The Assurance of Conversion

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"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."--2 Tim. 1:12

If there is one question involving our personal well-being upon which, above all others, there should not linger the shade of a shadow of uncertainty and doubt, it is the momentous question of our conversion to God--our preparedness for death and eternity. Other questions relating to the present life may reasonably admit of distrust and postponement, even of indifference and neglect; but, the question of our New Birth--the issues of which are solemn as eternity--admits of no uncertainty or delay.

In the preceding pages we have represented the new nature of the believer as a thing visible in its transforming effects. The spiritual change of the heart is evidenced by the moral revolution of the life. The world beholding it, exclaims, "Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new!" Now, if this great moral change is thus so evident to those who only trace its external evidence, how much more so should it be to the regenerate themselves! Surely, if others recognize and acknowledge it, we ourselves ought to be quite sure that we have passed from death unto life--are born again of the Spirit. Such is the holy state which we purpose in the present chapter to present--such the truth we shall endeavor to unfold--the believer's spiritual certainty, or, Divine authenticity, of his conversion to God. "I know whom I have believed." The points we shall briefly illustrate are--real conversion a self-evidencing fact--the way this assurance may be attained, and then the blessedness of its attainment.

I. Real conversion is a self-evidencing fact.

By a self-evidencing thing we, of course, mean that which is of itself so convincing and demonstrative, as to require no process of reasoning to establish. We say of the Bible that its divinity is self evidencing; that, apart from collateral proof of its Divine inspiration, to an honest and intelligent mind it possesses in itself the proof and evidence of its divinity, cumulative and conclusive; so that, no ingenuous and devout inquirer can rise from its study without the overwhelming conviction that it demonstrates and authenticates its Divine authorship--as the book of God. Now, the new birth admits of a similar line of proof. The moral change it produces is so great and radical, so spiritual and divine, its happy subject knows that he is a new creature--that he is regenerated, adopted, pardoned, justified beyond the shadow of a doubt, and can say, "I KNOW whom I have believed."

That we are not placing too lofty a Christian attainment before the reader, the following few declarations of God's Word, which seem to inculcate the state of assurance as attainable by the believer, we think will show. "We KNOW that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." "We KNOW that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness." "KNOWING, brethren beloved, your election of God." In Col. 2:2, the apostle speaks of "the full assurance of understanding." In another place he employs this language--"Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." Thus it will be seen that the doctrine of assurance is a truth of Divine revelation, that it rests upon the Bible as its basis. Corresponding with these divinely-inspired declarations is the experience of God's saints in all ages of the world. Job could say with assurance, "I KNOW that my Redeemer lives." David could exclaim with assurance, "When I pass through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me." How full of sweet and holy assurance was the exclamation of Thomas, "My Lord, and my God!" We need not multiply these quotations; they are sufficient to convince the mind that the feeblest believer in the Lord Jesus may arrive at a moral certainty that he is born again of the Spirit.

But the point of light in which we desire to place this subject is that of a present salvation--a truth as replete with comfort as it is with sanctification. Our object will be to confirm the believer in the assurance of the fact that he is saved--saved now--saved ascertainly as he will be when the redemption of the body shall be as complete as the redemption of the soul. We predicate this fact upon the declaration of the Lord, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on Him that sent me, HAS everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but HAS PASSED from death unto life." The language of the apostle speaks as assuringly of the same fact--"By grace you ARE SAVED." Such is the truth we present. We earnestly desire to confirm you in the scriptural assurance of your present standing before God, knowing how much your comfort and holiness are involved in its experience.

Take, for example, the state of PARDONin which Divine grace places the believer. Is it a present or a future pardon of sin which he receives? Most assuredly a present one. If pardoned, it is a pardon now, a pardon full, and a pardon forever. It is not a blessing we have to hope for or expect. If we are truly converted, really born again, Divine and sovereign grace has put us in a present forgiveness, in the personal and holy enjoyment of which it is our privilege to walk. How consonant with this truth is the Word of God, which alone could reveal it. "You, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him, HAVING FORGIVEN you all trespasses," (Col. 2:13.) And what the language of Jesus to the penitent woman bathing His feet with tears? Did He dismiss her still laden with guilt, still polluted with sin? No! Listen to His words--oh, words none more precious!--"And He said unto her, Your sins ARE FORGIVEN." Need we multiply, which we could to a great extent, these proofs?

Beloved, knowing your election of God, we write these things unto you. If your souls are really regenerate, the blotting out of your sins is not a thing to be realized and experienced at some future period of your life, but is a present blessing, and should be apresent enjoyment. If washed in the atoning blood of Jesus, you are clean every whit. Not more fully pardoned are the glorified spirits in heaven than you are at this moment. For this you have the Divine asseveration--"I HAVE blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins." He has done it, and having done it, He will never undo it. Once pardoned, fully pardoned; pardoned freely, and pardoned forever. Oh, realize your present standing as a pardoned sinner! Do not keep going over the great debt as still existing against you.

Suppose that the original amount has been fearfully augmented by superadded debts--debts infinite in number and aggravated in character? Be it so. Still it is written--"Having forgiven you ALL trespasses." "Your sins ARE FORGIVEN you for His name's sake," (1 John 2:12.)

Do not think that God, whose work is perfect, works this His master-work partially and imperfectly. Is it like Him to exercise this the highest prerogative of His moral government and the greatest act of His grace in a way that would lower its dignity, impair its power, and neutralize its effects? No! His pardons are worthy of His infinite greatness and love. He pardons like a God. "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?"

Again, we press upon you the realization of your present state as standing in God's sight, washed in the blood of Christ from all past, present, and future sin. Never was there a more entire annihilation, a more perfect canceling of anything, than the forgiveness of sin which has passed upon all God's people. "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be NONE; and the sins of Judah, and they shall NOT BE FOUND--for I will pardon them whom I reserve," (Jer. 50:20.) "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea," (Micah 7:19.) Timid child of God! loving disciple of Christ! see your sins all cast into these unfathomable depths. Sought for by justice, by the law, by Satan, by yourself, you shall never find them--all,all entirely and eternally forgiven--annihilated by God Himself. Walking in the happy sense of a present forgiveness, you will walk carefully, circumspectly, holily, hating your sins, and the sin still dwelling within you, all the more that God, your sin-pardoning God, has entirely and forever forgiven you.

Take the state of ACCEPTANCE. Is it a present or a future blessing? Is it a state the believer first enters into when he enters into glory? or, does he enter into it now, as the condition and the earnest of that glory? Most assuredly, if we are not brought into a state of justification by grace here, we have no pledge of a state of justification in glory hereafter. The act of justification passes upon the believing soul in this life, and is his title-deed to the inheritance of the life which is to come. The language of the Holy Spirit is confirmatory of this truth--"To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He HAS MADE US ACCEPTED in the Beloved." "BEING JUSTIFIED by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then we have the statement respecting the righteousness of Christ, which justifies. It is declared to be, "unto all and UPON all those who believe." Believe this to be your present state before God. Not more fully, though more openly and declaratively, justified will you be when the Lord shall extend the welcome, "Come, you blessed of my Father," than you are now if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the salvation of your soul. "ACCEPTED"--present time--not may be, or shall be, but, "ACCEPTED in the Beloved."

Oh, what peace will follow from the Spirit's witness to this your present condition as in the sight of God! Realizing that you are clothed in white garments--that God looks upon you only in Christ, lovely through His loveliness put upon you--you will daily clasp the belt of prayer and faith round the robe of righteousness, and so walk with Jesus in all the growing holiness of a full, a free, a present justification of your soul by Jesus Christ our Lord.

A present salvation, also, involves a present act of ADOPTION. This cannot possibly be a future, remote exercise of God's love. If we are in a state of regeneracy, born again by the Spirit of adoption, then, beloved, "Now are we the sons of God." "And because you ARE Sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." It is on the basis of this our present adoption that we draw near unto God as our Father who are in heaven. We call Him "our Father"--we feel Him to be our Father--He responds to us as a Father, and when we depart out of this life, in the words of Jesus, our Elder Brother, we "go to the Father."

Walk, then, with God, beloved, in the sweet, holy consciousness of your present adoption. Not more fully adopted, not more really will you be a child of God when you arrive in heaven and see your Father there, than at this present moment, if, born again, you have received in faith the Lord Jesus Christ. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power [or privilege] to BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, even to those who believe on His name." Such is your present filial standing before God. Oh, what a motive to walk worthy of so high a relationship!--what an encouragement to draw near to God as to a Father, acknowledging sin, unveiling sorrow, revealing need, and in all circumstances and places--in mental sadness, in heart-grief, in temporal need--pouring all into that Father's ear, embosoming all in that Father's heart!

Equally, also, is our SANCTIFICATIONby the Spirit a present attainment of grace. It is of great importance to keep this prominently before us, since our holiness here is our fitness for our glory hereafter. "Sanctification, indeed, unlike the parts of the new creation we have referred to, is a gradual work, yet, seminally, it is a complete thing. In its growth progressive, yet in its nature perfect. Still, gradual and incomplete, as our personal holiness is, it is an actual and a present grace, and may be advanced to a high standard of culture. "This is the will of God, even your SANCTIFICATION." Again we read, "God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through SANCTIFICATION of the Spirit."

For this high attainment let us press onward. Possessing in the renewed nature the germ of perfect holiness--its perfection arrived at only in glory--let us seek its development and growth, that we may be more holy, more separate from the ungodly world, more decidedly on the Lord's side, fairer copies of the mind, the loveliness, and example of Christ, maturing in grace here, amid all its opposition and difficulty, for the glory that is to be revealed in us at the coming of the Lord Jesus.

II. The way this assurance may be attained

The question now arises, how may the believer arrive to this assurance of his personal and present salvation? That it is attainable, we have shown from the precepts and examples cited from the Word of God. The question is, how may I attain unto this grace?

1. We answer, first, by a direct and simple dealing with the Lord Jesus. An assurance of salvation must necessarily spring from the great Object of salvation. We only know that we are in the light by coming to the light. No one immured in a dungeon can speak of the warmth and radiance of the sun experimentally. He must emerge from his darkness and stand in the light. A sick man could hardly expect to derive healing but from the process of healing. He could not reasonably expect to be cured but by the remedy prescribed for the cure. Now, how may we arrive at a comfortable assurance that we are saved? By dealing with the Lord Jesus, by whom and in whom we are saved. We derive light only from the sun, vitality only from the air, sustenance only from the bread. It is by a personal, believing, simple apprehension of Christ, looking only to Him, resting only in Him, receiving only from Him, that we can possibly know that we are saved.

Assurance will never arise from looking at ourselves, or from mixing up anything with Christ. How can we possibly know that our guilt is cleansed, but as we wash in the blood? how that our people are justified, but as we put on the righteousness? how that God has accepted, and delights in us, but as we know that we stand in the Beloved? This is assurance of salvation--the full, unqualified acceptance of Christ. Approaching as a poor, empty, miserable sinner, and standing in this Divine Sun, all bathed in His light, all invested with His beams, all covered with His glory, we shall no more question the fact of our being saved, saved now, and saved forever, than we should, in our right minds, doubt the fact that the sun shines at noon while gazing upon its meridian splendor.This is assurance of salvation, looking believingly at the Savior.

What ground have we for knowing that we are saved, but as we see our great debt paid by the offering and sacrifice of Jesus? our sins forgiven through His atoning merit? our persons justified, and we counted as righteous through the imputation of His obedience? We must in faith behold the Lord Jesus answering for all as our Surety, undertaking all as our Mediator, accomplishing all as our Divine Redeemer, before we can possess a firm persuasion that we are saved. The blood and righteousness of the Lord constitute the basis of assurance. Taking our stand upon this, we can exclaim with humble assurance, "'I KNOW whom I have believed.' I believe in Jesus, that He has merited all, suffered all, perfected all for me--paying all my debt, enduring all my punishment, endowing me with all His wealth, and investing me with all His glory."

You have, perhaps, dear reader, long been in want of the assurance that you are saved. But you have sought it in yourself, and not in Christ. You have been searching for evidences amid the shadows and the taint of your own heart, the imperfect traces of your own doings, the varied exercises of your mind, and have sought them in vain. But now try the experiment--an experiment that has never failed one poor soul--of finding the evidence of your present salvation in a believing looking to a present Savior. Rest in Jesus from the burden and the guilt of sin; rest in Jesus from the conflict with doubt and fear; rest in Jesus from the fear of death and the dread of condemnation; rest in Jesus from your entire self; rest in His finished work, in His accepted sacrifice, in His boundless grace, in His unchanging love, and present intercession, and your assurance will be built upon a rock, against which no force of Satan or unbelief shall ever prevail.

The chief instrument by which assurance is obtained is, FAITH. It flows through the channel of believing. Indeed, the best definition of assurance of present salvation is, a lively and continuously-acting faith on the Lord Jesus. Assurance is believing, and nothing more. Believing that Jesus died for sinners--believing the record God has given concerning His Son--believing that His death was a sufficient atonement, and that His resurrection was its acceptance of the Father--simply, unquestioningly believing this--faith laying hold of the great salvation with a believing and assured grasp--hope sweetly and firmly resting upon it, yes, as sweetly and as firmly as upon the everlasting hills--assurance of salvation will follow, as any effect follows its cause. Now, according to the degree and strength of your faith will be the degree and strength of your assurance of salvation. In proportion as you believe in the Lord Jesus, faith will bring into your soul the peace, joy, comfort, and hope which ever follow in its channel; and the deeper and the wider the channel, the deeper and the wider will be the blessings which it conveys to your soul. It shall be unto you according to your faith.

Oh, then, cease to do, and labor, and desire--all which exercise profits nothing. Cast overboard the oars with which you have impelled your bark against the tide, and spread your canvas to the heavenly gale. Trust to the irresistible power of believing prayer.Let your faith, dropping every other confidence, take hold of Christ--His person, His love, His word of promise. And the sun which shines, and, in its shining, warms into life, loveliness, and fertility the landscape of nature, will not diffuse more vitality, gladness, and song, than will that simple faith which clasps its arms around the Savior, and so brings the ocean-fullness of a present salvation into your soul.

Part 2 The Assurance of Conversion

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