The Word of God teaches us that assurance is possible for Christians. In the New Testament we meet Christians who enjoyed not simply a hope that their sins were forgiven, but they possessed an inward persuasion that was able to stand even in the face of the most terrible opposition. We read of the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr,

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.Acts 7:59-60

How do we obtain assurance? How does assurance become a reality to the people of God?

The answer to that question is not that we simply have to be sincere. There is a danger that some people say, "I'm a sincere Christian. I'm not a hypocrite. Therefore I trust everything will be well." That is no use. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself tells us that people may sincerely believe that they are Christians, yet they may be absolutely wrong. Jesus says that at the day of judgment there will be many who had called Him "Lord, Lord", and that day will come upon them like a storm, and it will be found that they were building on sand. Christ said once to a whole church, "Thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miser­able, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17). They were sincere. But sincerity is no safe-guard at all. We need some­thing more than sincerity.

The Witness of our Consciences⤒🔗

One way we can gain assurance that we are true Christians comes from the testimony of our conscience, our own spirit. The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:12,

For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.

So conscience bears witness to the transforming power of the grace of God in our lives.

The evidence that we belong to Christ is the evidence of personal holiness. The Bible says, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord" (Heb 12:14). Obedience to Christ is inseparable evidence to our salvation. Out of faith and love to Christ we want to walk in obedience to His commandments. If that is true of us, if the grace of God has come to change our hearts so that we want to live to please Him, then we have indeed evidence and witness. The apostle John says that we know that we have passed from death unto life, not "because we have accepted Christ", but "because we love the brethren" (1 John 3:14). John is not saying that because we love other people, God is going to bless us with His salvation. He is saying that we know that our faith is real because our very lives have been changed. We now love the people of Christ. Again he says, "...Hereby we do know that we know Him, because we keep His commandments" (1 John 2:3). The grace of God in the lives of His people is an eloquent testimony that something has been done in our hearts, something that we didn't do of ourselves.

The Witness of the Holy Spirit←⤒🔗

You may remember that in the Old Testament, if there was a judicial trial, the only acceptable evidence was that of at least two witnesses. It's like that in our salvation. There is the witness of the believer's own spirit, but there is also another witness, the testimony of God's Spirit. That is what Romans 8:15-16 teaches,

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

Romans chapter 8 is mostly about the place of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. This chapter teaches that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer for various purposes. The first purpose is to make him holy. But He also indwells the believer to assure him of his relationship to God.

Paul writes, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage." You will notice that here the word "spirit" has no capital, yet there ought to be a capital. "The Spirit of bondage" is speaking of the Holy Spirit. Then as Paul goes on, he refers to "the Spirit". "We have received the Spirit (capital S) of adoption." Verse 16: "The Spirit Himself (as we should translate it) ... bears witness with our spirit (no capital)."

These verses say that the Holy Spirit is a Person who works and acts in our hearts and lives. He gives testimony. He is active. He is not some vague influence. He is a Person, the third Person of the Godhead. We will get nowhere in assurance until we understand that He is a Person, a divine Per-son. The Lord Jesus Christ says,

When I go away, I will send to you another Comforter, another – the same as I, a divine Person.

Just as Christ had His work to do, to live and suffer, to bear God's wrath upon sin, to redeem His church with His own blood, so the Holy Spirit is a Person Who has work to do. His work is to enlighten our eyes, to give us understanding, to come and dwell in the hearts of believers, to be the guarantee of our sanctification, to be the guarantee that our very bodies will rise from the dust. The Holy Spirit is in charge of the lives, the safety of the people of God.

The Holy Spirit is also in charge of the believer's assurance. It is supremely His work to give assurance of salvation. A Christian who has strong assurance of salvation is not someone who simply sees the grace of God in his life and says, "I am a Christian." He is someone to whom the Holy Spirit witnesses, "You are a child of God."

Order of the Holy Spirit's Work←⤒🔗

The Lord Jesus Christ reminds us, "The wind bloweth where it listeth. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). Because the Holy Spirit is God, His ways are past finding out. How can we in any definitive way diagnose the marvel of the work of the Spirit? We cannot, and yet there are certain things that are made clear. We do know that before we know the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of adoption, we first have to experience His work as the Spirit of bondage.

Look again at the words of Romans 8:15. Paul says, "Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear." "Once," he says, "you knew the Spirit of bondage." The Holy Spirit gives us a sense of bondage. It won't happen again, but it did happen once. Now "ye have received the Spirit" who brings adoption, the sense and certainty of our sonship. You are adopted into the family of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit who makes known your adoption. But notice the order: bondage first, then adoption.

When the Holy Spirit works in your life, He does not first come to produce joy and peace but to convict of sin. By nature we have a high opinion of ourselves. The Holy Spirit comes to humble us. He comes to show us our sin – it may be particular sins, it may be sin in general, but He brings us a sense of our sin. He teaches us that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9).

At this point we are not aware that it is the Holy Spirit working in us. When He makes us conscious of sin, we resolve to do better. We resolve to be more obedient to God's Word. We know that we should love God, trust Him, and pray to Him. We know many things. As the Holy Spirit convicts us, and we begin to be fearful, we say to ourselves, "I will do what's right. I will begin to love Him. I will begin to truly pray." But do we? We don't, because as we try to do God's will, we find we can't. We don't love Him. We can't pray. We can't do the things that God's Word requires. We can't change our thoughts. Try to obey the Word of God with all your heart and one thing is certain; you will find you're a wretched, miserable prisoner – helpless, in bondage. That's what Paul is saying. The Holy Spirit comes to make us know that we are lost and needy. Our Lord Jesus Christ says that when this blessed Spirit is sent, "He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:8). That's His work. When the Holy Spirit convicts, He comes with divine power to humble us. He makes us sad and convicts us, and we see for the first time in our lives that left to ourselves we are hopeless, we are lost without the help of God.

That's the Spirit's work. That's what happened on the day of Pentecost. Three thousand people who had taken part in rejecting Christ in unbelief, in despising Christ, were suddenly brought to the conviction that the One Whom they rejected was the Son of God.

When they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and they said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?Acts 2:37

They were plunged into the depths of need. And it was the Holy Spirit's work.

When our Lord began His ministry, He said He was sent to preach, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are bruised (Luke 4:18). That's what Paul is teaching. Until we are captives, until we are bruised, until we know we are blind, then what need have we of the Lord Jesus Christ?

So the Holy Spirit, before He comes as the Spirit of adoption, comes as a Spirit of conviction to give us a sense of bondage. And He has to do that, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He does not bear witness to a lie. The Holy Spirit never says to somebody, "You're a Christian," before they are convicted and penitent and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must ask ourselves, if we say that we have assurance of salvation, "What were we like, before we received that assurance of salvation?" "Oh," says someone "I can't really answer that, because I've always had assurance of salvation. I never knew what it was to be anything else but a child of God." Then I ask, "Were you ever convinced that you were lost? Were you ever convinced of the misery of unbelief? Did you ever know what it was to feel you were helpless and in need of the grace of God?" Perhaps you say, "I don't think I knew anything like that at all. "Now, don't misunderstand me, my friends. I am not saying that God works the same degree of helplessness in all people. He doesn't. There are great variations. We can be woken up in the morning by a mighty noise or by a gentle kiss from our mother. We are still woken up. And God wakes up His people from sin differently. That is not to say that we must have a standard experience that fits all Christians. But it is to say (because the Word of God says) that before we are saved, we are lost. Before we are made happy, we are made sad. Before we come to the Spirit of adoption, we come to a sense of our own need. If we say anything less than that, we are departing from the New Testament.

Early in the Reformation certain men who claimed to be prophets of God arrived on the scene in Wittenberg. They spoke eloquently and began to draw people after themselves. Melanchthon wrote to Luther in 1522 asking him,

How are we to test these prophets? Perhaps they are from God. People are listening to them. How do we know whether they really are preaching the truth?

To this Luther replied, "In order to explore their individual spirit, you should inquire whether they have experienced spiritual distress and divine birth, death, and hell. If you should hear that all their experiences are pleasant, quiet, devout, and spiritual, then don't approve them. Even if they should say that they were caught up to the third heaven, the sign of the Son of man is missing."

Luther was simply saying what Paul says: God's Spirit convicts before He gives assurance and peace.

One of the main problems in the church today is that we are far too healthy. People are not distressed. Many are not crying out for assurance of salvation. They think they have assurance. Many people are not fearful. Few people see themselves as lost. Is that the health of the New Testament? Or is it the 'health' of death and unbelief? We have to face that question. It is certain that when the Holy Spirit works with power, the first evidence of that reviving is a concern and distress and seriousness. There has never been a revival in history, when that has not happened.

Lastly, the evidence of the presence of the Spirit of adoption is that we have a conscious access to God's presence. Paul says: when the Spirit of bondage was taken from us, and the Holy Spirit came as the Spirit who shows us our adoption, then "we cry, Abba, Father". The Holy Spirit gives us the assurance that the presence of God is a place where we have a right to be. He is our Father. The Lord Jesus Christ delighted in prayer because it was communion with the Father. He used this very word, "Abba". Paul says, what happens to Christians is that God sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, "whereby we cry, Abba, Father".

Application←⤒🔗

The application is very brief. If you are under conviction, if at times, under the preaching of the Word of God, you feel uneasy and unhappy, that may be the best thing that ever happened to you. We should cherish convictions. They are the way to eternal life. When God rebukes us, when we begin to feel helpless, when we begin to feel that we cannot please God, that is the first sign of God's gracious working in our lives. And we need to respond to God by praying for the Spirit and looking to the Lord Jesus Christ and knowing that in Christ alone is there liberty for us.

But finally, what a great truth it is that God gives assurance. If it all depended upon us, how sad we would be! But God witnesses. God gives assurance. That's a subject of tremendous thanksgiving. We have to pass from this world. We have to go down into the valley of the shadow of death alone. But God's Spirit may be with His people. He "witnesses with our spirit", says Paul, "that we are the children of God." Is that true of you? Ask yourself. Do not be ashamed to ask for help. Discuss it with your elder. Discuss it with your minister. Above all else, ask God to help you, to make it clear to you. And our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has promised, "if ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" (Luke 11:13). Ask, and certainly, you will be given ... conviction, yes, but healing, joy, pardon, and certainty.