웨스트민스터 신앙고백서와 구원의 확신

Westminster Confession and the Assurance of Salvation

The assurance of salvation has a complex character. The assurance of salvation not only belongs to the essence of faith, but also it is the fruit of faith. And the subjective foundation for the assurance of salvation is both the life of sanctification by the practical syllogism and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Calvin has emphasized that the assurance of salvation belongs to the essence of faith, while acknowledged that the assurance and the doubt coexist with each other. The composers of Westminster Confession(Puritans) have accepted Calvin's fundamental position that the assurance is the constituent parts of faith, but they have insisted that the full assurance is not the essence of faith but the fruit of faith. Jonathan Edwards and John Murray show the similar opinion on this point. The assurance concept implies a subjective and conscious action in the heart of saints. In this sense the assurance is a subjective thing. Therefore when we talk about the objective foundation and the subjective foundation of assurance, we think they point to the subjective assurance arisen from the objective foundation and the subjective assurance from the subjective foundation. The objective foundation of assurance is the divine truth of the promise of salvation revealed in the Scripture, and the subjective foundation of salvation is the internal witness of grace appeared in the soul of saints and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Seizing and appropriating the promise of salvation written in the Scripture is the saving faith. From this saving faith the assurance is sprung up. And then the believers who have a saving faith lives a life of sanctification and experiences the witness of the Holy Spirit in the sanctified life. Being assured of saints' own salvation on the basis of the status of this grace is that the assurance arisen from the subjective foundation. So the assurance arisen from the objective foundation can be said to be the fruit or effect of faith. Therefore explicitly the objective foundation of assurance is the more important. Yet The subjective foundation is not of little value. If one looks at only oneself, his/her faith is easily shaken. On th contrary if one doesn't look at oneself, his/her faith is likely to be lifeless or superficial. Nevertheless as the objective foundation is the more important, we look at ourselves one time while Christ ten times.