Does faith as the instrument in our justification undermine assurance?
Photo from Unsplash I am a Primitive Baptist pastor. Unfortunately, one of the things that many of them believe today is that gospel faith has no bearing whatsoever on eternal salvation. It is unfortunate because this is the repeated and universal witness of the New Testament (see, for example, Mark 16:16; John 3:16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:47; Acts 10:43; 13:38-39; 16:31; Romans 1:16-18; 3:28; 5:1; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8; 1 John 5:1; 5:11-13). It grieves me that they are adamant in their denial of this foundational Biblical doctrine. I want to state categorically that I do not share this mistaken belief. Though I believe that many of these brethren are brethren - they are brothers and sisters in Christ - they are very wrong in holding what I believe to be a dangerous and unscriptural position. It also grieves me when I hear the silly arguments that they throw up in order to give an appearance of Biblical faithfulness to their position. It is interesting to me t...
