Christ’s Work and Assurance

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My last two posts have discussed antinomianism.  This one will help to point Christians to the one Person who can provide assurance of salvation in view of their remaining sin.

Assurance is Christian ‘shorthand’ for the knowledge that one will be in heaven when he / she dies.  I have treated the subject of assurance of salvation in otherposts.  This post will ‘plough some of the same ground.’ 

From John Calvin:

The consciences of believers, in seeking assurance of their justification before God, should rise above and advance beyond the law, forgetting all law righteousness…For there the question is not how we may become righteous but how, being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous. If consciences wish to attain any certainty in this matter, they ought to give no place to the law. Nor can anyone rightly infer from this that the law is superfluous for believers, since it does not stop teaching and exhorting and urging them to good, even though before God’s judgment seat it has no place in their consciences (Calvin, Institutes, 3.19.2).

We must look to Christ, looking to Jesus,” the founder and perfecter of our faith,” both to save us and to provide assurance of our salvation (Hebrews 12:2).   What Christ has done for us is our only hope. 

The law is always present as a guide for the Christian, and the Christian will follow that guide as a basic pattern of life.  We follow Christ’s commands, but we are never saved by following Christ’s commands.  We can be confident of our law-keeping, but not confident in our law-keeping.

Comments

Steve Martin said…
So we are to have faith in our faith?

Where does this faith touch down?

Where does the rubber hit the road?

This is where Calvinism fails.
July 16, 2012
J. K. Jones said…
Steve,

Good to have you commenting again. It's been a while. I am afradi I do not get out in the blogosphere much anymore.

We have faIth in Christ, not in our faith.
July 28, 2012
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