Over the last few weeks, we have been working our way through the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. It’s a wonderful exposition and summary of scripture regarding the hope that we have in Christ. We’ve seen that we belong to Jesus. Jesus paid for my sins with his precious blood. He works all things in my life together for my salvation.
As if that wasn’t enough, he gives us this blessed assurance:
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Here, helped by Romans 8:14-16, we can see two gifts:
- The Holy Spirit gives us assurance
- The Holy Spirit makes us willing and ready to live for Jesus
A common objection to receiving Jesus is the idea that it’s just following rules and giving up what you don’t want to give up. That is very much to put the cart before the horse or to forgo the horse altogether.
What we find in Scripture is that coming to Jesus means being freed. It means that we are made able to choose good. This does not come easy. Paul himself writes that it is by the Spirit that we cry, “Abba! Father!” We would not cry out to him if it was easy.
But we have this blessed assurance by God’s grace that, if we have trusted in Christ alone for salvation, we belong to him with body and soul, both in life and death. We have assurance that he has paid fully for all our sins with his precious blood, and has set us free from all the power of the devil. We can know that he also preserves us in such a way that not a hair can fall from our heads; indeed, all things must work together for our salvation.1
Coming up
- Accessed from Heidelberg Catechism. ↩