Assurance of Salvation: Hoping in What God Has Already Guaranteed

When I hope for the resurrection of the dead, for the consummation of all things, and for entrance into eternal glory, I am not hoping for something uncertain. I am hoping for something that God has already guaranteed through his election and his promise. There is also a relational dimension in the assurance of salvation. Calvin understands that certainty is not merely intellectual or juridical. It is relational. When I know that God loved me with an eternal love, when I understand that he chose me before time itself to be his child, my relationship with God is transformed. I no longer serve God as a slave, fears his master. I serve as a son who loves his father, confident in paternal acceptance and favor. Assurance also affects prayer life. The believer assured of his salvation, prays not as one trying to persuade a reluctant God to listen, but as a child approaching his father, confident of being heard. Prayer becomes an act of intimacy and communion, not of desperate anxiety. Calvin recognizes that there will be moments when the believer doubts his election. Emotions fluctuate, circumstances change, sin assaults us and leaves us in despair. But in such moments, Calvin exhorts us to hold firm to the objective truth of election, even when our subjective emotions contradict it. Election does not depend on how we feel. It depends on God’s eternal and immutable decree. Therefore, even in moments of spiritual weakness, I can affirm that I’m loved by God because God has so determined.