Sovereign Grace as the Only Rational Basis for Assurance

"Let your souls be filled and enlarged with everlasting admirings [sic] of that grace (that sovereign grace) which has so impregnably secured the salvation of His chosen, that no manner of thing, whether within them or without them, shall be able to defeat it or hinder them of it. No, not the gates of hell. Nay, not so much as one of the stakes thereof shall be removed, and that forever. Shaken you may be, and tossed with a tempest, but not overturned, because ye have an eternal root. Electing love is of that sovereignty that it rules and overrules all, both in heaven and in earth." -Puritan Elisha Coles, "A Practical Discourse of God's Sovereignty" 

In this paragraph, Coles paraphrases and summarizes several passages of Scripture, primary of which is Romans 8:38-39: "I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present

nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

The point of both Apostle Paul and Coles is that the assurance of the Christian is secure, not because of the power of the believer to maintain his spiritual condition, but because he is sustained by the same sovereign grace which saved him in the beginning. For, as Paul also says, "I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6: see also 2:13). 

Does any Christian believe that God is unaware of our weakness, of our frailty, of the strength of the opposition (I Peter 5:8)? If He weren't, then we could have no rational basis for our assurance of eternal life. When Satan assails us with accusations of our unworthiness, he merely throws in our faces what is absolutely correct! However, Satan will never go to the next step, telling us of the grace and power of God the Son, our Redeemer Jesus Christ, because that would defeat all of Satan's designs against us. It is only in the Word of God that we are blessed with this promise: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand" (John 10:27-29, emphasis added). Our security is assured, not by any strength that we have, for we have none. Rather, it is guaranteed by the strength of the One who holds us.