From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are still dealing with the words that are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Romans in chapter 10, verses 9 and 10. Verses 9 and 10 in the tenth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

We've described this statement in these two verses as Paul's definition of saving faith, and I've suggested a three-fold division: the content of saving faith, the character of saving faith, and the proof of saving faith. Now, we are still engaged at the moment with the second division. Having considered the content as the Apostle Paul puts it before us, believing that Jesus is Lord and that God hath raised him from the dead and all the full connotation of those statements, we are considering now the character of this faith.

The emphasis, as we've seen, is upon the heart. So that last Friday night, we were trying to give a definition of what is included in saving faith. We came to this ultimate conclusion: that it's not merely a matter of the intellect. It includes the whole personality and especially does it include the element of feeling, leading to trust, commitment, gratitude, and praise. The heart is the center of the personality, and the Christian salvation is so great and so glorious that it does indeed take up the whole man. There is no part of us that is not involved.

So it isn't merely an intellectual assent to truth or an intellectual awareness of truth in a purely objective manner. We are engaged. There's conviction, there's repentance, there's feeling, and there's emotion. It leads to this trust, reliance, and abandonment of ourselves to our Lord and Savior. We ended by pointing out that this is, therefore, clearly faith. It is not some natural endowment which we all have. As the Scripture teaches everywhere, it is the gift of God. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. It's a very special thing, and nobody has faith except the believer. The man who is an unbeliever has no faith. It is the peculiar possession of those who are the called of God and the children of God.

But in the light of that, it is quite clear that another question arises, and that is with regard to the element of certainty or assurance in this saving faith. The more we emphasize that the heart is involved and that the whole personality is involved, the more it seems to be the case on the very surface that an essential part of faith is an element of knowledge, of certainty, or of assurance.

If it were merely an intellectual matter, merely an intellectual awareness or an intellectual apprehension, that wouldn't be involved. But as we've emphasized, and have had to do so because of the way the Apostle puts it, the fact that the heart is engaged, that it is with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness, therefore, of necessity, this whole question of certainty and of assurance arises. We've got to examine that before we can regard our treatment of this great statement as adequate and complete.

Now, this is obviously a very important subject from the practical standpoint, from the experimental standpoint. To what extent should we know that we are saved? To what extent should we have assurance of salvation? Nobody who is at all familiar with the New Testament can fail to see what an important subject this is because it's something that is dealt with very frequently in the New Testament itself.

But as I say, from the practical, daily living of the Christian life, it obviously is a most important subject. Because when we become Christians, we are not transported out of this world; we are still left in it, and the world remains the same: the world, the flesh, the devil. The things that happen in a world of sin, a fallen world, illness, accident, disappointment, war, calamities—all these things happen.

Therefore, it is a very important question for the Christian to know exactly where he stands, to be able to explain what is happening to him, and to relate the faith that he has to the things that happen to him. It's very important, therefore, from the standpoint of our own experience, the experimental outliving of what we claim to believe.

But it is a very important subject also from the standpoint of history. It's played a very prominent part in the history of Protestantism in particular, and I must tell you something about that in order that I may show you the importance of the subject. Now, the Roman Catholic Church, as I've had occasion to indicate before when we were dealing especially with the last portion of the eighth chapter of this Epistle to the Romans, the Roman Catholic Church does not teach a doctrine of assurance. Indeed, she teaches the exact opposite.

Her teaching is that no individual can be certain and sure of his salvation in this world apart from some miraculous happening which God in His grace gives in very few cases in order to give this assurance. But the teaching is that apart from miraculous events and interventions, the believer does not and cannot have assurance of salvation, and it is presumption to claim that he can.

The believer has to hand himself over to the church, and the church takes care of him. She has her great apparatus, as you know, in order to do that. Even when the man is dead, you can't be sure about his ultimate destiny. He goes to purgatory, and therefore you have to pray for him. You have to light candles, you have to pay money and indulgences, and so on and so forth. It is an essential part of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that you cannot have as an individual assurance of salvation. All you do is to trust Mother Church and thus hope that by means of the machinery and the various operations that eventually you will arrive in a state of ultimate salvation.

But now, the Protestant Reformation burst forth, and first and foremost, of course, in Martin Luther. From the beginning, they began to teach a doctrine of assurance. Of course, it had to arise almost inevitably over the whole question of authority because what the Roman church was saying, as she still says only that she's saying it much more politely now, is that once you leave the church, you are risking your soul. You can be sure of nothing.

So it was vital to the Protestant position to be able to assert and to demonstrate and to prove that one was not only safe but that one could be quite sure that one was safe. It was a question of authority. As over against the church and the Pope, Protestantism set up the Scriptures, the Word of God. Here is the authority.

"Ah, yes," said the Roman church, "that's all right, but how do you interpret it? How can you be sure as to what your Word teaches you if you say it is the Word? We don't admit that," they said, "but even granting that, how do you know what it teaches? How do you know you're not misinterpreting it? How do you know that you're not leading yourself astray? Who are you? You're setting yourself up against these centuries of tradition and study and scholarship and teaching. You may be very well be deluding yourself."

Now, the Protestant Reformers had to answer that, and they did answer it in this way. They said that the Holy Spirit in the Word and in the believer gives a double testimony which leads to assurance: *testimonium spiritus externus*, *testimonium spiritus internus*. The Spirit on the Word, the Spirit in the believer—these two agree together.

So, by an internal operation of the Holy Spirit, a man knows that this is the Word of God, and he is given an understanding of it. They taught quite clearly and quite plainly, and of course quite rightly, that no man really can believe that the Bible is the Word of God without the Holy Spirit. It is the testimony of the Spirit that finally gives a man the certain knowledge that this is the Word of God, and in the same way, He applies it to him and relates it to him and lets him know exactly where he stands himself.

So the result was that both Martin Luther and John Calvin and all their followers taught not only that a believer can have certainty and assurance of his salvation, but further they went further. They said that this certainty and assurance is an essential part of saving faith. Now, that's where it comes into our subject. They said a man who hasn't got assurance has not got saving faith. To them, assurance and certainty were a vital and an essential part of true saving faith.

Now, I want to give you some quotations in order to show this. It's a very important point. Now, let me read to you, therefore, some of the words of John Calvin. He puts it like this: "We shall have a complete definition of faith if we say that it is a steady and certain knowledge of the divine benevolence towards us, which, being founded on the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ, is both revealed to our minds and confirmed to our hearts by the Holy Spirit."

Now, that includes, of course, assurance, an absolute certainty. He taught and he taught it in many places, and Luther taught it still more strongly and as was his characteristic almost violently, that assurance and certainty were an absolutely vital and essential part of saving faith. So that if a believer said, "Well, I can't say that I know that I am saved," they would say that he had not got saving faith.

This has been something that has come up very frequently in the subsequent history of the Christian church. But now, very soon, men began to see that that was taking too extreme a position. It was going too far. It was wounding tender, young souls. It was setting up a standard higher than that which is indicated by the Scripture itself.

The Scripture doesn't teach that unless you have an absolute assurance of your salvation, you're not saved. What the Scripture says is: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, or as it's here, if thou shalt believe, confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

But these began to say that does not of necessity include this full assurance of salvation and an absolute certainty. Now, one of the first to put this fairly clearly was a very great theologian and teacher in the Church of England here in this country at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth and particularly the sixteenth in which the Reformation took place, a man of the name of William Perkins, who was one of the first great Puritan theologians, a man on whose works most of the other Puritans came to lean a great deal.

Now, William Perkins put it like this: "This doctrine, that's to say of faith, saving faith, is to be learned for two causes. First of all, it serves to rectify the consciences of weak ones that they be not deceived touching their estate. For if we think that no faith can save but a full persuasion, such as the faith of Abraham was, many truly bearing the name of Christ must be put out of the roll of the children of God.

We are therefore to know that there is a growth in grace as in nature, and there be differences and degrees of true faith, and the least of them all is enfolded faith," by which he means saving faith. "Secondly, this point of doctrine serves to rectify and in part to expound sundry catechisms."

Some of the first Protestant catechisms asserted, you see, that full assurance of faith of salvation was essential to saving faith. "It serves in part to expound sundry catechisms in that they seem to profound faith unto men at so high a reach as few can attain unto it, defining it to be a certain and full persuasion of God's love and favor in Christ, whereas though every faith be from its nature a certain persuasion, yet only the strong faith is the full persuasion. Therefore, faith is not only in general terms to be defined, but also the degrees and measures thereof are to be expounded that weak ones to their comfort may be truly informed of their estate." Now, that's a quotation from William Perkins's *Reformed Catholic*.

Now, there you see comes a man at the end of the sixteenth century, the great century of the Protestant Reformation. He had already come to see that Luther and Calvin, in fighting off the attack of Roman Catholicism upon their whole position, had allowed themselves to be driven into an extreme position in which they had so defined saving faith as to make it something which belongs only to people who have this highest form of certainty and of assurance. And as Perkins points out, they were therefore offending the faith of many of the weaker brethren and causing great heart searching and much unhappiness.

But in 1643, some forty years or so after Perkins, you see, there met here in Westminster Abbey the famous assembly that drew up the Westminster Confession of Faith. And they dealt with this matter in a final and in a conclusive manner, and what they taught has generally been accepted as the true teaching in this respect ever since.

Now, the Westminster Confession of Faith deals with this in chapters 14 and 18. Let me read to you what it says. Chapter 14 of the Westminster Confession of Faith deals with saving faith. The heading is: "Of Saving Faith." I leave out the first section, but read to you the second and the third, which is like this:

"By this faith, this is saving faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word for the authority of God Himself speaking therein, and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and for that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace."

Then the third section reads like this: "This faith, the one he's just been defining, this faith is different in degrees, weak or strong, may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith."

You see, it takes up the point made by William Perkins and elaborates it and makes it yet clearer. But let me read to you the section which deals still more specifically with assurance of grace and of salvation. Now, this is chapter 18 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Let me read this to you so that we may be quite clear about this matter.

"Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God and this state of salvation, which hope of theirs shall perish, yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and love Him in sincerity, endeavoring 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.

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." Now, that's a mass of Scriptural quotations.

Now then, here's the point: "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 a 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."

Now, that's a most important statement. 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 a partaker of it. In other words, you can be a true believer without having this full assurance of salvation.

But they go on to say that enabled by the Spirit, he may, not by some extraordinary revelation, but through the use, right use, of ordinary means attain thereunto. And therefore, it is the duty of everyone 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.

True believers may have the assurance of their salvation diverse ways shaken, diminished, and intermittent. A man who's had a true assurance may have it shaken or diminished or indeed intermittent; he may lose it temporarily, 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 by the which in the meantime they are supported from utter despair. Now, that's a most important and a most valuable statement.

How do we sum it up? Well, I would sum it up then like this: that in view of the fact that a man believeth in his heart unto righteousness, there is always and of necessity a certain degree of knowledge and of finality, but the degree of it may vary tremendously. It isn't a bare intellectual belief. There is more than that. As I pointed out last week, the man is convicted. Well, he knows that. He feels that. Something's happened in the realm of his emotions, and he knows that. So there is that element of knowledge always in true saving faith.

The man who's never felt anything at all has not got saving faith; he gives an intellectual assent. It is a part of saving faith to know that something's happened. But that's a very different thing from saying that a man must always have the full degree of assurance of faith and of certainty before he is saved. Or as the Confession puts it so rightly, the degree of assurance that we have may vary tremendously from time to time.

So I would put it like this: saving faith is always satisfied about the promises of God. It knows the way of salvation. It knows that it is the only way of salvation, and it knows that that is God's way. It sees that and it sees that quite clearly, and it has no doubt about that at all. A man who's doubtful about the way of salvation has no faith at all in a saving sense. The man who has saving faith sees it, he understands it, he's quite clear about it, and he can say it is this and it isn't that. He's quite clear about the objective aspect.

But what he may not be always clear about and certain about is his own relationship to that. He says, "That is it. I have no hope apart from it. I am trusting only to that." Now, that is to me saving faith because he is certain about the thing that saves him, about the person who saves him, and the way in which he saves him. But he lacks the inward assurance about himself being saved.

We mustn't exclude a man like this from saving faith. Any man who can tell me that he realizes that he's a sinner, that he cannot save himself, that nobody else can save him, that he richly deserves the wrath of God and richly deserves hell, and that furthermore, he has no hope at all apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done, I say that such a man has saving faith.

He may be unhappy. He may say, "I wish I knew that I was saved. I wish I had the certainty that I read of in the Scriptures and that I've heard other men testify to in their experiences and that I've read of other men. I haven't got that." But I say to that man that he's got saving faith. He hasn't got assurance, but he's got saving faith.

Indeed, I often have to say this in my vestry. I often have to deal with this very point. And I even go as far as to put it like this: the fact that this man is concerned about this is a proof to me that he's got saving faith. He wouldn't be troubled about it otherwise. He wouldn't worry about it. He wouldn't be grieved about it. He wants it. Now, the man who's unregenerate, he doesn't want it. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he for they are spiritually discerned.

But here is a man who is tremendously concerned. He says everything that's right about himself. He says everything that is right about the Savior and the way of salvation. I say that such a man has saving faith. Any man who casts himself upon the Lord Jesus Christ and says, "I have no other hope at all," is a man who has saving faith, though he may not have assurance of salvation at that point.

Now, that's what William Perkins was saying. That's what the Westminster Confession of Faith says. It was not what Calvin and Luther said. They went too far. Assurance of salvation is not an essential part of saving faith. But as we are offered full assurance in the Scriptures, as the Westminster Confession ends, we should all give great diligence to make our calling and election sure. And the ways to do that, of course, are indicated to us quite plainly in the Scriptures themselves.

Now, I put it to you like this, perhaps, to deal finally with this matter. I remember an old minister, a man who'd preached the Gospel in all its purity, not only faithfully but with great power, and indeed a man who'd passed through experiences of revival. I remember that man on his deathbed, after a very lingering, painful illness which weakened him very much, and he was in trouble. He wasn't happy about his own salvation.

And he put it to a friend of mine on one occasion like this. He said, "I have no difficulty, I have no doubt about the way itself. I have no difficulty, I have no doubts about the Savior and His all-sufficiency and His fullness, and that He has done everything that is necessary. There is no trouble about that." He said, "I'm troubled about this, about its registration here."

Now, that's the kind of distinction that I think is so important. That man had saving faith, but at that point, partly perhaps owing to his illness and so on, he lacked the assurance. I think that in his case, some of the reasons were exactly as the Confession put it: he was a man who didn't discipline himself in certain respects, and I think that he lacked his assurance partly for that.

But I'm happy to end the story by saying that I saw the man two days before he died, and he looked into my eyes and he said, "I know that I'm going to Jesus Christ." He'd now got his full assurance. But he had saving faith even when he lacked the full assurance.

Now, there's a hymn, which is not unfortunately in this present hymn book of ours but was in the old hymn book, which puts it, it seems to me, very well. Now, this is a good description of saving faith without assurance:

"Twixt gleams of joy and clouds of doubt

Our feelings come and go;

Our best estate is tossed about

With ceaseless ebb and flow.

No mood of feeling, form of thought,

Is constant for a day;

But Thou, O Lord, Thou changest not;

The same art Thou alway.

I grasp Thy strength, make it mine own,

My heart with peace is blest;

I lose my hold, and then comes down

Darkness and cold unrest.

Let me no more my comfort draw

From my frail hold of Thee;

In this alone rejoice with awe,

Thy mighty grasp of me."

A man who believes in that mighty grasp, whatever he may feel, is a man who's got saving faith.

"Out of that weak, unquiet drift

Which comes but to depart,

To that pure heaven my spirit lift

Where Thou unchanging art."

Here's a man seeking assurance: "Lay hold of me with Thy strong grasp,

Let Thine almighty arm

In its embrace my weakness clasp,

And I shall fear no harm.

Thy purpose of eternal good

Let me but surely know;

On this I lean, let changing mood

And feeling come and go;

Glad when Thy sunshine fills my soul,

Not lorn when clouds o'ercast,

Since Thou within Thy sure control

Of love dost hold me fast."

Or another one, which I've often quoted, I don't think it's in any of these hymn books, which puts the whole thing again so plainly. The man who's got saving faith asking for and seeking for certainty and assurance:

"Speak, I pray Thee, gentle Jesus,

Oh, how passing sweet Thy words,

Breathing o'er my troubled spirit

Peace which never earth affords.

All the world's distracting voices,

All its enticing terms of ill,

At Thine accents mild, melodious,

Are subdued, and all is still.

Tell me Thou art mine, O Savior,

Grant me an assurance clear;

Banish all my dark misgivings."

That is the prayer of a saving faith man for full assurance and certainty of salvation.

Now, all that, you see, arises inevitably in this wonderful definition of the Apostle Paul. The emphasis upon the heart—to what extent then is that involved? Does it mean that I must have a full assurance in my heart? It doesn't. It does mean this, though: that you've been so convicted by the truth that you've felt and seen that you're a sinner, that you're alarmed and troubled, that you see the truth about Christ and His salvation and eagerly grasp at it and cast yourself upon it and leave yourselves there. That's saving faith. It hasn't got assurance at that point, but it can have assurance.

And I'm trying to show that this very plea for it, this request for "tell me thou art mine"—it's only a man with saving faith who can offer that prayer. So we mustn't say, as the first Reformers tended to, that assurance of salvation is of the essence of saving faith. It isn't of the essence of saving faith, but saving faith should lead on to it. The balance, I think, is put quite perfectly in what I've read to you out of those two chapters of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Very well, that completes our second division of Paul's definition of saving faith and allows me this evening only to introduce the third, which I have called the proof of saving faith: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

Now then, confession with the mouth. This is the third element in saving faith, and I think in the light of what we've already been considering, it is inevitable. It needs no demonstration. It follows as the night the day. The moment you put the emphasis that the Apostle puts upon the heart, this arises inevitably. The moment you see the whole man is engaged, the moment you emphasize his understanding of his own position and of God and of the way of salvation, this then, I say, is something that must of necessity happen.

The heart cannot be engaged without its leading on to this. Now, of course, the Apostle has prepared us for this very thing already in chapter 6 and in verse 17. I made reference to it last Friday night; I do so again tonight. This is how he defines what has happened to these Romans to whom he is writing: "God be thanked," he says, "that you, who were once upon a time the servants of sin, are no longer that." Why not? "Well, because you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you."

Now, last week I was emphasizing the heart; this week I emphasize the obeyed. That is faith. The form of doctrine is delivered. The mind, enlightened by the Spirit, understands it and receives it, accepts it. It doesn't stop at that. The heart is moved, and because the heart is moved, action is taken—obedience. You have obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine delivered you. You see, it reverses the order exactly as Paul did in this ninth verse in the tenth chapter. He puts the confession before the believing. But then he puts it in the right theological order in the tenth verse where he says that it's with the heart man believes, and then confession is made with the mouth. It's because the heart believes the mouth speaks. It is out of the fullness of the heart that the mouth speaketh. That's why I say that a man who truly believes from the heart must speak. He makes his confession. It is quite inevitable.

Now, this is again something that is taught everywhere in the New Testament but that has very often been forgotten. What I'm trying to say is this: that faith is a whole and that these three elements are always involved and are always there together. And that if any one of them is absent, there's something wrong. It isn't true saving faith.

Now, that becomes important, you see, for this reason. You may have come across a teaching that puts itself to you in some such terms as these. It draws a sharp distinction between an evangelistic service and a teaching service—a sharp distinction, almost an absolute distinction—because it goes on to say this: that in an evangelistic service, all that you're really aiming for is to get people to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.

And you don't go beyond that. But then, having got them saved, you take them to a different type of meeting. And here, it's no longer evangelism; it's a deeper message now. And what you're doing in this second meeting is this: you are now trying to get them to take the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord in exactly the same way as they took him in the first meeting as their Savior.

In evangelism, it's Christ as Savior. You don't go any further. And it's a given type of message. And if you're a Christian, therefore, in an evangelistic service, you don't listen; you are praying for the unconverted. You don't listen at all. There's nothing for you in that because you are already saved. This is only to get people to take Jesus as Savior. Then you go on to the other meeting. "Now," you say, "as you took Him as your Savior, take Him now as your Lord."

Now, that to me is nothing but a complete denial of Paul's definition of saving faith in Romans 10:9 and 10. It is indeed grievous error. It is dividing the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that He cannot be divided. Saving faith is one. You cannot take Him only as your Savior. Who do you take? Well, you take the one who is Lord.

"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth"—what? "Jesus is Lord." And He's the Lord of the whole of the universe; He's the Lord of the whole of your life. You can't take Him in bits and parts and portions. And the whole of salvation, as we've seen it in the matter of God raising Him from the dead and all that is involved in that. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you do believe in Him, and if you've been convinced and convicted of your sin, and if you see that all your troubles are due to the fact that you've been a rebel and that you've sinned and that the wrath of God is upon that, you don't stop merely at being desirous of being delivered from punishment and of hell. You want to get out of sin. You want to get out of the clutches of the devil. You want to start serving God. You want to be absolutely different.

It is impossible for a man to believe in a saving sense on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior only. It's impossible because you can't believe in Him as Savior without all the rest being involved. Of course, there are degrees in this again. You can grow in your understanding. But if a man tells me that he's believed in Christ and tells me at the same time that he feels exactly as he was before and he's got no desire which is different from what he had before, and that he's no longer anxious not to sin and no new sense anxious to serve God and the Lord Jesus Christ, I say that man's not saved.

He was looking for happiness. He was looking for a bit of release and relief and deliverance. He just doesn't want to go to hell, but that's not salvation. You remember what the angel said to Joseph even before our Lord was born: "You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." Not merely save them from the punishment of them, but save them from. He came to deliver us from sin, from the dominion of Satan, the devil. He came to separate, to purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

This distinction, this division, between accepting Christ as Savior and taking Him as Lord, is utterly unscriptural. He of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. You can't divide Him. He's one. And looking at it from the experimental side or the subjective side, a man who has believed in Him from the heart is a man who will confess Him with the mouth. It's quite inevitable.

This, you see, is how you draw the distinction between the true believer and the false professor. This is how you draw the distinction between saving faith and intellectual assent. But if you make that other division, that wrong division, you've got no test at all. You've got to grant that the man who says, "I believe in Jesus, I believe," is truly saved. No, no. But these things, the Apostle takes the trouble to bring in—the heart and the confession. Why? Well, because it is a vital part of saving faith.

"God be thanked," says the Apostle. "You are no longer what you were. You were the servants of sin, but you're no longer that. What are you as Christians? You have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Let us close then for tonight by showing that he began saying this in the very first chapter in verse 5: "By whom," he says, "we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name." Obedience to the faith. And as he begins his epistle in that way, so he also ends it. The last chapter, 16, verse 26. He's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. "But now," he says, "He is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith."

With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Well, God willing, when we resume on Friday night, January the 10th, we shall continue with our consideration of this proof of saving faith which is given by means of confession. Let us pray.

O Lord our God, we come again to thank Thee for Thy Word. Oh, how we see ourselves and our proneness to wander, how ready we are to take and to subtract from Thy Word, to make things easy for ourselves. But we bless Thee that we have this Word that not only teaches us and instructs us but warns us and safeguards us from the subtle assaults of the enemy of our souls, who, appearing as an angel of light, would twist and pervert even Thy holy Word.

O God, receive our humble prayers. We thank Thee for the faith we have, but O Lord, we all pray that Thou wouldest grant us more and more that assurance clear. O God, so speak to us that we shall all give great diligence to making our calling and election sure. Thou hast provided the way to this. Grant that all Thy people, Thy dear children here gathered, may know as they've never known before the Spirit bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God.

Grant that they may know during this coming season that the one who was born of old in Bethlehem of Judea has also been born in their hearts and in their souls. Grant that we all may know of a surety a Christ within, a living Christ dwelling within us, taking up His abode within us and never leaving us.

O Lord, hear our prayer. Be with us, follow us, be with us in our homes, in our work, wherever we may have to go, whatever we may have to do. Lord, may we know that Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, and may we know the sweet intimations of Thy nearness and Thy benediction, Thy love and Thy grace. Bless, O God, Thy faithful people who long to know Thee better and to know the truth more truly. Bless them and all who are dear to them, and bless them in all their associations.

And now may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night until we meet again throughout the remainder of this our short, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage and evermore. Amen.