Training · The 1689 Baptist Confession
Assurance of grace and salvation
Whether a person can know they are saved, on what basis, and why assurance comes and goes.
1 of 6
-
Card 1 of 6
Can a person be certain in this life that they are in a state of grace?
Yes. Those who truly believe, love Christ sincerely, and try to walk with a good conscience before him may be certainly assured.
The confession opens by admitting the counterfeit - people do deceive themselves with false hopes - and then refuses to let the counterfeit rule out the real thing. Assurance is available, and the three marks it names are how you tell.
Here's how we know we actually know him: we do what he tells us.
1 John 2:3Confession 18.1
-
Card 2 of 6
What is assurance grounded on?
Three things: the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel, the inward evidence of the graces the promises are made to, and the testimony of the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are God's children.
The order is not accidental. The objective ground comes first, the evidence in the life second, the inward witness third. Relying on the third alone produces enthusiasm and on the second alone produces anxiety.
God's Spirit himself tells our spirits that we really are God's children.
Romans 8:16Confession 18.2
-
Card 3 of 6
Can someone have real faith and not feel sure they are saved?
Yes. Assurance is not part of the essence of faith - a true believer may wait a long time, and struggle with many difficulties, before having it.
This is one of the most pastorally important sentences in the confession. Someone can genuinely have faith and not yet feel sure of it, and the absence of assurance is not evidence of the absence of faith.
If any of you respects the Lord and listens to his servant, but walks in darkness without light, trust in the Lord's name and rely on your God.
Isaiah 50:10Confession 18.3
-
Card 4 of 6
How is assurance obtained?
Not by any extraordinary revelation, but through the right use of the ordinary means - and the confession says it is everyone's duty to give all diligence to make their calling and election sure.
Two things get ruled out at once. Assurance is not something you wait passively for a voice to hand you, and it is not an optional extra for the temperamentally confident. The means are the ones the rest of the document has already named: the word, prayer, the ordinances, and the company of a church.
So, friends, do your best to confirm that God really has called and chosen you. If you keep living this way, you won't stumble.
2 Peter 1:10Confession 18.3
-
Card 5 of 6
How can assurance be lost, and is it lost for good?
It can be shaken or interrupted by neglect, by falling into some particular sin, by sudden temptation, or by God withdrawing the light of his face. It is never final.
Even at the lowest point the confession says they are never entirely without the seed of God, the life of faith, or love for Christ and for other believers. Out of those, the Spirit revives assurance in due time.
Bring back the joy of being saved by you. Give me a willing spirit to keep me going.
Psalm 51:12Confession 18.4
-
Card 6 of 6
When assurance is gone, what is left?
The seed of God and the life of faith, love for Christ and for other Christians, sincerity of heart and conscience about duty - out of which, by the Spirit's working, assurance may in time be revived, and by which in the meantime the person is kept from utter despair.
The paragraph rests on the difference between having something and feeling sure of it. The confession is prepared to say that a real Christian may lose the sense of God's favour for a long stretch, and it will not say that what they lost was the thing itself.
Confession 18.4