Assurance

The second message on unconditional election answers the four most common objections to the doctrine and traces its practical influence. The objections — it is not just, it is not fair, it kills personal concern and effort for salvation, and it makes evangelistic passion unnecessary — are answered primarily from Romans 9, with appeals to the life and labors of Christ, Paul, Whitefield, and Spurgeon. Pastor Martin concludes by showing that rightly received, the doctrine impels gratitude, engenders stability, constrains confidence, motivates faithfulness, humbles in the face of usefulness, and drives us to self-examination.

Pastor Martin turns from Christ's earthly priestly work to examine His continuous heavenly ministry of intercession. He establishes the fact from Hebrews 7:25, Romans 8:34, and Isaiah 53:12, then explains the nature of intercession both by the word used (interposing between two parties with requests) and by the end secured (salvation to the uttermost). He applies the doctrine to show that Christ has the preeminence in every phase of our salvation and that all dealings with the Father must be through the interceding Son.

Pastor Martin opens the study of the cardinal blessings by establishing the importance of the biblical doctrine of calling. He traces three lines of thought: first, calling's strategic place in the plan of redemption as the nexus link in the golden chain of Romans 8:29-30 that joins eternal foreknowledge and predestination to justification and final glorification; second, its dominant place in the pursuit of Christian maturation as Paul prays the Ephesians would know the hope of their calling and exhorts them to walk worthy of it; and third, its central place as a distinct designation of the people of God — they are 'the called ones.' He illustrates the golden chain with the cables of the George Washington Bridge anchored in the Jersey and Manhattan palisades, and closes appealing to both saints and strangers to give themselves to close, careful thought over this doctrine.

Moving from the exceptional universal call to the normal New Testament usage, Pastor Martin examines the effectual call of God under two heads: its author and its results. From 1 Corinthians 1:9, 2 Timothy 1:8-10, and Romans 8:28-30 he shows that calling is God's activity exclusively and the Father's activity particularly — not God plus the sinner, not loving sovereignty plus moral suasion, but the same raw material of grace and the same hand of loving sovereignty that forged election and predestination. He then lays out the three results of this call: it effects vital fellowship and union with Christ, it always issues in holiness (the called are constituted saints and brought from darkness to light), and it always culminates in glorification. He closes by answering the common objection: calling is God's work, but believing and repenting remain the sinner's responsibility.

Pastor Martin answers the question: what are the immediate effects of regeneration? From John 6:44-45 he establishes the moral and spiritual impossibility that no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him, and the inevitability that every one who hears and learns of the Father comes. Using the raising of Lazarus as an extended analogy, he shows that the first conscious acting of the regenerate soul is to come to Christ on the two legs of repentance and faith. He then draws three deductions from 1 John 5:1: no one has biblical grounds to believe himself regenerate who is not a penitent believing sinner (exposing the folly of baptismal, presumptive, and decisional regeneration); no one has grounds to doubt his regeneration if he is a penitent believing sinner (the oak tree needs no plaque); and no one has grounds to expect regenerating grace where the gospel is not present. He closes pressing the need to evangelize aggressively and pray fervently.

Pastor Martin opens his treatment of the doctrine of justification by underscoring its supreme importance. After showing that the doctrine answers the most fundamental of human questions, 'How shall sinful man find acceptance with God?', he argues for its importance on two grounds: the glory of God, since in justifying the ungodly God displays the brilliance of every divine attribute, and the good of the creature, both for the conversion of sinners and the establishing peace, holiness, and joy in believers.

Pastor Martin establishes from Scripture that the word 'justify' is forensic and declarative - to pronounce, accept, and treat someone as righteous in relation to a standard of law - never to make personally righteous. He traces four lines of biblical evidence: passages where any other meaning is impossible, contexts where it is the opposite of 'condemn', equivalent expressions, and the formal usage in Romans and Galatians. Justification is therefore God's judicial verdict, not an inward transformation, and that distinction is essential to gospel comfort.

Using the Westminster Larger Catechism's definition as a teaching framework, Pastor Martin opens up the first three elements of justification: God Himself is its author, His free grace its source, and sinners as sinners (not half-reformed sinners) are its objects. He illustrates with a vivid scenario of a condemned criminal receiving a reprieve and presses the parable of the publican and the Pharisee to show that God justifies the ungodly the moment he casts himself on mercy, not after any reformation.

Pastor Martin closes his four-part treatment of sin in the justified life with the final principle: sin must always be dealt with in conjunction with evangelical repentance. He distinguishes evangelical from merely legal repentance using 2 Corinthians 7, then unfolds four marks of true repentance in a believer — honest acknowledgement, genuine grief, a sincere resolve to forsake the sin, and willingness to confess and make restitution horizontally. Rich illustrations from David, Peter, Judas, and homely family scenes ground the whole pastoral counsel.

Pastor Martin opens a new section on adoption, arguing that adoption is an even higher blessing than justification — as a judge's son rescuing a criminal only illustrates justification, but the judge adopting the pardoned criminal as his own heir pictures adoption. He then traces adoption's centrality through four spheres: God's eternal purpose (Ephesians 1), Christ's temporal activity (Galatians 4), the initial application of salvation (John 1, Galatians 3-4), and the final application of salvation (Romans 8, 1 John 3, Revelation 21). He closes by rebuking the notion of universal fatherhood and urging believers to enjoy this pinnacle privilege.

Pastor Martin distinguishes the legal and experiential dimensions of adoption with a vivid illustration of adoptive parents waiting to receive their child, then expounds three legal privileges of adoption: an inviolable sonship grounded in the work of Christ for us (John 1:11-13), a shared heirship as co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:14-17), and a conferred brotherhood in which the risen Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren (Hebrews 2:10-17). He urges believers to meditate on these privileges until they become felt realities and warns the unconverted of their alien, wrath-bearing position.

Returning to the cardinal blessings after a two-month digression, Pastor Martin moves from the legal to the experiential privileges of adoption and expounds the first and chief one: the gift of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of adoption. Working through Galatians 4:4-6 and Romans 8:12-26, he shows that Christ was sent precisely to secure sonship, that the Spirit is freely given to every adopted child, and that the Spirit's primary work in adoption is to impart a filial disposition expressed in the cry 'Abba, Father.' He guards the witness of the Spirit from both dead orthodoxy and fanatical subjectivism, insisting it is never independent of the Word and the other fruits of the Spirit.