They can encourage me to repent, believe, obey, and can assure me that, if I do, He will accept me, and I shall be saved; but beyond that they cannot go.
3. My own heart, owing to its darkness and deceitfulness and liability to error, is not a safe witness previous to the assurance God Himself gives. If my neighbour is justly offended with me, it is not my own heart, but his testimony that first assures me of his favour once more.
How, then, shall I know that I am justified or wholly sanctified? There is but one way, and that is by the witness of the Holy Spirit. God must notify me, and make me to know it; and this He does, when, despairing of my own works of righteousness, I cast my poor soul fully and in faith upon Jesus. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,” says Paul, “but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans viii. 15, 16). “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. iv. 6). Unless He Himself assures me, I shall never know that He accepts me, but must continue in uncertainty all my days.
“Come, Holy Ghost, Thyself impress
On my expanding heart:
And show that in the Father’s grace
I share a filial part.”
The General says: “Assurance is produced by the revelation of forgiveness and acceptance made by God Himself directly to the soul. This is the witness of the Spirit. It is God testifying in my soul that He has loved me, and given Himself for me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood. Nothing short of this actual revelation, made by God Himself, can make anyone sure of salvation.”
John Wesley says: “By the testimony of the Spirit, I mean an inward impression of the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that ‘Jesus hath loved me, and given Himself for me’; that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.”
This witness of the Spirit addressed to my consciousness enables me to sing with joyful assurance:—
“My God is reconciled;
His pardoning voice I hear:
He owns me for His child;
I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And, ‘Father, Abba, Father,’ cry.”
When the Holy Spirit witnesses to me that I am saved and adopted into God’s family as His child, then other evidences begin to abound also. For instance:—
1. My own spirit witnesses that I am a new creature. I know that old things have passed away, and all things have become new. My very thoughts and desires have been changed. Love and joy and peace reign within me. My heart no longer condemns me. Pride and selfishness, and lust and temper, no longer control my thoughts nor lead captive my will. I am a new creature, and I know it, and I infer without doubt that this is the work of God in me.