that being the case, according to you..... no salvation is
assured. that will make the entire Christian faith a farce, isn't
it.
actually, I'm not sure you know either.
There is assurance of grace and salvation. But then, you don't
just tell anybody who responds to the altar call or get baptised,
"you are saved", as if you know he is really saved. What if they
turn out to be those Jesus turned away (away from me, you
evildoer)?
If Christianity is a relationship between the disciple and the
Lord, then the question can only be answered by those in the
relationship. Are you in the relationship? Nope, you are in
your own relationship. As such, you can answer your own question,
not theirs.
To quote the WCF,
1. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly
deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of
being in the favour of God, and estate of salvation (which hope of
theirs shall perish): yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus,
and love Him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good
conscience before Him, may, in this life, be certainly assured that
they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the
glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.
2. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable
persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible
assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of
salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these
promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption
witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, which
Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to
the day of redemption.
3. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence
of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with
many difficulties, before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled
by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God,
he may, without extraordinary revelation in the right use of
ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of
every one to give all diligence to make his calling and election
sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in
the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength
and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of
this assurance; so far is it from inclining men to looseness.
4. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation
divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence
in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which
woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or
vehement temptation, by God's withdrawing the light of His
countenance, and suffering even such as fear Him to walk in
darkness and to have no light: yet are they never utterly destitute
of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the
brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of
which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may, in due
time, be revived; and be the which, in the mean time, they are
supported from utter despair.
