Never was any; neither shall you, if you believe. There always are some people who think well of themselves when God thinks ill, just as there are some who think ill of themselves when God thinks well. “A lazy Christian shall always want four things: viz., comfort, content, confidence, and assurance. He quibbles and questions, ‘May I?’ and ‘I am afraid it is not for me;’ and ‘I think it cannot be meant for me;’ and ‘I am afraid it is too good to be true.’. Oh, that you understood these things! “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:13.). See the witness of the Spirit throughout the life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. There is nothing unscriptural in this. We believe it is possible for a Christian's faith to get stronger and stronger, until it reaches the full assurance of knowledge. ), Does he not say to Timothy, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him”? The sun is the same behind the clouds, but you will not be able to see its brightness or enjoy its warmth, and your soul will be gloomy and cold. ASSURANCE CANNOT NEGLECT THE PAINFUL WORK OF SELF-EXAMINATION. He said: “I have a desire to depart and be with Christ” (Phil 1:23+); and if he had been uncertain he would not have said that. • "We know that we are children of God" (1 Jn 5:19). He that never doubts has nothing to lose. 7 “He that believeth on Jesus shall never be confounded. A weak faith is true. It makes him always feel that he has something solid beneath his feet, and something firm under his hands,-a sure friend by the way, and a sure home at the end.9, Assurance will help a man to bear poverty and loss. He who could write himself down “chief of sinners” (1 Tim.1:15) had a deep sense of his own guilt and corruption. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” He is here writing to the righteous. John has already mentioned "eternal life" in 1 John 1:2, 2:25, and 3:15. (ii) But he also had in mind a natural law of human life. Even at this, some would limit the referent of tauta (these things) (1) only to 1Jn 5:1–12 [As does A T Robertson] or even 1Jn 5:12, but more likely tauta (these things) in 1Jn 5:13 refers (2) to the entirety of the letter, for two reasons: (a) based on the structural analogy with the Gospel of John, where the conclusion refers to all that has preceded (Ed: Presumably they refer to Jn 20:31), it is probable that the conclusion to 1 John refers likewise to all that has preceded; and (b) the statement These things I have written to you in 1Jn 5:13 forms an inclusion with the statement these things we write (kai tauta graphomen hēmeis) at the end of the prologue (1Jn 1:4) and encompasses the entire body of the letter. And often, very often, the simple root of their perplexity is, that they do not feel assured they are themselves children of God. 5 “Never did a believer in Jesus Christ die or drown in his voyage to heaven. A man must feel his sins and lost estate,-must come to Jesus for pardon and salvation,-must rest his hope on Him, and on Him alone. But the fault must not be laid to our Master’s charge: it is all our own. • "We know that when he appears, we shall be like him" (1 Jn 3:2). ), Paul was a man who exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man. Bishop Davenant and Bishop Prideaux, and others, have shown the great difference between recumbence and assurance, and they all do account and call assurance a daughter, fruit, and consequent of faith. Keep that in mind. Let us listen to him again. ASSURANCE COMES FROM HEARING THE WORD OF CHRIST. (Mark 5"27.) That a child of God ought to act in a certain decided way they quite feel, but the grand question is, “Are they children of God themselves?” If they only felt they were so, they would go straightforward, and take a decided line. On a certain day their chains were to fall off, and they were to be free. Let us take Him at His word. (1 John 5:5-13 Is Christianity Merely Psychological? 1 John 5:13 Treasury of Scripture Knowing. 42. Bible teacher H. A. Ironside related a personal experience that helps us understand the importance of believing the Word of God. Woolnoth, London. Peace rules the day when Christ rules the heart. Were it that thou lookest to be justified, and saved by the power of the very act of thy faith, thou hadst reason to be disheartened with the conscience of the weakness thereof; but now that the virtue and efficacy of this happy work is in the object apprehended by thee, which is the infinite merits and mercy of thy God and Saviour, which cannot be abated by thine infirmities, thou hast cause to take heart to thyself, and cheerfully to expect His salvation. “Assurance is requisite to the well-being of a Christian, but not to the being; it is requisite to the consolation of a Christian, but not to the salvation of a Christian; it is requisite to the well-being of grace, but not to the mere being of grace. Our divines at home generally are of another judgment. 3. “Our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as, “I imagine so,” or “It is likely;” but the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity. This one thing now remains for me to look forward to, and nothing more. - Moody's Anecdotes, pp. 1657. They do not clearly see that Christ’s work, not their own work,-either in whole or in part, either directly or indirectly,-is the alone ground of our acceptance with God; that justification is a thing entirely without us, for which nothing whatever is needful on our part but simple faith,-and that the weakest believer is as fully and completely justified as the strongest.17. They do not know whether they are inside the ark or not. This sense of assurance for believers is not merely limited to the present era on earth, but the resurrection of Jesus assures Christians that they are not deluded in their expectation of a future hope with their Lord (1 Corinthians 15:17-20 ). 2:4; 1 Jn. "To know with settled intuitive knowledge." Believe me, you will never think assurance so precious as when your turn comes to die. If you knew that in fifteen minutes you would have to stand in judgment before the Holy God and learn your eternal destiny, what would your reaction be? Hath he scarcity of bread?-God hath given him the finest of the wheat, the bread of life.-Are his comforts gone?-he hath a Comforter. Because one goal or one misplay can change the game’s outcome, I feel a constant tension as I watch. I have written (1125)(grapho from root graph- = primarily means to scratch on or engrave as on an ornament, reports, letters, etc; English = graph, graphic, etc) means to engrave or inscribe with a pen or stylus characters or letters on a surface which can be wood, wax, metal, leather, stone, parchment, dirt (John ), paper, etc. Believing reader, do you really mean to say that you have no desire to exchange hope for confidence, trust for persuasion, uncertainty for knowledge? 1637. Marianne Maye Thompson, 1-3 John, (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1992), 18; Benjamin L. Merkle, "What is the Meaning of 'Idols' in 1 John 5:21?," Bibliotheca Sacra 169, no. “Some comfort and exhort, saying, ‘Be of good cheer: He who hath begun a good work will also finish it in you; therefore pray that His grace may abound in you; yea, do not sit still, but go forward, and march on in the way of the Lord.’ (Heb. Accept His testimony to His Son and receive as a gift the eternal life that only the living God can impart. If any one were to say that they had known a person for thirty years and yet doubted him, it would not be very creditable: and when we have known God for ten, twenty or thirty years does it not reflect on His veracity to doubt Him. BELIEVE!! The thing has been, and is,-and that is enough. The past sins of Christians are all forgiven as soon as they are confessed; and they are never to be mentioned. So Westcott: “that ye have life—yes, eternal life.”, Eternal life - To know that your spirit is born again and you will live forever with God in heaven. He that hath the feeblest and weakest hand may receive an alms, and apply a sovereign plaster to his wound, as well as he that hath the strongest, and receive as much good by it too.”-Lectures upon the fifty-first Psalm, preached at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, by Arthur Hildersam, Minister of Jesus Christ. I need not supply an answer. Assurance would be as wings to the bird, as weights to the clock, to set all the wheels of obedience a-running.”-Thomas Watson. Farewell, father and mother, friends and relations; farewell, the world and all its delights; farewell, meat and drinks; farewell, sun, moon, and stars. Wherefore, then, should I doubt? (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Latimer wrote Ridley once that when he was settled and steadfast about his own salvation he was as bold as a lion, but if that hope became eclipsed he was fearful and afraid and was disqualified for service. It may be, though you do not see it. There are shocks and surprises, frustrations and fears, because we are unsure of the outcome. Assurance . “The character of faith may be written in the heart, as letters engraven upon a seal, yet filled with so much dust as not to be distinguished. Reason is the foundation of learning; so, as there can be no learning if reason be wanting (as in beasts), in like manner there can be no assurance where there is no faith of adherence. I dread as much as any one the idea of healing the wounds of conscience slightly; but I should think any other view than that I have given a most uncomfortable Gospel to preach, and one very likely to keep souls back a long time from the gate of life.6. 7. ), Assurance can make a man rejoice to suffer shame for Christ’s sake, as the Apostles did. Faith, let us remember, is the root, and assurance is the flower. He that has faith does well. The things I speak are for your peace. The will of the Lord is our sanctification, and it ought to be our will too. — Reprinted by permission. Worse, you’re calling God a liar. It is God that justifieth. ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’-Bishop Reynolds on Hosea xiv. i. All rights reserved). First, then, I will try to show you that an assured hope, such as Paul here expresses, is a true and Scriptural thing. R. Finlayson . 2. I. 6. Then in Colossians 3:4+, he says: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” I am told that Dr. Watts’ tombstone bears this same passage of Scripture. Not a bone of a believer is to be seen in the field of battle. 1 Corinthians 12:21. Christ, the Captain of our salvation (Heb 2:10KJV+), has proclaimed freedom to all who have faith in Him. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. A weak faith may receive a strong Christ: a weak hand can tie the knot in marriage as well as a strong; a weak eye might have seen the brazen serpent. “Faith is LIFE. If you want to be wretched and miserable, filled with doubts from morning till night, look at yourselves. 2. 2), and to the Hebrews of the “full assurance of faith,” and the “full assurance of hope”? It is this assurance that God continues to work in the lives of believers that is the basis for the Christian doctrine of perseverance—endurance or continuing response to God's leading (Ephesians 6:18 ; Hebrews 12:1 ; James 1:25 ). (Job ii. So that as a believer you may KNOW that ye have eternal life. And, therefore, let not our souls be discouraged for weakness.”-Nature and Royalties of Faith, by Samuel Bolton, D.D., of Christ’s College, Cambridge. Happy is that soul who can look where Paul looked, and then speak as Paul spoke! This shows the English words related to the source biblical texts along with brief definitions. He does not vex his soul with doubts about his own pardon and acceptance. My answer to all who deny the existence of real, well-grounded assurance is simply this,-What saith the Scripture? But the servant takes a subordinate place. Those that believe in Him are not condemned but those that do not believe in Him are condemned already. But let us not reject any doctrine of revelation through an over-anxious fear of consequences. When she reached the part where they went out searching for him, Billy began to relive the story. Never, never let us curtail the freeness of the glorious Gospel, or clip its fair proportions. Hebrews 10:21-22. 26; Heb. And I feel, for my own part, if I may take these Scriptures in their plain, obvious meaning, the doctrine of assurance is true. “Yet, though these dumb creatures know the provision of their God, the sinner does not recognize the provision of his Saviour. 1660. In the third chapter of John’s first Epistle there are five things worth knowing. “Even as a man fallen into a river, and like to be drowned, as he is carried down with the flood, espies the bough of a tree hanging over the river, which he catcheth at, and clings unto with all his might to save him, and seeing no other way of succour but that, ventures his life upon it. The Spirit inspired John to write an epistle that would give us assurance that eternal life is our present, permanent possession! 1649. It is a supplement to the Gospel, a personal application and appeal. 5:20). Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Now, such a statement as this is often disputed and denied. 11 These were the last words of Hugh Mackail on the scaffold at Edinburgh, 1666. They are all more than conquerors through Him that loved them.” (Rom. 3:24; 1 Jn. The First Epistle of John, often referred to as First John and written 1 John or I John, is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles.There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works.The author of the First Epistle is termed John the Evangelist, who most scholars believe is not the same as John the Apostle. See, you’re with us now, and we’ll make sure that you always are.” That settled it for Billy. IV. 18. God’s testimony to Jesus is the foundation of our faith. Depend on it, one secret cause of halting between two opinions is want of assurance. Cultivate that blessed root more, and sooner or later, by God’s blessing, you may hope to have the flower, You may not, perhaps, attain to full assurance all at once. I see the language of persuasion, confidence, knowledge,-nay, I may almost say, of certainty. Such persons lose sight of the many direct injunctions “to increase,-to grow,-to abound more and more,-to add to our faith,” and the like; and in this little-doing condition, this sitting-still state of mind, I never marvel that they miss assurance. ASSURANCE IS FINALLY A GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. Now, a great many people want some token outside of God’s word. If I made a promise to meet a man at a certain hour and place to-morrow, and he were to ask me for my watch as a token of my sincerity, it would be a slur on my truthfulness. 11. ), And again, “The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.” (Isaiah 32"17. It will teach him to say, “I know that I have in heaven a better and more enduring substance. I think you will allow I have shown ground for the assertion I made,-that assurance is a true thing. It is a strong faith; but we read likewise of a weak faith, little faith, faith like a grain of mustard seed. 1Jn 2:12-14,19; 3:1; 5:13 make it clear that this letter was addressed to believers. God's Spirit used that to bring assurance to the man's heart. “The soul of the diligent,” says Solomon, “shall be made fat.” (Pr 13:4.) I am at last in sight of the goal. Who believe (4100)(pisteuo) means to entrust oneself to an entity (in this case Jesus) in complete confidence. All sin disposeth the soul that tampers with it to trembling fears and shakings of heart.”-Gurnall. He has a portion that will never be taken from him, a Saviour that will never forsake him, a treasure that fadeth not away, however little he may realize it all at present. Be not content with a day of small things. If being myself blind I were to tell another blind man how to get sight, he might reply, “First get healed yourself; and then you can tell me.” I recently met with a young man who was a Christian; but he had not attained to victory over sin. This shall give you more real comfort than the world has ever done. 2 “We do not vindicate every vain pretender to ‘the Witness of the Spirit;’ we are aware that there are those in whose professions of religion we can see nothing but their forwardness and confidence to recommend them. The subjective basis for our assurance is our believing the truth about Christ (I John 2:2,4; 2:15; 5:1), loving the brethren (I John 3:14, 18, 19, 4:7-8), and obeying Christ's commandments (I John 2:3-5). The book of the Revelation was penned by John to all who believe in Christ Jesus, Who is the Word made flesh – Son of God. When such defects or hindrances prevail, many fears and distresses may be expected to arise.”-The Christian System, by the Rev. He looks downward to the grave, and he does it without fear. 1Jn 5:14-17 relate this confidence to prayer; 1Jn 5:18-20 recount several important spiritual truths. Vincent on may know - Not perceive (ginosko), but know with settled and absolute knowledge. Footnotes (Revision and footnotes from Tony Capoccia - Bible Bulletin Board). The godly person that is loose and careless in his holy walking will soon find his hope languishing. ), John MacArthur - In 1654 the Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote, "Assurance is the believer's ark where he sits, Noah-like, quiet and still in the midst of all distractions and destructions, commotions and confusions… [However] most Christians live between fears and hopes, and hang, as it were, between heaven and hell. Humility is the way to heaven. 2:5; 1 Jn. Go upon another tack. Peter says: “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 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