ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

FREEDOM AND CONFIDENCE

In a previous meditation on assurance we looked at Paul’s statement in Romans 5:1 – ‘Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

In Ephesians 2:11 – 18 Paul again speaks of this status of peace with God. He says:

That we have been brought near to God through the blood of Christ.
That Jesus Christ himself is our peace.
That God reconciled us to himself through the cross.
That through Jesus Christ we have access to God the Father by the Holy Spirit.

Paul taught all of this in contrast to our pre-faith status, when we were –

Separate from Christ.
Foreigners to the promises of God.
Without hope and without God.
Far away from God.

In verse 17, ‘peace’ is a one-word summary of the gospel: ‘He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.’

In the death of Christ God undid and reversed, for those who believe in his Son, the negative relationship with himself that is the default status of every human being since Genesis 3. Prior to faith in Christ, our relationship with God was one of alienation (Colossians 1:21), enmity (Romans 5:10), condemnation (John 3:18), wrath (Ephesians 2:3), separation from him (Isaiah 59:2) – all as a consequence of our sin of rejecting him. Without Christ, we could expect nothing from God except judgement and exclusion.

But the message of the Gospel is ‘peace’.

Isaiah spoke of this when he named Jesus ‘the Prince of Peace’ – Isaiah 9:6.

And he wrote of this when he prophesied of Christ ‘the punishment that brought us peace was upon him’ – Isaiah 53:5.

The angels sang of this when they announced the good news of the birth of the Saviour, Christ the Lord – ‘on earth peace …’ – Luke 2:14.

Jesus promised this when he called us to come to him to find rest for our souls – Matthew 11:28, 29; and when he said to his eleven believing disciples ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you’ – John 14:27.

This peace with God is not only grounded in the promises of God and grounded on the substitutionary, sin-bearing death of Christ; it is also deeply embedded in the eternal purpose of God. It is not a fragile peace, dependent on the whims of those involved. It is a strong peace. Rock solid. Paul explains it as God’s ‘eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence’ – Ephesians 3:11, 12.

United by faith to Jesus Christ we enter God’s presence with freedom and confidence.

Never again banned because of our sin.
Never again alienated from him.
Never again condemned by him – no longer under his wrath.
Never again exposed as guilty.

Whether it is as we approach him in worship or in prayer, or as we live in his presence every moment of every day, we enter, and we live, in God’s presence – ‘with freedom and confidence’. Because we trust, we believe, the promise of peace that God has given to all who believe in the name of his one and only Son.

With this grand assurance – this peace, this freedom, this confidence – we live.