Romans Seven - Assurance of Salvation

As we continue our study in Romans 7, I am more deeply grasping how this chapter speaks to the doctrine of Assurance of Salvation.

First, it speaks in this way: As a believer you discover you are still a sinner. You still sin. Are you saved knowing that your thoughts are not perfect? Are you saved knowing that sin still remains?

Romans Seven is very clear - FOR THE BELIEVER THERE IS REMAINING SIN. There is comfort for the wounded in this chapter knowing that even Paul writes, "Oh wretched Man that I am....." we also have this remaining sin as a harasser and ever present foe. So we must always have the weapons of our warfare at the ready.

BUT - THERE IS ANOTHER and second thing coming out of Romans Seven dealing with the doctrine of Assurance of Salvation - and it is this. Yes sin remains even for the believer - but is there a warring against it? Rom 7:23 Don't find Assurance on to slight of Grounds.

Hear Romans Seven speaking of this war: "warring against the law of my mind." Rom 7:23

When it comes to sin can you say: WHAT I HATE THAT I DO? Do you truly hate it? Rom 7:15 Or are you really readily yielding to sin, allowing it, giving willingly way to sin?

Can you say: "It is not I that do it but Sin that dwelleth in me. " Rom 7:17 I am a new creature in Christ, I detest sin, I myself as renewed in the inward man DO IT NOT -- it is SIN that still dwells in me. ????

Or again, Rom 7:19, the evil that I WOULD NOT that I do. I don't want to do it. I hate it. I abhor it - yet there it is - I am new in Christ but not altogether as new as I will be. So now what I do not will to do I find myself yet doing. ????

Consider now A.W. Pink on this topic from the October 1932, Studies In The Scripture. click here

All pretensions unto the present enjoyment of the assurance of faith by those whose daily lives are unbecoming the Gospel, are groundless. They who are confident of entering that Eternal Happiness which consists very much in a perfect freedom from all sin,
but who now allow themselves in the practice of sin (persuading themselves that Christ has fully atoned for the same), are deceived. None truly desire to be free from sin in the future, who do not sincerely long to forsake it in the present. He who does not pant after
holiness here, is dreadfully mistaken if he imagines he desires holiness hereafter. Glory is but grace consummated; the heavenly life is but the full development of the regenerated life on earth. Neither death nor the second coming of Christ will effect any radical change in the Christian: it will only perfect what he already has and is. Any, then, who pretend unto the assurance of salvation, boast of their pardon and present possession of eternal life, but who have not an experience of deep sorrow for sin, real indignation against it, and hatred of themselves because of transgressions, know nothing at all of what holy assurance is.

So there is a heavy emphasis on the renewed inward man in Romans 7, who though finding sin yet within, sins not willingly but to his sorrow and lament.

MAY THIS LAMENT BE FOUND IN ME. God fill me with such a holy hatred of SIN.

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take Eight

Justification - Glorious Truth - Blessed Doctrine.

It takes some thought. We need to chew on it, to dwell upon Christ our righteousness. What it means. How it was obtained. How it is applied to us. What blessing conferred upon the justified.

Pink writes:

This grand doctrine of Justification was proclaimed in its purity and clarity by the Reformers—Luther, Calvin, Zanchius, Peter Martyr, etc.; but it began to be corrupted in the seventeenth century by men who had only a very superficial knowledge of it, who taught that justification consisted merely in the removal of guilt or forgiveness of sins, excluding the positive admittance of man into God’s judicial favour: in other words, they restricted justification unto deliverance from Hell, failing to declare that it also conveys a title unto Heaven.........denying that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer, seek to find their title to eternal life in a union with Christ in His resurrection. Few today are clear upon the twofold content of Justification, because few today understand the nature of that righteousness which is imputed to all who believe.
click here to read full chapter.

How well do you understand this central doctrine of the gospel? What a blessing we have now to take time, to study, to search the depths of this great truth.

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take Seven

A. W. Pink further describing the Positive Blessing and the Negative Blessing found in Justification.

And warning the Justification is more than "Just-As-If-I'd-Never-Sinned." In fact a serious error to limit justification to solely remission of sins.

To read the whole book click here.

From what has been said in the last paragraph we may see what a serious mistake it is to limit justification to the mere forgiveness of sins. Just as “condemnation” is not the execution of punishment, but rather the formal declaration that the accused is guilty and worthy of punishment; so “justification” is not merely the remission of punishment but the judicial announcement that punishment cannot be justly inflicted—the accused being fully conformed to all the positive requirements of the law in consequence of Christ’s perfect obedience being legally reckoned to his account. The justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to participate in the reward merited by his Surety. Justification is nothing more or less than the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us: the negative blessing issuing therefrom is the remission of sins; the positive, a title to the heavenly inheritance.

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take Six

A. W. Pink distinguishes between Justification and Sanctification. Comparing CHRIST FOR US and CHRIST IN US.

To read the whole book click here.

Second, it differs from sanctification. Sanctification is moral or experimental, justification is legal or judicial. Sanctification results from the operation of the Spirit in me, justification is based upon what Christ has done for me. The one is gradual and progressive, the other is instantaneous and immutable. The one admits of degrees, and is never perfect in this life; the other is complete and admits of no addition. The one concerns my state, the other has to do with my standing before God. Sanctification produces a moral transformation of character, justification is a change of legal status: it is a change from guilt and condemnation to forgiveness and acceptance, and this solely by a gratuitous act of God, founded upon the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, through the instrument of faith alone. Though justification is quite separate from sanctification, yet sanctification ever accompanies it.

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take Five

Pink drawing from John Owen gives us a great deal of matter upon which to THINK and contemplate SO GREAT A SALVATION as he via OWEN enumerates 10 points demonstrating the judicial or forensic nature of Justification.

To read the whole book click here.

From the fact that the judicial side of our salvation is propounded in Scripture under the figures of a forensic trial and sentence. “(1) A judgment is supposed in it, concerning which the Psalmist prays that it may not proceed on the terms of the law: Psalm 143:2. (2) The Judge is God Himself: Isaiah 50:7, 8. (3) The tribunal whereon God sits in judgment is the Throne of Grace: Hebrews 4:16. (4) A guilty person. This is the sinner, who is so guilty of sin as to be obnoxious to the judgment of God: Romans 3:18. (5) Accusers are ready to propose and promote the charge against the guilty person; these are the law (John 5:45), conscience (Rom. 2:15), and Satan: Zechariah 3:2, Revelation 12:10. (6) The charge is admitted and drawn up in a ‘handwriting’ in form of law, and is laid before the tribunal of the Judge, in bar to the deliverance of the offender: Colossians 2:14. (7) A plea is prepared in the Gospel for the guilty person: this is grace, through the blood of Christ, the ransom paid, the eternal righteousness brought in by the Surety of the covenant: Romans 3:23, 25, Daniel 9:24. (8) Hereunto alone the sinner betakes himself, renouncing all other apologies or defensatives whatever: Psalm 130:2, 3; Luke 18:13. (9) To make this plea effectual we have an Advocate with the Father, and He pleads His own propitiation for us: 1 John 2:1, 2. (10) The sentence hereon is absolution, on account of the sacrifice and righteousness of Christ; with acceptation into favour, as persons approved of God: Romans 8:33, 34; 2 Corinthians 5:21” (John Owen).

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take Four

Pink further showing justification to be a legal declaration by comparing it to the opposite term, condemnation.

To read the whole book click here:

The precise force of the term “to justify” may be ascertained by noting that it is the antithesis of “to condemn.” Now to condemn is not a process by which a good man is made bad, but is the sentence of a judge upon one because he is a transgressor of the law. “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD” (Prov. 17:15 and cf. Deut. 25:1). “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. 12:37). “It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” (Rom. 8:33, 34). Now it is undeniable that “condemnation” is the passing of a sentence against a person by which the punishment prescribed by the law is awarded to him and ordered to be inflicted upon him; therefore justification is the passing of a sentence in favour of a person, by which the reward prescribed by the law is ordered to be given to him.

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take Three

Pink explaining that the biblical use of the word "Justify" is a legal declaration and not the internal changing writes:

To see the whole book click here:

Again; in Luke 7:29 we read, “And all the people that heard Him, and the publicans, justified God”: how impossible it is to make the words “justified God” signify any moral transformation in His character; but understand those words to mean that they declaredHim to be righteous, and all ambiguity is removed. Once more, in 1 Timothy 3:16 we are told that the incarnate Son was “justified in (or “by”) the Spirit”: that is to say, He was publicly vindicated at His resurrection, exonerated from the blasphemous charges which the Jews had laid against Him.

Justification has to do solely with the legal side of salvation. It is a judicial term, a word of the law courts. It is the sentence of a judge upon a person who has been brought before him for judgment. It is that gracious act of God as Judge, in the high court of Heaven, by which He pronounces an elect and believing sinner to be freed from the penalty of the law, and fully restored unto the Divine favour. It is the declaration of God that the party arraigned is fully conformed to the law; justice exonerates him because justice has been satisfied. Thus, justification is that change of status whereby one, who being guilty before God, and therefore under the condemning sentence of His Law, and deserving of nought but an eternal banishment from His presence, is received into His favour and given a right unto all the blessings which Christ has, by His perfect satisfaction, purchased for His people.

Justification - A.W. Pink - Take two

More on Justification. This time Pink quoting John Calvin.

Click here for whole book

“We simply explain justification to be an acceptance by which God receives us into His favour and esteems us as righteous persons; and we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ… Justification, therefore, is no other than an acquittal from guilt of him who was accused, as though his innocence has been proved. Since God, therefore, justifies us through the mediation of Christ, He acquits us, not by an admission of our personal innocence, but by an imputation of righteousness; so that we, who are unrighteous in ourselves, are considered as righteous in Christ” (John Calvin, 1559).

Justification - A.W. Pink

Jim sent me the following link to an online work on Justification by A. W. Pink. As I read through it I saw many quotable quotes - so many in fact I couldn't choose which I would post here. Since it seems most difficult in understanding how justification speaks to something CREDITED to us as opposed to Something done IN US. I am sharing this one.

see the whole book - here:

Between Protestants and Romanists there is a wide difference of opinion as to the meaning of the term “justify”: they affirming that to justify is to make inherently righteous and holy; we insisting that to justify signifies only to formally pronounce just or legally declare righteous. Popery includes under justification the renovation of man’s moral nature or deliverance from depravity, thereby confounding justification with regeneration and sanctification. On the other hand, all representative Protestants have shown that justification refers not to a change of moral character, but to a change of legal status; though allowing, yea, insisting, that a radical change of character invariably accompanies it. It is a legal change from a state of guilt and condemnation to a state of forgiveness and acceptance; and this change is owing solely to a gratuitous act of God, founded upon the righteousness of Christ (they having none of their own) being imputed to His people.