SALVATION-GENUINE
Obedience is
the evidence of faith that alone unites us to Christ who is our justifying
righteousness.
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, Bethlehem
Baptist Church, 2002, p. 110.
The necessary result of God’s saving work is a
transformed person. When a soul is redeemed, Christ gives a new heart (cf.
Ezekiel 36:26). Implicit in that change of heart is a new set of desires – a
desire to please God, to obey, and to reflect His righteousness. If such a
change does not occur, there is no reason to think genuine salvation has taken
place.
John MacArthur
The Gospel According to Jesus, © John MacArthur, 1988, p. 96.
A righteous
identity must issue in righteousness behavior. Such behavior is the outward
manifestation of the inward transformation, and it is the only sure proof that
such transformation has taken place.
John MacArthur
Perseverance
attests to God’s approval, for it gives evidence of eternal life (salvation).
In other words, perseverance does not result in salvation and eternal life, but
is itself the result and evidence of salvation and eternal life.
John MacArthur
James,
Moody Publishers, 1998, p. 43.
Faith and
obedience are inescapably related. There is no saving faith in God apart from
obedience to God, and there can be no godly obedience without godly faith.
John MacArthur
Romans
1-8, Moody, 1991, p. 346.
Salvation is
not verified by a past act, but by present fruitfulness.
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 70.
It is greatly
to be feared that there are multitudes in Christendom who verily imagine and
sincerely believe that they are among the saved, yet who are
total strangers to a work of divine grace in their hearts. It is one thing to have clear intellectual
conceptions of God's truth, it is quite another matter
to have a personal, real heart acquaintance with it. It is one thing to believe that sin is the
awful thing that the Bible says it is, but it is quite another matter to have a
holy horror and hatred of it in the soul.
It is one thing to know that God requires repentance,
it is quite another matter to experimentally mourn and groan over our
vileness. It is one thing to believe
that Christ is the only Savior for sinners, it is
quite another matter to really trust Him from the heart. It is one thing to believe that Christ is the
sum of all excellency', it is quite another matter to
LOVE HIM above all others. It is one
thing to believe that God is the great and holy One,
it is quite another matter to truly reverence and fear Him. It is one thing to believe that salvation is
of the Lord, it is quite another matter to become an actual partaker of it
through His gracious workings.
A.W. Pink
7 Signs of
True Saving Faith:
Faith in
Christ's sufficient work on the cross
Signs and
evidence of true biblical repentance
Deliberate
turn from a life enslaved to sin to embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior
Desire/joy to
follow God's Word-(obeying God's law from the heart)
Bearing fruit
(attitude [fruit of the Spirit] and action [good works])-Continual working out
our salvation
Desire to
live for God's glory
Christlike
desires and emotions
Mark Talbot
The Signs of True
Conversion, Crossway Books, 2000.
American
Christianity tends toward a kind of "easy-believism." The Gospel is often presented in a way that
suggests that someone is saved as soon as he or she has "accepted"
Jesus as Savior, even if that "acceptance" never manifests itself in
the emotional and volitional recentering of the
person's entire life. But this is actually
the paradigm of the sort of dead and fruitless faith that the whole New
Testament condemns.
Mark Talbot
The Signs of True Conversion,
Crossway Books, 2000, p. 28.
Another proof
of the conquest of a soul for Christ will be found in a real change of life. If
the man does not live differently from what he did before, both at home and
abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of and his conversion is a fiction.
C.H. Spurgeon
This truth of
God must be loved, must be embraced, and must be yielded to if the person who
has saving knowledge is to be saved by it. One theologian has written that it
is not enough to “understand” but you must also “stand under.”
John H. Gerstner
Theology for Everyman, Moody, 1965, Chapter 1.
No repentance, no belief, no confirming godliness – which adds up to
no salvation.
Paul Alexander
Altar Call Evangelism, ©9Marks. Website: www.9Marks.org. Email:
info@9marks.org. Toll Free: (888) 543-1030.
Sin forsaken
is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.
J.C. Ryle
It is evident
that our conversion is sound when we loathe and hate sin from the heart.
Richard Sibbes
Now believing
is nothing else but the accepting of Christ for thy Lord and Saviour as He is
offered to thee in the gospel; and this accepting is principally, if not only,
the act of thy will; so that if thou art sincerely and cordially willing to
have Christ upon His own terms, upon gospel terms, that is, to save thee and
rule thee, to redeem thee and to reign over thee,
then thou art a believer.
Thomas Brooks
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner
of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 252.