The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Totally or Utterly

Soooooo, I'm curious to know just what exactly is the evidence(s) you believe are necessary for someone to have assurance of salvation in Christ? The incontrovertible truth is as James rightly wrote, "faith without works is dead". However, those evidences are exactly that; evidences of justification and NOT the grounds of justification. Arminians and semi-Pelagians (the majority of western christianity) make that fatal mistake. Other 'hyper' types of Calvinism and others who we classify as "Mystics" (e.g., Brother Lawrence, Huntington, Andrew Murray, J.C. Philpot however are guilty of a similar sad error which is basing their salvation on having a (fictional/unbiblical) subject experience. They spend their entire life hoping and searching for a xxxx amount of deep-seated guilt, remorse, hatred of sin within themselves and a faith that could move mountains at their disposal. Again, this is a distortion of a biblical truth where we find sporadic and special 'movements of the Spirit' that all true Christians are given some time in their lives. Jonathan Edwards wrote extensively on that subject as it occurred to him from time to time, albeit seldom and unexpected. In short, these times of the sweetness of God which came upon him were rare and not the typical daily experience, which many "Deeper Life" advocates claim to have. This type of error I choose to call "morbid introspection". Thus, basically the two types of errors above can be categorized as "objective" and "subjective".

The first type; objective where the the external is focused upon; works is damnable for it is the antithesis of the Bible's doctrine of Sola Fide... justification by (Greek: dative of means=through) faith alone and not by works. The most common expression of this is seen with those who insist that man has a free-will choice to believe, thus making "faith" a work. It's a clever and deceitful lie which the Devil has developed and which results in a false assurance of 'faith'. Also, this pernicious and damnable heresy is given full reign in the visible church due to it's "companion" heresy of Sandemanianism, i.e., "Easy Believism" (see more of this here: Sandemanianism)

The second type; subjective in most cases doesn't lead to damnation but rather ineffectiveness and a lack of assurance of salvation. It is this error which you may be guilty of, mixed with an unconscious mixture of "faith+works=justification", i.e., expecting some conscious/visible supernatural experience/evidence in your life which meets some personal arbitrary standard of your own making which exceeds what Scripture teaching concerning the life of a regenerated person. The Bible, written by men under the direct inspiration of God never paints any human being as one who should be elevated to 'sainthood' albeit, all believers are called "saints". Take any of the individuals which God raised up to do incredible feats, leadership, sacrificial deeds, etc. and they all committed heinous sins in their lives and/or were disobedient, faithless, self-dependent, etc., as well. King David, the apple of God's eye and one of the types of Christ was an adulterer and murderer. His son Solomon, who was filled with godly wisdom was guilty of many gross sins. The Apostle Peter denied Christ when pushed, fell into legalism until confronted by Paul at Antioch. And Paul's own inspired writing concerning himself, eg., Rom 7, confesses that throughout his entire life the things he knew he shouldn't do he did. And those things he knew he should do, he failed to do. There was a war being fought within him between the remnants of the old man and the new man which was being conformed to the image of Christ. His lament was:


A couple of passages which I often return to when I am plagued by my own personal sins of all stripes are these: