◄ Defective Beginning ►

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24).

Are we aware of the importance of a personal assurance of salvation? Healthy spiritual growth is founded upon it. Many Christians seem unable to enter Romans Six and Eight simply because they are not truly established in Romans Three, Four and Five. Full assurance as to our eternal security in the Lord Jesus is the basis for the ever-deepening experience of our identification with Him.

"The defect in souls in general is the incompleteness of their conversion. It is pardon that is apprehended and not acceptance. Acceptance embraces God's side - how He feels, and this should be chief, for we as sinners have offended Him. The offender has been removed from His eye by a Man - the Lord Jesus Christ, and He can receive us on the ground of the Man who glorified Him in bearing our judgment.

"We cannot enjoy acceptance but in the way in which it was acquired or effected for us, and if we are in the acceptance we know that no improvement of the flesh could commend us to God, and that we cannot be before Him but in Christ. But if we are in any degree dark as to the crucifixion of the old man, we are not in acceptance experientially, we are not in the daily benefit of it, and our liberty by the Spirit can never go beyond our conscious acceptance." -J.B.S.

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2).