Why Holiness Churches Lack Assurance

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If you’re in a Pentecostal or Holiness church, or if you’ve recently come out of one, you probably struggle with assurance of salvation. Why? Lyle Lange, a Lutheran theologian, explains:   The “holiness bodies” (such as Pentecostal, Church of the Nazarene, Church of God) look to special manifestations of the Spirit’s work in their lives to assure them of salvation.
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Sin-Based Assurance?

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“I used to have a struggle with sin, but not anymore,” the man said.  We were talking about assurance.  He was explaining that his past struggles with addictive substances had caused him to doubt his salvation. How could he be saved if he was getting drunk all the time? But since he had overcome drunkenness, doubts about his assurance had settled down. He
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Look Only at the Lord (Matthew 14:30)

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I have a devotional by Watchman Nee called The Lord Is My Portion. In the reading for January 22nd, Nee meditates on Matt 14:30, which reads:  But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”  Nee makes this comment:  In walking upon the water Peter
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Evangelical Leaders Who Deny Certainty of Salvation

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Dr. John Niemelä called today and asked me if I had a list of quotes from Evangelicals who deny absolute assurance. Well, I didn’t have the list, but I did have many such quotes. So, I’ve pulled them together for this blog.   Robert Peterson: Protestants do not claim the ‘absolute’ certainty that Rome rejects.
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Are You Cross Wise?

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There has been confusion for twenty years now concerning what Zane Hodges wrote about the cross and resurrection. In 1999 at our national conference, he delivered two messages on how to lead a person to Christ. In those messages he said that believing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose bodily from the dead does not mean that
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Assurance Is the Essence of Saving Faith

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We’ve written on this before. See here for a 1997 article by Zane Hodges. And here is a 2017 article by Shawn Lazar. Here is a 2008 article by me. Here is my recent review of a booklet which argues that assurance is of the essence.   So why look at this issue again?  Today I ran across a quote from Louis Berkhof, the premier Reformed theologian, concerning this issue.
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