DTS Doctrinal Statement on Assurance of Salvation

I want to thank Dr. Andy Woods of Sugarland Bible Church for pointing this out in one of his recent sermons. Notice what he says:

See: DTS Doctrinal Statement Article XI—Assurance Slide 

These doctrines that I’m teaching – people have never heard them before because the bad doctrine is so prevalent that they think that what I’m teaching is some kind of new thing. No. if you were to go back into the 1920’s, when Dallas Seminary was founded roughly in 1929, you would see that the doctrines I’m proclaiming here were in the majority. Here is the Dallas Seminary doctrinal statement, Article 11 on the assurance of salvation. Notice what they say: 

“We believe it is the privilege, not only of some, but of all by the Spirit through faith who are born again in Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, to be assured of their salvation from the very day [look at that] they take Him to be their Savior and that this assurance is not founded upon any fancied discovery of their own worthiness or fitness, but wholly upon the testimony of God in His written Word,…” 

The Word of God is what will never lie to you; it is objectively true; like the compass in a vehicle; you can feel you are driving the right or the wrong way, but the compass is objectively true. You can feel like you are saved one day and unsaved on another day, but God’s Word is objectively true; God cannot lie; God told you are saved the moment that you trusted Christ as your Savior. You can have that assurance of salvation not getting to the end of your life wondering ‘Do you have enough good works to prove that your faith was authentic on the front end?’ But you can have that assurance of salvation from the very day, the very moment in time that you trust in Christ. Now you say, ‘Well, what about other experiences that people have, I mean, you ask your average Christian today how do you know you are saved? Well, I have a renewed interest in prayer. Well, I have a renewed interest in Bible study; I have a desire to share my faith; I didn’t have any of those desires before, but now that I’m a Christian, I have those desires, so aren’t those desires and new experiences proof that I am a Christian?’ Notice what Lewis Sperry Chafer says, “There is a normal Christian experience. There are new and blessed emotions and desires. Old things do pass away; and behold all things do become new; but all such experiences are but secondary evidences, as to the fact of salvation, in that they grow out of that positive repose of faith which is the primary evidence.” [Chafer, Salvation, p. 82 in the 1917 edition.]

I mean, having a desire to share your faith, to pray, to study the Bible – those are wonderful things that God does, but those are not the ultimate proof that you are going to heaven. Chafer calls them ‘secondary evidences.’ ‘Primary evidence’ is what? It is what God said about you. It is a promise that God made you the moment you placed your faith in Christ alone for salvation. That is how you can go to your grave with joy and courage. Because you have built your life on the promises of God, and you’re not introspectively always looking at yourself, ‘Did I have [an] up week or a down week? Am I close to God today or far away from Him?’ Those things come and go with life, and we should pay attention to those things in terms of our productivity, reward once we get to heaven, but they’re no evidence in a primary sense of whether you are going to heaven or not.[1]

This is so true, and this is why on my “Free Grace Ministries” page (on my blog) I said that I’m including Dallas Theological Seminary on this page because it was originally a Free Grace school. Unfortunately it’s not anymore, but originally it was. It was founded by Lewis Sperry Chafer, a well-know Free Grace advocate. Some might say that Lewis Sperry Chafer is the founder of Free Grace Theology, but Jesus Christ is the real founder (see Jn. 1:14-17; cf. Eph. 2:20), and then the apostle Paul who said, “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).[2] 

I also like how Chafer says that the “new and blessed emotions and desires” in the life of a Christian “are but secondary evidence, as to the fact of salvation, in that they grow out of that positive repose of faith which is the primary evidence.”[3] I made the same point a few years ago here on my blog. Commenting on an article by J. Vernon McGee on assurance titled “How You Can Have the Assurance of Salvation,” I wrote the following:

McGee goes on to list “some things that are evidence of salvation.” These evidences include a desire to obey God, reality in prayer, love for the brethren, and a consciousness of being God’s child. I agree that these things can be evidences of salvation, but I believe they are secondary evidences. They are not the main evidence of our salvation. The main evidence of our salvation is what God says in His Word: all the “great and precious promises” of God! For example, Jesus says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life, and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death unto life.” And similarly, in John 6:37 Jesus says, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” It’s important to remember that ultimately my assurance needs to be based on God’s promises, not on my performance, and not on my feelings. As Martin Luther said, “Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving, my warrant is the Word of God, naught else is worth believing.” I do believe that all Christians will bear fruit “sometime, somewhere, somehow” (as Charles Ryrie has said in his book So Great Salvation). The apostle Paul says that at the Christian's judgment (which is for reward, not salvation), “every man will have praise from God” (1 Cor. 4:5). But as I said, I believe these (i.e. fruits in the Christian life) are secondary evidences of salvation, not the primary evidence of salvation. 

We need to take our focus off ourselves and turn our eyes upon Jesus! The Bible says that we need to be “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). In the Gospels, what happened to Peter when he tried to walk on the water but took his eyes off the Lord? Peter began to sink! Likewise, when we take our eyes off Jesus we too will begin to sink into doubts and despair. The Bible says that Christ has been made unto us our righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). We have God’s Word on it, and that is where our assurance is found![4]

 

References:

[1] Andy Woods, “James 012 - Faith Without Works is Dead? Part 1” (January 13, 2021), emphasis and first brackets his (https://slbc.org/sermon/james-012-faith-without-works-is-dead-pt-1/).

[2] For more information see the article by Bob Nyberg titled “A History of Free Grace”. Note: Bob Nyberg’s article is available in the Grace Research Room on the gracelife.org website (https://www.gracelife.org/resources/grr/?id=31).

[3] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Salvation, p. 82 in the 1917 edition.

[4] Jonathan Perreault, comment under the blog post “I Never Knew You” (FGFS, July 6, 2019), Free Grace Free Speech blog, bold added (https://freegracefreespeech.blogspot.com/2019/07/i-never-knew-you.html).