Christians have been singing Fanny Crosby’s famous lyrics for almost 140 years, and the words still bring smiles to faces and joy to hearts. It is wonderful that believers can know that “Jesus is mine.” That truth also means believers are His.
In Romans 8:15–17, the apostle Paul declared that those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord receive “the Spirit of sonship.” Believers are part of God’s family. That is why they cry out to God as “Abba, Father.” As children of God, they are “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”
This assurance becomes the believer’s shelter amid the storms of life that strike every human being. The Christian does not live with a spirit of fear but with the Spirit of God because he or she is a child of God.
When Paul asked the rhetorical question “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ,” his response was “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).
For some Christians, accepting this blessed assurance is difficult. Evidently it has been since the dawn of Christianity. The apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
John wanted believers to “know” they are children of God. In addition to stating that as a purpose of the letter, he twice more emphasized that point. In 1 John 3:24b, he wrote, “And this is how we know that He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us.” In 1 John 4:13, he wrote, “We know that we live in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.”
Both Paul and John celebrated the believer’s blessed assurance. And for both, this blessed assurance was directly tied to the presence of God’s Spirit in his or her life. After all, it was the Holy Spirit’s work that first brought him or her to repentance.
Jesus said of the Spirit, “He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin because men do not believe in me” (John 16:8–9). Without the Spirit’s work, one can never be convicted of sin and until one is convicted of sin, one will never turn to Jesus’ atoning death on the cross for forgiveness and salvation.
Conviction of sin is only the beginning of the Spirit’s work in the believer’s life, however. Paul taught that those made alive by the Holy Spirit should continue to walk in the Spirit’s power and presence (Gal. 5:25). That is why Jesus referred to the Spirit as “Paraclete” — one who walks alongside. From the first twinges of guilt for sin through repentance and faith all the way to the resurrection, the believer lives in the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
Again Paul: “We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the adoption as sons, the resurrection of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). The Spirit’s power and presence are present possessions in believers’ lives as “first fruits” of an expected harvest to come.
Resurrection is much more, Paul wrote, but believers have a foretaste of what is to come by walking in the Spirit’s power and presence in this life.
Ephesians 1:13–14 use two other images to convey the same principle. Verse 13 says Christians have been “marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” A seal was used on ancient documents to assure validity. It was a way of guaranteeing articles’ genuineness. Paul wrote that God’s “seal” on believers is the Spirit’s power and presence.
Verse 14 uses the image of a down payment. There the Spirit is described as a “down payment, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.” All of the Spirit’s work in one’s life is a down payment or the first installment in anticipation of him or her being gathered as God’s possession.
Even the resurrection will be the work of God’s Spirit. Romans 8:11 declares, “And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.”
Again, because God’s Spirit — the first fruit, the seal, the down payment — lives in the believer, the Spirit will raise him or her to new life just as Jesus was raised from the dead. This is the blessed assurance the Bible offers every believer.
The call to live in God’s Spirit is meant to change the believer. The old self’s sinful nature is “put to death” as God’s love results in a nature attune with His Spirit. Paul outlined this as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23). These are qualities of life expected as part of the harvest of living in the Spirit. Baptists frequently call this “growing in grace.”
John also called for change in the lives of those who have blessed assurance. In 1 John 3:1, he observed, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. And this is what we are.” That reality caused the apostle to urge his readers to “love one another for love comes from God.” He said, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7–8).
Paul emphasized loving God allows His Spirit to change believers’ very nature. John called for letting God’s Spirit lead believers to love their neighbor as they love themselves. The two conclusions sound like what Jesus called the greatest commandments (Matt. 22:37). And on this kind of living in God’s Spirit rests Christians’ blessed assurance about which we so happily sing.
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