Eleven Marks of True Salvation from Romans 8
Part Two (Marks of Salvation Seven through Eleven)
INTRODUCTION: As we study Scripture, the Holy Spirit illuminates to our understanding the wonder of God’s redemptive work in Christ. The Spirit elucidates the glorious fact that God has identified the believer with Christ so that He is our Representative and Substitute commending us to God so that we are accepted in Him and have life in Him.
The word of His grace, the gospel, is addressed to our faith. We are to keep ‘rolling’ the welfare of our eternal souls upon the Savior as He is offered by God in the gospel. This action of casting our eternal welfare upon the Lamb of God makes us Christ-centered. We esteem Him in love; we march under His orders and command. His purposes become our purposes. Our destiny is wrapped up in His destiny—and Christ’s destiny is heir of the world, Lord of the cosmos, and Monarch of the kingdom of God. This leads us into our next mark of salvation. We are co-heirs with Christ, and the reality of being co-heirs with Him contains ethical ramifications for our walk.
MARK 7. Those who are led by the Spirit see the reality of being a co-heir with Christ, and are therefore are willing to suffer with Christ (vv. 17-18).
The reality of our destiny wrapped up in Christ’s destiny needs to make a profound impact upon us; for it is the very goal of the universe that the glory of Christ should fill eternity and that the church should “gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 2:14). The awe-inspiring promise to believers is that they will enter a glorified state in which they will share in the very glory of Christ and will thereby reflect His glory.
Now in earthly relationships, a wife normally assumes the station in life of her husband. If he is a bush pilot, she may live in a primitive dwelling and will often accompany him in many heart-pounding take-offs and landings on short airstrips. If he is a corporate president, then his wife may live in a mansion and will entertain clients at formal gatherings.
As the body of Christ, we are joined to our heavenly Bridegroom, and His station in life is majestic Lord of the cosmos. This means that our station in life is inseparable from our status as the Church, the Bride of Christ. Our station in life (and eternity) is bound up with who Christ is; what He is doing; and what He will do next in human history.
Scripture tells us that He will usher in the Kingdom of God on earth. He will consummate the ages, and He will bring the elect to glory. Our clarity of perception concerning this glory to come undergirds our willingness to bear His reproach and suffer with Him now; for our text states that, “the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (v. 18). This means that the maturing Christian is always weighing, pondering, and considering the value of eternal over against the temporal.
Speaking of our title as ‘co-heirs’ our text states, “heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may be glorified with Him” (8:17). As those radically identified with Christ, the true children of God are willing to “bear the reproach of Christ” in the process of serving Christ (Heb 11:26; 13:13; Jn 15:18-16:3). This willingness to suffer ridicule, mockery, or actual physical suffering for the sake of Christ is evidence that we are truly heirs with Him (8:17).
As we saw in our introduction to this lesson, the Spirit has radically identified the believer with Christ—placing the believing sinner into union with Christ so that all of the benefits of Christ’s life; death; resurrection; and priesthood become the property of the saint to be utilized and enjoyed by the saint. Now this promise of being ultimately glorified with Christ (8:18, 21, 23) is precious to the believer. He gladly identifies himself with Christ’s present purposes in the world (evangelism; discipleship; the building up of the body of Christ; etc.). And, he has understood (as Christ’s own words state), “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (Jn 15:18).
This willingness to suffer ridicule, mockery, or actual physical suffering for the sake of Christ is evidence that we are truly heirs with Him (8:17). Those willing to suffer with Christ have seen by faith the infinite privilege of knowing Christ (Phil 3:8ff.). They have assessed the priceless weight of the glory to come. This is because salvation imparts both spiritual sight (vision), and spiritual savor (taste). Those who know the Lord can see past the world’s temporal values to the eternal wealth of the Kingdom of God (8:18ff.). This infinite treasure to come informs their present values and resolve.
Diagnostic: those who are led by the Spirit do so much more than maintain a set of high ethical standards; they see the eternal value of reigning with Christ; they have counted all things as loss compared to the privilege of knowing Christ. But, those who are “according to the flesh” and not the Spirit, will ultimately show themselves to be enemies of the cross of Christ because their core values are temporal and not eternal (Phil 3:18-19). By contrast, those who are led by the Spirit have consolidated their hope in the their heavenly citizenship in Christ (1 Pet 1:13; Phil 3:20ff.; 1 Jn 3:1-3). The true believer has ‘made his peace’ with the privilege of suffering with Christ. The saint can say along with Paul that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12).
MARK 8. Those who are led by the Spirit are eagerly awaiting Christ’s
return (vv.23-25).
The true child of God is intimately aware of his daily battle with indwelling corruption. Therefore he longs to be rid of sin and to be with Christ in glory. “With perseverance we wait eagerly” for our final redemption (8:25)—for our resurrection bodies! Now in the mean time the genuine believer ‘groans’ in his present state of imperfect sanctification, and his present state of weakness and decay and corruption. That means that the child of God has fixed his hope completely on the grace to be revealed at the coming of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:13).
The genuine believer is not trying to make a heaven out of this present life!—the child of God has his hope fixed upon Christ, and, because the believer is so aware of daily warfare with his own flesh—he looks eagerly for the day when he may put his weapons down and enjoy his Savior in perfect holiness.
The Apostle describes the entire creation as ‘groaning’ under the curse. But let us remember that this bondage of decay was the judicial act of God in judging the creation because of Adam’s sin. Paul’s use of personification here (the inanimate portion of creation ‘groaning’) alludes to the condition of a deteriorating universe as well as nature red in tooth and claw groaning under the bondage of suffering and decay. The creation, says Paul, was subjected to futility. In other words, the wearying cycles of death, disease, decay, and corruption seem to be futile and pointless.
The good news is that the creation was subjected in hope, states Paul—that is with a view to the ultimate deliverance of the universe from bondage and decay. The creation’s bondage to decay and corruption will someday be lifted. Pain, corruption, suffering, and entropy itself will be removed when Christ makes all things new. But what is thrilling is that the creation’s coming liberation from slavery to corruption is linked to the public presentation of the sons of God.
Paul continues using personification describing the entire creation as ‘longing for’ the revealing of the sons of God (v. 19). Wonder of wonders, in the plan of God, the liberation of the creation from corruption is synchronized with the glorification of the saints and their revelation to the watching universe (the holy angels). This means that the creation cannot be set free until we are glorified and revealed publicly with Christ. Our revealing as the glorified sons of God, freed from corruption, indwelling sin, death, and decay is the event which signals the deliverance of the whole creation.
Notice our text says that those led by the Spirit are eagerly awaiting Christ’s return with “perseverance” (8:25). This is an important part of the mark of salvation—the reason why centers upon the content of Christ’s parable of the soils; for Christ indicates that every false believer is a ‘temporary’ believer (Matt 13:18-23). False believers initially hear the gospel with gladness—but when persecution, suffering, and the cares and desires of this life press in upon them they fall away from their profession of faith—proving that they were never born again. By contrast, the child of God perseveres and keeps renewing his hope by fresh acts of faith in God’s promises (1 Jn 3:3).
Diagnostic: those who are led by the Spirit manifest Spirit-engendered perseverance. They do not fall away; they do not ‘cool off’ to the point of caring little for Christ’s return. Instead they are controlled by hope in Christ’s return and the promise of the liberty of the sons of God (8:21). Therefore they are diligent to abide in Christ (1 Jn 2:28). By contrast, the false believer has only a bare statistical hope, “I hope things work out spiritually at the end of my life.” This is not a Spirit-produced hope—for the hope produced by the Spirit takes our emotions; affections; and spiritual disciplines ‘captive’ so that we demonstrate stamina, endurance, and perseverance in our loyalty to Christ and our following Him in love and obedience.
MARK 9. Those who are led by the Spirit are those who pray ‘in the Spirit’— that is, they manifest dependency upon the Spirit—they are ever aware that the Spirit’s ministry is needed by them to assist them in their petitions to their Heavenly Father (vv. 26-30).
This awareness of the Spirit’s assistance in our prayers is something the true saint experiences. Our prayers are not conducted from the perspective of a ‘shopping list’ which we read off in prayer, hoping that the Lord honors. No, our prayers are touched with a deep transparency —they reflect our weaknesses and ignorance of what we really need from God and they show our continual need for wisdom and guidance (8:26). Therefore the true child of God does NOT pray in order to spend his request on his pleasures (James 4:3)—no, instead he ‘prays in the Spirit’ (Jude 20). The person led by the Spirit is thus aware of both his own weakness and ignorance; but also the Spirit’s enablement. The Spirit knows the mind of God and therefore the Spirit “intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (8:27).
This of course is connected to the fact that the overarching will of God for every child of God is ultimate conformity to the Son of God (8:29). Someday the true child of God will share Christ’s moral perfection in glory. It is toward this end that the Father is working. This is needed to place Romans 8:28 into its proper context. So often Romans 8:28 is quoted out of context—as if the “all things working together for good” are no more than what we would designate our personal welfare in this life. But, Romans 8:29 defines the ‘good’ toward which all things are working. The ‘good’ is God’s purpose to ultimately conform us to Christ (8:28-29). “Working all things together for good” refers to the infinite ability of God to weave every blessing, failure, loss, and cross His child experiences into the fulfillment of His plan to make the elect like Christ. This is all in order that in glory the Son “might be the First-born among many brethren” (8:29).
Puritan pastors were always exhorting their parishioners to ‘improve their situation’ spiritually. By utilizing the term ‘improve’ the pastors intended that their hearers would understand that God has boundless power and wisdom enabling Him to lose none of the benefit of any situation. Thus, to ‘improve’ means to think and act biblically; for every cross, loss, blessings, honor, dishonor, humbling, or promotion can be used by God to advance the believer’s sanctification.
God wastes nothing. He does not waste a single tear that is shed, or sigh, or moment of grief in His beloved children, but causes all things to work together for good. Now the growing saint has learned to think in this manner—he understands that God is relentless in His purpose to make us like Christ. For we see in our text that the good toward which all things are working (for those who love God) is the likeness of Christ (v. 29). The end goal is as follows, in glory God will have formed a new humanity around His eternal Son—a new humanity which reflects His own moral perfections. Then, Christ will be with ‘His brethren’ in a kind of fellowship which produces overflowing endless joy and glory to God.
Diagnostic: again this mark of salvation is addressing spiritual sight. The true believer is able to see past temporal issues of personal welfare to the ultimate goal and purpose of the Father—which is to make the elect like Christ. As a consequence, the true believer prays with a radical dependency on the Spirit—acknowledging that he needs the Spirit’s intercession because he does not know how to pray as he ought to pray. Eternal values are in view here. The Spirit-led person knows that the Spirit works through our groaning, longing, and yearning and always chooses for us what is best in light of eternity—the Father’s will to make us like Christ. These eternal values are made manifest in the true child of God. By contrast the false believer prays for personal welfare for himself and for others—but never with a view to producing ultimate conformity to Christ in holiness.
MARK 10. Those who are led by the Spirit depend upon Christ, their Advocate, to silence any charge of condemnation against them (vv. 31-34).
One of the most telling marks of the true child of God is how he or she does the ‘book keeping’ of conscience. The true child of God sees by faith (through the Word) that his heavenly High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father interceding on behalf of the saints (8:33-34).
Christ silences the charge of legal guilt against His people—and He does so by pleading the merits of His own blood which satisfied the trampled justice of divine law. Christ ever lives to make intercession for His people—thus is able to save them to the uttermost (Heb 7:25).
Christ brings the charges of the accuser to nothing—for no charge can ‘stick’ to God’s people because Christ, by His work, has nailed that accusatory document to His own cross and paid for those charges with His own life blood (Col 2:13-14). The people of God are set in contrast to those who do not know God in the following way: true believers take refuge in God and in doing so they reject all false places of refuge (Ps 118:6-9). We honor God when we freely admit that nothing is able to bring the accusations of conscience to a full stop except that which ultimately satisfies God’s unbending justice. And Christ’s death alone has satisfied the just wrath of God against our transgressions.
The saint speaks to his own heart about the matchless benefits of Christ’s atoning work. He brings the work of Christ to his recriminating conscience and reasons with himself saying, “At Calvary, real objective justice has been accomplished in the case of my sins. Therefore, I will rest in my Savior’s promise of complete pardon for God Almighty is satisfied with Christ’s death for me.”
Now, unlike the true Christian, the false believer sees conscience as a kind of two-sided scale in which good deeds and religious exercises are weighed against misdeeds and transgressions. The unbeliever attempts to bring peace to the conscience by carnal means and not by the atonement. Unlike the unbeliever, the Christian keeps exercising gospel faith—perceiving that his heavenly Advocate is successfully pleading the merits of His blood on the believer’s behalf.
Diagnostic: we have seen that the false believer looks to some other method to balance his conscience. He may plead his giving; church attendance; moral life; or personal reformation. He assumes that these activities, along with his sincerity, will offset any guilt and thus ‘balance the books’ of conscience. But since he is actually a stranger to the blood of Christ, he does not have the gospel on the throne of conscience. His arguments against guilt do not flow from the sufficiency of Christ’s work and the constancy of Christ’s advocacy as High Priest. By contrast, the true child of God applies gospel ‘logic’ to the rumblings of conscience. The true child of God finds that the indwelling Spirit never tires of pointing to the blood of Christ as the foundation for freedom from guilt. Therefore, because he is led by the Spirit, the true child of God ‘runs’ to the atonement yet again every time he fails (1 Jn 1:9).
MARK 11. Those who are led by the Spirit are controlled by Christ’s love—
Christ’s love is the animating principle in their lives (vv. 35-39).
Those led by the Spirit are convinced, along with the Apostle Paul, that nothing can separate them from the love of Christ. In every hostile circumstance, the child of God has the assurance that he possesses Christ’s victory. We “overwhelming conquer through Him who loved us” (8:37). At the moment of salvation, the Spirit places the believer into real, living, abiding, organic union with Christ. This means that all that Christ has won by His perfect life, cross-work, and resurrection has become ours—we literally are now participants in His victory. We face every trial from the safety of the blood-bought privileges of the new covenant. We have the assurance that Christ’s love will not let us go—the work He began in; He will complete (Phil 1:6). Now this cognizance of the love of Christ is not merely for our unbroken peace, joy, hope, and comfort. Christ’s love to us puts in us a backbone of steel. His love controls and animates us (2 Cor 5:14-15). His love makes us willing to take up our cross daily—denying ourselves. His love moves and enables us to practice sacrificial service to our Lord.
Christ’s love is a determinate resolute love which made Him willing to lose all well-being for the sake of His own. Christ’s love is active—He assumed our mortal form in order to export His love to us and to bring us from polluted dust to sinless glory. The Lord will bring the redeemed, the objects of His eternal love, to God their true home.
Now our attempts to comprehend Christ’s particular love for His own will not rise above remote abstraction and bare sentimentalism apart from the work of God’s Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the great Testifier. He convinces us of the undeniable truth of spiritual realities. He makes this ‘other worldly’ love of Christ real to us (1 Cor 2:12-13; 15-16). He causes Christ’s love to be shed abroad in our hearts (Rom 5:5).
Diagnostic: the saint’s trials and deprivations are not the compass by which he navigates. Instead he navigates by the love of Christ—no matter how deep the waters are through which he is sailing. The love of Christ, by means of the cross has produced real changes in the child of God. Those changes are massive and immense. The cross of Christ has caused the child of God to no longer live for self; but for Him who died and rose on his behalf (2 Cor 5:15). This animating love in Christ which caused our Savior to be betrayed for us is the object of our faith. Paul said that his daily faith was fixed upon Christ’s ‘Gethsemane’ love for him (Gal 2:20). This animating love controls the child of God—making him willing live as Christ’s ‘slave’ and disciple (2 Cor 5:14-15).
Now, by contrast, the false believer’s concept of Christ’s love never rises above bare sentimentalism. The false believer’s concept of Christ’s love is a bare benevolent wish. But, the love of Christ, as apprehended by the saint, is able to ‘see’ a love so vast that it controls his life—and through the cross of Christ makes the child of God a willing disciple who denies himself and follows Christ.
CONCLUSION:
The eleven marks of being led by the Spirit which are described above are produced by the Spirit of God. A person without evidence of these marks has no reason to believe that he is led by the Spirit. These marks give a multi-dimensional portrait of the believer’s faith in day to day action. If these marks sound too idealistic for us, perhaps it is symptomatic of the fact that Evangelicalism today has set the bar quite low. Is the behavior of the average church member set by the standard of the Word of God? How far can we drift from the scriptural description of a true Christian and still be safe and secure? These eleven marks are not reserved for pastors and missionaries. These marks are NORMATIVE for the Christian life. A true believer is one who is led by the Spirit—and these eleven marks describe how the Spirit leads the true believer in his daily walk.
Now our sanctification is imperfect—but we ought to know what it is that the Spirit seeks to produce in our lives as a direction and course. The better acquainted we are with the Spirit’s direction for us (as outlined in Romans 8); the better able we will be to take personal inventory and then submit to his will, aligning ourselves with His perfect purposes for us. These eleven marks provide an incredibly useful tool for us to exhort, admonish (nouthetically’ counsel one another) and instruct one another, and thereby stimulate one another to maturity and to love and good deeds (Col 1:28-29; Heb 10:22-25).