Perseverance and Assurance
Understand why true believers cannot finally fall from grace, and on what grounds and by what means they may attain assurance of their salvation.
The Standards close their account of the application of redemption with two great comforts: that those whom God has saved he will keep to the end, and that they may come to know it. Perseverance secures the believer's salvation; assurance lets him rest in it.
The perseverance of the saints
The Standards teach that true believers can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere to the end. Crucially, they ground this not in the believer's own strength or steadfastness, but in God: in his unchangeable love, his decree and covenant to give perseverance, the believer's inseparable union with Christ, Christ's continual intercession, and the Spirit and seed of God abiding within.
This does not mean believers cannot fall into grievous sins, grieve the Spirit, and forfeit their comfort for a season. The Standards are realistic about such falls. But because their preservation rests on God's faithfulness and not their own, even their failures cannot finally undo what grace has begun.
The possibility and grounds of assurance
Against the view that no one can know they are saved, the Standards affirm that such as truly believe and endeavour to walk in good conscience may, without extraordinary revelation, be infallibly assured that they are in the state of grace. This certainty is no presumption but is built on solid ground: the truth of God's promises, the inward evidence of the graces to which those promises are made, and the testimony of the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God.
Assurance rests, then, on a threefold foundation. It begins with God's promise, looks for the marks of grace in the life, and is sealed by the Spirit. Each support holds up the others, so that assurance is neither mere feeling nor cold inference but a settled confidence grounded in God.
Assurance not of the essence of faith
The Standards make a pastoral distinction: assurance does not belong to the essence of faith, so that a believer may truly possess Christ long before he is sure of it. Assurance may be obtained slowly, and once enjoyed may be weakened, intermitted, or for a time lost through sin, temptation, or the withdrawing of God's countenance.
Yet the believer is never left wholly without that seed of God and life of faith from which assurance may in due time be revived. The Standards thus comfort the doubting without flattering the careless, urging all to make their calling and election sure by diligence in the means of grace.
Study the full text, Scripture proofs, and commentary on each:
- Read WLC 79 and list each ground on which the Standards rest the believer's perseverance.
- Study WCF Ch. 18 and identify the three foundations of assurance it sets out.
- Reflect on WLC 81: how do the Standards comfort believers who lack assurance without encouraging spiritual carelessness?
See how this doctrine is stated across the Reformed confessions side by side.
Perseverance and Assurance →