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whom God “predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”—those, in other words, whom God eternally resolved to take as sons in his family, alongside his only-begotten—“he
called . . . justified . . ....
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Glorified, we note, is in the past tense, though the event itself is still future; this shows that to Paul’s mind the thing is as good as don...
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Second, Paul tells us that here and now “the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children”
Well did James Denney once observe that whereas assurance is a sin in Romanism, and a duty in much of Protestantism, in the New Testament it is simply a fact.
witness to our adoption is
borne from two distinct sources...
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and God’s Spirit, who bears witness with our spirit, and...
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the filial cry, and the filial attitude it expresses, are evidence that the dual witness is a reality in the heart.)
Robert
Haldane’s analysis, which distills the essence of more than two centuries of evangelical exposi...
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The witness of our spirit, he writes, becomes a reality as “the Holy Spirit enables us to ascer...
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conscious of, and discovering in ourselves, the true marks o...
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This is inferential assurance, being a conclusion drawn from the fact that one knows the gospel, trusts Christ, brings forth works m...
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instincts of a regene...
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But [continues Haldane] to say that this is all that is signified by the Holy Spirit’s testimony, would be to fall short of what is affirmed in this text;
The Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit in a distinct and immediate testimony, and also with our spirit in a concurrent testimony. This testimony, although
it cannot be explained, is nevertheless felt by the believer;
This is immediate assurance, the direct work of the Spirit in the regenerate heart, coming in to supplement the God-prompted witness of our own spirit
While this dual
witness can be temporarily clouded through divine withdrawal and satanic assault, every wholehearted Christian who is not grieving and quenching the Spirit by unfaithfulness...
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as
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his abiding exp...
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the truth about assurance comes out like this: Our heavenly Father intends his children to know his love for them, and their own security in
his family.
His action takes the form of making the dual witness that we have described part of the regular experience of his children. Thus he leads them to rejoice in his love.
it is “more easier conceived than described”—“more easily felt than tell’t,” as a Scots lady is supposed to have put it,
Being prone to self-deception, we do well to test our assurance by applying the doctrinal and ethical criteria which 1
John provides for this very purpose
and by this means the inferential element in our assurance will be strengthened and the vividness of assurance...
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The sou...
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assurance, however, is not our inferences as such, but the work of the Spirit, apart from as wel...
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The Romanists were wrong: viewed in the light of adoption and the fatherhood of God, their denial of both preservation and assurance becomes a ludicrous monstrosity.
What sort of father is it who never
tells his children individually that ...
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The Wesleyan and Lutheran denial of preservation is s...
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God is a better father than this denial ...
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keeps his children in faith and grace and will not let them ...
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The Reformers and Wesley were right to say that assurance is integral to faith; the Puritans, however, were also right to lay more stress tha...
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grieve the Spirit by sin, and who fail to seek God with all their heart, must expect to miss the full ...
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just as careless and naughty children stop their parents’ smiles and p...
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Some ...
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are too precious for careless and naughty children, and this is a gift which our heavenly Father will, to some extent at least, hold back if he sees us to be in a state where it would spoil us by making...
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lives o...
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It is a strange fact that the truth of adoption has been little regarded in Christian history.
(R. S. Candlish,
The Fatherhood of God; R. A. Webb, The Reformed Doctr...
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there is no evangelical writing on it, nor has there been at any time ...
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Luther’s grasp of adoption was as stron...
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his grasp of justification, but his disciples held to the latter and made...
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