HOW MAY I KNOW THAT I HAVE A SAVING INTEREST IN CHRIST?
Many are the times I’ve had this question asked me. I think we are off on the wrong foot if we try to assure ourselves by what or how much we know. Assurance of salvation cannot be known by how much we know about the Person and work of Christ, but how well we know Christ. There is a text in Romans eight that is vital to the question above, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” This Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, the very Spirit of God’s Son, called also the Spirit of Sonship. The Spirit of Sonship is joy and assurance in believing. There is a believing that does not bring with it the ‘joy’ of believing. Some have a faith that is purely theoretical, a cold, and intellectual, doctrinal faith. This faith can give nothing but a false assurance. The Holy Spirit is a teacher; He’s the great teacher of the Father’s children. The Father begets us by His own will through the word of truth; Jesus Christ takes us into union with Himself, so that we become in a second sense the children of God. Then God the Holy Spirit breathes into us the “spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” After giving us the spirit of adoption, he trains us as earthly parents would train one that they adopt. He becomes our educator and works on our ignorance revealing one truth after another to us, until at last we comprehend with all saints what are the heights and depths and lengths and breadths, and know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge. Then the Spirit introduces the educated ones to ‘the general assembly’ and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. The knowledge of knowing that we have a saving interest in Christ becomes more apparent as the Holy Spirit teaches us to cry out to a loving Father. There are some things we can do naturally when we are children without any teaching. Who ever taught a child to cry? That is just natural. The first sign of its life is its shrill feeble cry of pain. You will not need to send it to school to teach it to cry the cry of its grief. But you and I as spiritual infants had to be taught to cry; for we could not even cry of ourselves till we had received “the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.” The Spirit of Adoption brings into the soul of the sinner a very peculiar faith, distinct from theoretical faith. This faith lays hold to the glory of God revealed in that Spirit. In this glory Jesus shines unto us as Lord, King, and Master. The revelation that humbles the heart in repentance and commits it to Him and causes it to say with the converted Saul of Tarsas, “Lord what wilt Thou have me to do?”
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