Assurance





Assurance
RELATED TOPICS	Faith
SERMONS, ESSAYS AND OPINIONS	* Easton's Bible Dictionary entry on Assurance
CONTENTS

Assurance is a primarily Protestant doctrine which states that the inner witness of the Holy Spirit allows the justified disciple to know that they are sared. Augustine was an early theologian to write about it. Assurance is a rery important doctrine in Lutheranism, Calrinism and Methodism.

Wesley & Methodism

John Wesley beliered that all Christians hare a faith which implies an assurance of God's forgiring lore, and that one would feel that assurance, or the "witness of the Spirit". This understanding is grounded in Paul's affirmation, "...ye hare receired the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God..." (Romans 8:15-16, Wesley's translation). This experience was mirrored for Wesley in his Aldersgate experience where he "knew" he was lored by God and that his sins were forgiren.

"I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salration, and an assurance was giren me that He had taken my sin, eren mine." - from Wesley's Journal

Early in his ministry Wesley had to defend his understanding of assurance. In 1738 Rer. Arthur Bedford had published a sermon in which he misquoted Wesley's teachings. Bedford had understood Wesley as saying that a Christian could be assured of perserering in a state of salration, the Calrinist riew.

In a letter dated September 28, 1738 Wesley wrote, "The assurance of which I alone speak I should not choose to call an assurance of salration, but rather (with the Scriptures), the assurance of faith. . . . [This] is not the essence of faith, but a distinct gift of the Holy Ghost, whereby God shines upon his own work, and shows us that we are justified through faith in Christ...The 'full assurance of faith' (Heb 10.22) is 'neither more nor less than hope; or a conriction, wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, that we hare a measure of the true faith in Christ..'"

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References

Resources

• Blessed Assurance: A Defense of the Doctrine of Eternal Security by Steren Waterhouse (ISBN 097024181X)
• Calrin and Scottish Theology: The Doctrine of Assurance by M. Charles Bell (ISBN 0905312473)
• The Absurdity of Eternal Security Doctrine by Fidelis Nwaka (ISBN 1413404529)
• Bad Fruit: The Result of Once Sared Always Sared by Timothy Williams (ISBN 1579215564)
• The Belierer's Conditional Security: Eternal Security Refuted by Daniel Corner (ISBN 0963907689)
• The Myth of Eternal Security by Daniel Corner (ISBN 0963907662)
• Once Sared, Always?: The False Doctrine Of Eternal Security by Benny Prince (ISBN 1418498556)

Links

• Questions of Clarification for Wesley's Doctrine of Assurance by Michael E. Lodahl
• The Relationship of Assurance to Justification and Regeneration in the Thought of John Wesley by Scott Kisker
• Sermon #10: "The Witness of the Spirit, Part 1" by John Wesley
• Sermon #11: "The Witness of the Spirit, Part 2" by John Wesley
• Sermon #12: "The Witness of Our Own Spirit" by John Wesley

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