September 2026
Assurance of Salvation in Scripture and the Spirit’s Witness
Feature Article
September 2026
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Although the assurance of salvation brings joy and thankfulness to Christians, the teaching that believers may know that they belong to God and have eternal life has received a mixed reception in the church. At times in the early church, and especially in the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation and thereafter, assurance of election and salvation is granted to only a few “saints,” and then only on the basis of an extrascriptural revelation that supplements the testimony of Scripture. Ordinary believers are unable to “know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error,” that they have obtained the grace of God (Council of Trent). When the Reformers, most notably Martin Luther and John Calvin, rediscovered the gospel promise of free acceptance and a right standing before God on the basis of the gracious work of Christ alone, however, they discovered the way, as Luther expressed it, to “enter paradise itself through open gates.” The theme of assurance became a central motif of their theology.
The lesson to be learned from the church’s history is that a biblical doctrine of the assurance of salvation depends on an understanding of the riches of God’s never-failing grace and mercy that are promised to believers in Christ. For this reason, one of the hallmarks of the Reformed faith is the teaching that believers may be assured of their salvation on the basis of the gospel promises in Christ, the Holy Spirit’s witness to these promises through the Word, and the fruits or evidence of God’s grace at work in the lives of those who are in Christ.
My aim in what follows is to provide a summary of the scriptural basis for the teaching that believers may be assured of their salvation. First, I will identify and summarize the teaching of key New Testament texts that describe the assurance that believers may have of their salvation. And second, I will focus on the important role of the Holy Spirit in witnessing to the believer’s adoption by grace into fellowship with God.
assurance and true faith
In the history of debates about the assurance of salvation, the question that is often posed is this: Does such assurance belong to the essence of faith, or is it a “fruit” of faith that some believers come to enjoy, though many often struggle with doubt and uncertainty? The way that the question is posed acknowledges that not all believers enjoy the assurance of their salvation to the same degree, and there may be seasons in a believer’s life when assurance seems elusive. While believers may at times doubt their salvation for various reasons, the biblical testimony clearly emphasizes that assurance belongs to true faith and is a proper response to the gospel promises in Christ.
When the Apostle Paul defends the integrity of his preaching of the gospel to the Corinthians, he reminds them that the gospel is a word of truth to which the only proper response is the “Amen” of faith:
As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. (2 Cor. 1:18–20, emphasis added)
The point of this passage for our purpose is clear. The promises of God in Christ warrant no other response than a confident faith that embraces these promises with a hearty “Amen.” The Amen of faith to God’s promises in Christ is not the Amen of a few exceptional believers. It is the proper answer to the Yes that God speaks to us in the gospel.
The author of Hebrews makes a similar point when he urges his readers to rest their confidence on God’s faithfulness to His promises:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. (Heb. 6:17–18)
Interestingly, this passage is one of the proof texts cited in the Westminster Confession of Faith to demonstrate that believers may “be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace.” This certainty does not rest on a “fallible hope” but rests on “the divine truth of the promises of salvation” (WCF 18.1–2). After affirming the finality and sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the sins of His people, the author of Hebrews also exhorts his readers to draw near to God “with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (10:22, emphasis added). The language he uses in this exhortation provides one of the most dramatic proofs in all of Scripture that believers ought to approach God with a faith that is confident of His readiness to receive them.
In the Gospels and Epistles, a number of passages expressly teach that God will keep those whom He saves in the firm grip of His persistent and steadfast love. The assurance that believers may have rests on the conviction that God’s saving purposes include His preservation of them to the end. Without this conviction, believers could not be sure of their election and salvation.
In the gospel of John, Jesus’ discourses include the promise of “eternal life” for all those who believe in Him. Those who believe unto eternal life will not come into judgment because they have “passed from death to life” (John 5:24; see 3:18). The verb used in John 5:24 is in the perfect tense, signifying a past action that has an abiding result. The gospel of John also includes passages in which Jesus promises that none of those whom the Father gives Him will be lost (6:39). None of the sheep for whom Christ lays down His life and whom the Father gives to Him will be snatched “out of [His] hand” (10:27–28).
In the New Testament Epistles, three passages offer particularly powerful testimony to the preserving grace of God whereby believers are kept in a state of grace. At the outset of his epistle to the church in Philippi, the Apostle Paul expresses his assurance “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). The literal sense of this verse is that God will bring the salvation of the Philippian believers “to its goal” (or telos) at the day of Christ’s coming to judge the living and the dead. In the opening section of his first letter, the Apostle Peter declares that the inheritance of believers is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4–5). In Hebrews 7:25, the author affirms that believers who draw near to God in faith may do so in confidence that Christ, their faithful and merciful High Priest, is able to save them “to the uttermost.” The term “uttermost” in this text means that Christ’s priestly work saves believers for all time.
Perhaps the most well-known passage on assurance of salvation is found in Romans 8:29–30. These verses begin with what is often called the golden chain of salvation. According to this passage, all those whom God foreknew and predestined to salvation are also called, justified, and glorified. All the benefits of salvation are inseparably linked and belong to all those whom God calls into fellowship with Christ through faith. Immediately after setting forth this chain, the Apostle Paul bursts forth in one of the most stirring expressions of confidence found anywhere in Scripture:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (vv. 31–35)
According to this passage, nothing can prevent God’s saving purposes from being fulfilled in the lives of those who believe. At no time (past, present, or future) and in no place (whether in heaven or on earth) could God’s good purposes with respect to the elect be frustrated. No one, not even the devil himself, can successfully bring any charge against them—not when Christ died for them and continually intercedes for them. The love of God for His own in Christ is unconquerable.
The Holy Spirit’s Witness
Next to an assurance of salvation that is founded on the promises of the gospel, the witness of the Holy Spirit, who is Himself a pledge and seal of our redemption and inheritance in Christ (Eph. 1:13–14; 4:30), is an indispensable ground for assurance. Although the Holy Spirit’s witness is variously interpreted by Reformed theologians, the Reformed confessions uniformly insist that it plays a particularly significant role in the cultivation of assurance.
In two key passages, Romans 8:15–17 and Galatians 4:6–7, the Apostle Paul identifies the witness of the Spirit to our gracious adoption in Christ as a basis for confidence before God. For our purpose, it will be enough to consider Romans 8:15–17:
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
According to Paul’s teaching in this passage, believers are assured of their adoption and its privileges because the Spirit Himself testifies together with their spirits that they are God’s children. The verb translated “bears witness with” has prompted some debate whether Paul is saying that the Spirit witnesses “to” or “with” our spirits. In the second and more likely understanding of this verb, emphasis is placed on the prefix to the verb, “the Spirit . . . bears witness with,” and it is argued that the witness of the Spirit occurs in conjunction with the witness of our spirits. Our consciousness of adoption in Christ is supported and confirmed by the Spirit’s witness. There is, accordingly, an affirmation of a double or twofold witness in Romans 8:15–16.
This double witness on the part of the Holy Spirit and our spirits is supported by an important difference in the language of Romans 8:15–16 and Galatians 4:6. In Romans 8:15–16, the Apostle Paul ascribes the cry “Abba! Father!” to the believer who expresses thereby an assurance of his adoption by grace. In Galatians 4:6, however, it is the Holy Spirit who cries out for and in us, “Abba! Father!” The same testimony is expressed in both cases, but in one it is the believer who cries out and in the other it is the Holy Spirit who cries out in the believer. On this understanding, the likely background for this double witness lies in the scriptural teaching that in a matter requiring determination of the truthfulness of testimony given, two witnesses are required (Deut. 17:6; 19:15; see 1 Tim. 5:19). Just as two witnesses in a court of law settle the truth of a matter that is disputed, so our adoption by God’s grace in Christ is settled by the witness of the Holy Spirit together with our spirits.
While it seems evident that Romans 8:15–16 affirms a double witness to our adoption, the first view nonetheless makes an important point regarding the relation that obtains between the Spirit’s witness and the witness of our spirits. Interpreters of this passage (for example, Calvin) who insist that this witness is to our spirits and not a witness with our spirits are properly motivated by a desire to resist the idea that the Spirit’s testimony merely corroborates the witness borne by our spirits. Rather than viewing the Spirit’s testimony as merely confirmatory of a testimony independently borne by our spirits, they correctly recognize that the Spirit’s witness must take precedence over the witness of our spirits, producing in its recipients a conscious awareness of their adoption. On this interpretation, the witness of our spirits to adoption is not a constitutive basis for our assurance of adoption but a reflexive acknowledgment that answers to the more preeminent and sure witness of the Holy Spirit.
Unless and until the Holy Spirit testifies to our adoption as God’s children in Christ, our assurance of salvation rests uneasily on the uncertain and tenuous ground of our experience of God’s grace. Just as the Apostle Paul teaches that the confession “Jesus is Lord” can be made only “in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3), so it would be impossible for believers to confidently embrace their adoption in Christ by faith unless the Holy Spirit moved them to do so. The cry “Abba! Father!” can be uttered only in the Spirit. Thus, whenever believers seek to come to full assurance of their adoption, they may not rest their confidence solely or first on the testimony of their conscience apart from the Spirit’s work in drawing them to embrace the gospel promise in Christ and confirming them in their adoption. They must rest their confidence before God primarily on the sure and reliable ground of the promises of the gospel and the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
In the light of the general teaching of Scripture, we should understand the witness of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8:15–16 in the way that it is beautifully put in the Heidelberg Catechism. The witness of the Spirit belongs to the powerful, life-giving operation of the Spirit that accompanies the ministry of the gospel, working in the hearts of believers to give them a firm confidence “that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These gifts are purely of grace, only because of Christ’s merit” (Q&A 21). Rather than viewing the witness of the Spirit as an “exceptional” or “occasional” experience that some believers enjoy, we must view this witness as the ordinary and normal way whereby the Spirit moves believers to embrace the gospel promises that are theirs in Christ.