1 Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received the same kind of faith as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:1-11 (LSB) Read verses 4-11 on the site.
After God dragged me from my former Arminian doctrinal beliefs into the truth of Reformed Theology, my assurance of my salvation did not suffer at all. In fact, it deepened as the profundity of our salvation by grace and justification by faith became apparent to me. I no longer had a fractured or nebulous picture of God’s eternal plan. It all came into focus as I studied the “Ordo Solutis” from Romans 8:29-30 and Ephesians 1 & 2. However, some I have attempted to teach these truths have virulently resisted. One of the questions these “resistors of the truth” seem to always ask is, “How could you ever have assurance believing that?”
That question puzzles me. My assurance is rooted deep within God’s promises to His people from Sacred Scripture. God is sovereign and He never changes. My assurance is a product of my faith coupled with my devotion to my Lord. Interestingly, those who question the veracity of what I teach always come from the direction of the believer having to “do something” in order to be saved. They may say that God saved them and they know they are saved, but that assurance comes from knowing they made the right decision while the lost have not made that same decision. My assurance comes from my ever-increasing knowledge of scripture, and, therefore, my Lord, combined with believing the promises found there. I know my Lord. He has revealed to me, from scripture, what one of His elect will be like. From the Word I have learned that those in Christ are new creations. (2 Corinthians 5:17) That means the Holy Spirit has regenerated them so they can believe and be saved. Because of this radical rebirth or resurrection from being dead in trespasses and sins, certain attributes will become apparent in the heart of the maturing believer.