CHRIST IS THE ASSURANCE OF SALVATION
No one will ever find any assurance of salvation looking at anything they do or don’t do. We can never find assurance of salvation by keeping part of the law. The only assurance of salvation is looking to Christ who is our righteousness by His obedience to the law for us. No one will find any assurance of salvation by trying to see if we sin less than we used to. The only assurance of salvation is looking to Christ whose blood has cleansed us from all of our sin.
When my sin causes me to question my salvation (and I can understand it doing that) – how I need to be turned back to the starting point – “It is finished.” We start at the finish line! When Christ said, “It is finished”, the promise “He shall save His people from their sins” was changed to, “He has saved His people from their sins.” My salvation is real, not because of me being able to resist and suppress sin, but because Christ accomplished my salvation! When He said, “It is finished”, He left nothing undone, and I cannot undo what He has done.
Pastor Todd Nibert
Particular Redemption
This term “particular redemption” is familiar to most, if not all of us. It simply means that the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed a certain number of individuals whom his Father gave him in the eternal covenant of grace before the world was. He redeemed them by his precious blood. The doctrine of particular redemption is taught throughout the Bible. To deny that it is taught in the Bible would be to deny virtually the whole sacred writ. Those who refute this blessed truth are not Christians and are not Gospel preachers. They are enemies of God and his Christ. Those whom Christ has redeemed with his sacrificial blood and called by his sovereign grace through the preaching of his Gospel do not and will not compromise the glory of God, nor the honor and integrity of the holy person and the perfect, effectual and complete work of their Redeemer. If this blessed doctrine be not so, then the attributes of God mean absolutely nothing, and the living and dying of the Lord of glory was a misnomer. On the contrary, the doctrine of particular redemption establishes and magnifies all the attributes of God, and glorifies and honors the Lord Jesus Christ and his work of redemption. The particular redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ is the heart of the true Gospel of God. It is the child of God's only hope. What hope have we if Christ died universally for everyone, and some for whom he died will be cast into the Lake of Fire to be punished forever for their sins?
Someone may ask the question, “Does one have to believe in particular redemption to be saved?” My answer would be this, "It is only those that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that are saved. And to not believe in the effectual redemption of Christ can only be true of an unbeliever." I would not be so foolish as some, to insinuate that one must meet a long list of criteria before God will save them. It is simple heart faith, which God gives, that joins the sinner to Christ. But this I will boldly, without apology, declare—We must believe on the Christ of the Bible—that ONE who obtained eternal redemption for us!
Pastor Tommy Robins
“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”
Martin Luther