knudsen [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1958], pp. 149-150, 151).
[2] “The answer to these questions cannot be found by way of some mental technique for introducing calm into the maelstrom of uncertainty. There is no technique that can generate this assurance. The Church has always pointed to the invisible activity of the Holy Spirit as its only source, and it has always brought to mind the words of the Scriptures, ‘The Spirit itself birth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God’ (Rom. 8:16). This affirmation of the Spirit’s activity does not mean to point out another way besides that of faith. On the contrary, the activity of the Spirit is manifested in the very fact that in the midst of all the weakness and insecurity of earthly life, as in a miracle of assurance, we are nevertheless oriented in faith to the constancy and the faithfulness of God’s grace. Here it is impossible to prove anything, either to ourselves or to someone else. Every argument which is intended to set one at ease is immediately overwhelmed in a flood of counter-arguments, which well up from our weakness and instability. The only thing that can aid us here is the preaching of the gospel, which has come by the power of the Spirit. Faith is by hearing (Rom. 10:17)” (Faith and Perseverance, trans. Robert D. Knudsen [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1958], p. 205).
[3] “Here we observe the interrelatedness of faith and perseverance, i.e., that faith itself recognises that it is preserved in God’s hand and holds fast to this preservation … In Romans 8, Paul describes the Holy Spirit as the firstfruits, while in II Cor. 5:5 he speaks about the earnest of the Spirit, which is given to us by God. Directly thereafter, Paul says twice that he is confident for the future (II Cor. 5:6, 8; cf. v. 10). Is there not the thought of absolute protection and security in this earnest and in these firstfruits? … If the beginning is there, is there not an earnest; and if there is an earnest, is there not a guarantee? … In the faithfulness of God’s love in Jesus Christ, in the constancy of His covenant of grace, faith will take its rest. It will listen to the word of consolation that comes to us in the gospel, the message of sealing … All the Scriptural data about sealing stress the elements of reliability and guarantee. The Scriptures present us with sealing as a divine act … Paul speaks of this indestructibility and sealing in connection with the Holy Ghost: ‘Now he which establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts’ (II Cor. 1:21, 22). We see clearly in Paul the connection between salvation in Christ, the operation of the Spirit, and the belief in the future inheritance: ‘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) … It is the Holy Spirit who seals us through faith. In Him we receive the earnest that gives us the prospect of future glory. Through Him the consolation of the gospel is received and preserved. For in Christ Jesus is given the foundation upon which the entire life of the Church rests” (Faith and Perseverance, trans. Robert D. Knudsen [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1958], pp. 207, 209, 210, 211-212).
Frederick Dale Bruner (1932-):
[1] “For Paul, the ability to cry ‘Father!’ was the work and therefore the evidence of the Spirit of the Son. The evidence of the Spirit is first of all Christian faith in God the Father or—Christian prayer. The Spirit in these parallel texts is deliberately called ‘the Spirit of (the) Son(ship),’ not only because the Spirit belongs to the Son and is given in him, but because it is the Spirit’s work to assure believers that they are, through the Son, truly sons of God. The gift of the Spirit is first of all the subjective assurance of the gift of adoption or justification. The ‘objective’ justification and the ‘subjective’ gift of the Spirit cannot be separated for one is acceptance with God and the other is knowledge of this acceptance. And what God has joined together no man should put asunder. The ‘objective’ justification never remains merely objective but is always accompanied mediately in the Word by its ‘subjective’ revelation, and this is the first work of the Spirit—this is the Spirit. His evidence is Christian assurance” (A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970], pp. 268-269).
[2] “II Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; I John 3:24; 4:13. Paul also called the Holy Spirit the ‘guarantee’: ‘He has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee’ (II Cor. 1:22; cf. 5:5: ‘… God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee’). When God gives his great salvation, according to Paul’s understanding, he not only gives it, he gives with it his guarantee that he has given it, and this is the Holy Spirit. John understood the Spirit in a similar way: ‘And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us’ (I John 3:24; cf. 4:13: ‘By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit’). The knowledge or assurance that God is with us is indissolubly intertwined with his gift of the Spirit to us. Interestingly, in all four of the Pauline-Johannine texts cited above (cf. also Rom. 5:5) the Spirit is described as ‘given’—three times in the aorist, once in the perfect tense. The fact that he is always ‘given’ heightens the ‘gift’ character of the Spirit, who is never earned (Acts 8:20). The fact that his given-ness is aorist and perfect underlines again the decisive and unimprovable character of God’s gift” (A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament Witness [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970], p. 271; italics Bruner’s).
W. Robert Godfrey (1945-): “… for many Protestants, part of the essential joy of being a Christian was that you could know that you are right with God, that you could know you have peace with God. The Apostle Paul, of course, says that so clearly, but the Roman Catholic apologist, said, ‘Well, that was a special revelation to Paul, that wasn’t meant for everybody.’ But Paul doesn’t say, ‘I have peace with God,’ he says, ‘We have peace with God’ [Rom. 5:1], that’s the assurance. And in the early days of the Reformation, that was a great theme that was preached, powerfully preached, by Calvin, incorporated in the Heidelberg Catechism. But by the seventeenth-century, in Puritan circles, assurance was beginning to become something of a problem, there were more and more people who said, ‘Well, I want to believe, I think I believe, but I don’t know that I believe. Now, what should I think about that? How should I feel about that?’ And some of the Puritan pastors began to say, maybe it would be helpful to separate faith from assurance. And say to people, ‘Well, you know, it’s possible to have faith and not know it fully. It’s possible to have peace with God, but not realize that you have peace with God. So let’s separate faith from assurance, so we can more easily help people become assured.’ Well, you know, whenever you try to improve on John Calvin, it’s like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa, you don’t—you have added something, but you haven’t improved it” (A Survey of Church History).
Robert Letham (1947-): “Christian assurance suffered. Since the promises of God were made only to those who had met the stipulated conditions, a laborious process of self-examination and introspection was needed if one was to be sure of salvation. Exponents of this view, which, although never unanimously held, gained ground from the end of the sixteenth century, lost sight of the crucial point that the covenant of grace centred upon and was fulfilled by Christ on our behalf” (The Work of Christ [Leicester: IVP, 1993], p. 52).
Thomas R. Schreiner (1954-) and Ardel B. Caneday:
[1] “Contrary to Lloyd-Jones and some in the Puritan tradition, we believe that assurance of salvation is joined indissolubly with saving faith. Such assurance is coincident with faith in Jesus Christ, and thus is the joyful experience of all believers … In other words, faith must include assurance to be saving faith. Saving faith involves confidence in the trustworthiness of God’s promises regarding the future. If one does not have confidence in and assurance of receiving God’s promises, one does not have saving faith” (The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001], pp. 271, 273).
[2] “… the faith of Abraham was a faith that included assurance or confidence—and it is precisely this kind of faith that is necessary to be right with God, for Romans 4:22 explains the connection between Abraham’s assurance of faith and his relationship with God: ‘This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”’ In other words, Abraham was counted as righteous because he had an assured faith, a faith that had confidence in God’s future promises. Paul specifically draws the connection between Abraham and believers in Jesus Christ in Romans 4:23-25. Believers must also have the same kind of faith as Abraham, trusting in the God who can fulfil his promises for our happy future. God has exercised his power in the present era by raising Jesus from the dead. Saving faith in Jesus Christ is a confident faith, a faith that is full of assurance and hope … we are insisting that saving faith is faith like Abraham’s and faith like that described in Hebrews 11. It is a faith that endures to the end, faith that is the dominant motif of the believer’s life. Such faith is inevitably correlated with assurance, for faith by definition involves confidence in God and a belief that he has promised a glorious future for us” (The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001], pp. 274, 275).
