C.H. Spurgeon: Thoughts on Repentance, Conversion & Assurance

About the Author

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) was raised in a Christian home but became truly converted as a young man of sixteen. After some early preaching and pastoring, during which his oratorical gifts became well-known, in April 1854 he was called to the pulpit of the baptist congregation at New Park Street, Southwark. Within a few months of his call his powers as a preacher made him famous. The chapel had been empty, but before a year had passed the crowds that gathered made a larger building necessary. The enlarged chapel, when opened, at once proved too small, and in 1861 the Metropolitan Tabernacle opened, which accommodated six thousand persons. There Spurgeon ministered as pastor, head of a pastors’ college and orphanage, until his death. A convinced Calvinist – “Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else,” he often said – staunchly adhering till the day of his death to every point in that theology which was made alive in his experience, Spurgeon was resolved to sacrifice nothing in the way of that doctrine, nor of his passion to preach the offer of salvation to all. He long had misgivings not only over the growth of liberalism, but even among his fellow baptists over what he regarded as indifference to orthodoxy, especially in the growth of Arminianism which he believed led to minimizing the divine nature of Christ. For these concerns, he was often censured not only for his opposition to modernism, but for introducing "needless divisions" among men of like faith. His reply: "I am quite sure that the best way to promote union is to promote truth...purge the house of God, and then shall grand and blessed times dawn on us." In addition to being considered “the prince of preachers,” Spurgeon was a prolific author, of 2,500 sermons still in print, along with The Treasury of David (on the Psalms), Morning by Evening, the pastoral classic, Lectures to My Students, and many others.

Thoughts on Repentance,
Conversion & assurance

By Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away;
behold , all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

On Repentance and Faith

"Coming to Christ embraces in it repentance, self-abnegation, and faith in the Lord Jesus, and so sums within itself all those things which are the necessary attendants of those great steps of heart, such as the belief of the truth, earnest prayers to God, the submission of the soul to the precepts of His Gospel" (Sermon on John 6:44).

"To come to Christ signifies to turn from sin and to trust in Him. Coming to Christ is a leaving of all false confidences, a renouncing of all love to sin, and a looking to Jesus as the solitary pillar of our confidence and hope" (Sermon on John 6:37).

On the Power of True Conversion

"Many people think that when we preach salvation, we mean salvation from going to Hell. We do mean that, but we mean a great deal more: we preach salvation from sin; we say that Christ is able to save a man; and by that we mean that He is able to save him from sin and to make him holy; to make him a new man. No person has any right to say, 'I am saved,' while he continues in sin as he did before."

"How can you be saved from sin while you are living in it? A man that is drowning cannot say he is saved from the water while he is sinking in it; a man that is frost-bitten cannot say, with any truth, that he is saved from the cold while he is stiffened in the wintry blast. No, man, Christ did not come to save thee in thy sins, but to save thee from thy sins; not to make the disease so that it should not kill thee, but to let it remain in itself mortal, and nevertheless, to remove it from be thou clean." (commenting on Matthew 9:12)

"The sure result of regeneration, or the bestowal of understanding, is the devout reverence for the law and a reverent keeping of it in the heart. The Spiritof God makes us to know the Lord and to understand somewhat of His love, wisdom, holiness, and majesty; and the result is that we honor the law and yield our hearts to the obedience of the faith.

"The understanding operates upon the affections; it convinces the heart of the beauty of the law, so that the soul loves it with all its powers; and then it reveals the majesty of the law-Giver, and the whole nature bows before His supreme will. He alone obeys God who can say 'my Lord, I would serve Thee, and do it with all my heart'; and none can truly say this till they have received as a free grant the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit."

On Assurance vs. Presumption

"They say they are saved, and they stick to it; they simply are, and they think it wicked to doubt it; but yet they have no reason to warrant their confidence. There is a great difference between presumption and full assurance. Full assurance is reasonable: it is based on solid ground. Presumption takes for granted, and with brazen face pronounces that to be its own to which it has no right whatever."

"Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then thou hast reason to rejoice' but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying 'I am saved' is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee" (commenting on 1 Chronicles 4:10).

"Too many professors pacify themselves with the idea that they possess imputed righteousness, while they are indifferent to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. They refuse to put on the garment of obedience; they reject the white linen which is the righteousness of saints. They thus reveal their self-will, their enmity to God, and their non-submission to His Son."

"I have sometimes thought when I have heard addresses from some revival brethren who had kept on saying time after time, 'Believe, believe, believe,' that I should like to have known for myself what it was we were to believe in order to our salvation. There is, I fear, a great deal of vagueness and crudeness about this matter. I have heard it often asserted that if you believe that Jesus Christ died for you, you will be saved. My dear hearer, do not be deluded by such an idea. You may believe that Jesus Christ died for you, and may believe what is not true; you may believe that which will bring you no sort of good whatever. That is not saving faith. The man who has saving faith afterwards attains to the coviction that Christ died for him, but it is not the essence of saving faith. Do not get that into your head, or it will ruin you. Do not say, 'I believe that Jesus Christ died for me,' and because of that, feel that you are saved. I pray you to remember that the genuine faith that saves the soul has for its main element -- trust -- absolute rest of the whole soul -- on the Lord Jesus Christ to save me, whether He died in particluar or in special to save me or not, and relying, as I am, wholly and alone on Him, I am saved. Afterwards I come to perceive that I have a special interest in the Savior's blood; but if I think I have perceived that before I have believed in Christ, then I have inverted the Scriptural order of things, and I have taken as a fruit of my faith that which is only to be obtained by rights, by the man who absolutely trusts in Christ, and Christ alone, to save." [emphasis added]

"Such men may talk what they will about justification by faith, and salvation by grace, but they are rebels at heart; they have not on the wedding-dress any more than the self-righteous, whom they so eagerly condemn. The fact is, if we wish for the blessings of grace, we must in our hearts submit to the rules of grace without picking and choosing" (The Wedding Garment).

"That's where salvation is - not in man's purpose, not in man's plan, it's in a person. It's not in a proposition, it's not in walking an aisle, it's not in a church ordinance, it's in Christ! It's not in a law; it's not in the deeds of the flesh; salvation is in Christ. A man does not have salvation until he comes by the power of God's Spirit through faith to a living, personal, vital, intimate union with Christ as the Lord. A man is not a Christian until he has a vital union with Christ. A man is not a Christian until he is inseparably joined - personally joined to Jesus Christ. A man is not a Christian until Christ becomes his life. A man is not a Christian unless you can cut into his heart and find love for Christ; cut into his mind and find thoughts of Christ; and cut into his soul and find a panting after Christ. Christ in you, that's the hope of glory. The Holy Spirit convicts a man of sin; the Holy Spirit empties a sinner; the Holy Spirit brings a man to faith in the Son of God - faith in the living Lord. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. Most people's so-called Christianity can be taken off with their Sunday clothes; but a man who is genuinely saved has Christ living in him as an everlasting fountain springing up into everlasting life - he's been born-again - he's been resurrected from the grave - he has the very image of the Son of God stamped on his heart and it cannot be moved.



	About the Author Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) was raised in a Christian home but became truly converted as a young man of sixteen. After some early preaching and pastoring, during which his oratorical gifts became well-known, in April 1854 he was called to the pulpit of the baptist congregation at New Park Street, Southwark. Within a few months of his call his powers as a preacher made him famous. The chapel had been empty, but before a year had passed the crowds that gathered made a larger building necessary. The enlarged chapel, when opened, at once proved too small, and in 1861 the Metropolitan Tabernacle opened, which accommodated six thousand persons. There Spurgeon ministered as pastor, head of a pastors’ college and orphanage, until his death. A convinced Calvinist – “Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else,” he often said – staunchly adhering till the day of his death to every point in that theology which was made alive in his experience, Spurgeon was resolved to sacrifice nothing in the way of that doctrine, nor of his passion to preach the offer of salvation to all. He long had misgivings not only over the growth of liberalism, but even among his fellow baptists over what he regarded as indifference to orthodoxy, especially in the growth of Arminianism which he believed led to minimizing the divine nature of Christ. For these concerns, he was often censured not only for his opposition to modernism, but for introducing "needless divisions" among men of like faith. His reply: "I am quite sure that the best way to promote union is to promote truth...purge the house of God, and then shall grand and blessed times dawn on us." In addition to being considered “the prince of preachers,” Spurgeon was a prolific author, of 2,500 sermons still in print, along with The Treasury of David (on the Psalms), Morning by Evening, the pastoral classic, Lectures to My Students, and many others. Thoughts on Repentance, Conversion & assurance By Charles Haddon Spurgeon "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold , all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17) On Repentance and Faith "Coming to Christ embraces in it repentance, self-abnegation, and faith in the Lord Jesus, and so sums within itself all those things which are the necessary attendants of those great steps of heart, such as the belief of the truth, earnest prayers to God, the submission of the soul to the precepts of His Gospel" (Sermon on John 6:44). "To come to Christ signifies to turn from sin and to trust in Him. Coming to Christ is a leaving of all false confidences, a renouncing of all love to sin, and a looking to Jesus as the solitary pillar of our confidence and hope" (Sermon on John 6:37). On the Power of True Conversion "Many people think that when we preach salvation, we mean salvation from going to Hell. We do mean that, but we mean a great deal more: we preach salvation from sin; we say that Christ is able to save a man; and by that we mean that He is able to save him from sin and to make him holy; to make him a new man. No person has any right to say, 'I am saved,' while he continues in sin as he did before." "How can you be saved from sin while you are living in it? A man that is drowning cannot say he is saved from the water while he is sinking in it; a man that is frost-bitten cannot say, with any truth, that he is saved from the cold while he is stiffened in the wintry blast. No, man, Christ did not come to save thee in thy sins, but to save thee from thy sins; not to make the disease so that it should not kill thee, but to let it remain in itself mortal, and nevertheless, to remove it from be thou clean." (commenting on Matthew 9:12) "The sure result of regeneration, or the bestowal of understanding, is the devout reverence for the law and a reverent keeping of it in the heart. The Spiritof God makes us to know the Lord and to understand somewhat of His love, wisdom, holiness, and majesty; and the result is that we honor the law and yield our hearts to the obedience of the faith. "The understanding operates upon the affections; it convinces the heart of the beauty of the law, so that the soul loves it with all its powers; and then it reveals the majesty of the law-Giver, and the whole nature bows before His supreme will. He alone obeys God who can say 'my Lord, I would serve Thee, and do it with all my heart'; and none can truly say this till they have received as a free grant the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit." On Assurance vs. Presumption "They say they are saved, and they stick to it; they simply are, and they think it wicked to doubt it; but yet they have no reason to warrant their confidence. There is a great difference between presumption and full assurance. Full assurance is reasonable: it is based on solid ground. Presumption takes for granted, and with brazen face pronounces that to be its own to which it has no right whatever." "Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then thou hast reason to rejoice' but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying 'I am saved' is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee" (commenting on 1 Chronicles 4:10). "Too many professors pacify themselves with the idea that they possess imputed righteousness, while they are indifferent to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. They refuse to put on the garment of obedience; they reject the white linen which is the righteousness of saints. They thus reveal their self-will, their enmity to God, and their non-submission to His Son." "I have sometimes thought when I have heard addresses from some revival brethren who had kept on saying time after time, 'Believe, believe, believe,' that I should like to have known for myself what it was we were to believe in order to our salvation. There is, I fear, a great deal of vagueness and crudeness about this matter. I have heard it often asserted that if you believe that Jesus Christ died for you, you will be saved. My dear hearer, do not be deluded by such an idea. You may believe that Jesus Christ died for you, and may believe what is not true; you may believe that which will bring you no sort of good whatever. That is not saving faith. The man who has saving faith afterwards attains to the coviction that Christ died for him, but it is not the essence of saving faith. Do not get that into your head, or it will ruin you. Do not say, 'I believe that Jesus Christ died for me,' and because of that, feel that you are saved. I pray you to remember that the genuine faith that saves the soul has for its main element -- trust -- absolute rest of the whole soul -- on the Lord Jesus Christ to save me, whether He died in particluar or in special to save me or not, and relying, as I am, wholly and alone on Him, I am saved. Afterwards I come to perceive that I have a special interest in the Savior's blood; but if I think I have perceived that before I have believed in Christ, then I have inverted the Scriptural order of things, and I have taken as a fruit of my faith that which is only to be obtained by rights, by the man who absolutely trusts in Christ, and Christ alone, to save." [emphasis added] "Such men may talk what they will about justification by faith, and salvation by grace, but they are rebels at heart; they have not on the wedding-dress any more than the self-righteous, whom they so eagerly condemn. The fact is, if we wish for the blessings of grace, we must in our hearts submit to the rules of grace without picking and choosing" (The Wedding Garment). "That's where salvation is - not in man's purpose, not in man's plan, it's in a person. It's not in a proposition, it's not in walking an aisle, it's not in a church ordinance, it's in Christ! It's not in a law; it's not in the deeds of the flesh; salvation is in Christ. A man does not have salvation until he comes by the power of God's Spirit through faith to a living, personal, vital, intimate union with Christ as the Lord. A man is not a Christian until he has a vital union with Christ. A man is not a Christian until he is inseparably joined - personally joined to Jesus Christ. A man is not a Christian until Christ becomes his life. A man is not a Christian unless you can cut into his heart and find love for Christ; cut into his mind and find thoughts of Christ; and cut into his soul and find a panting after Christ. Christ in you, that's the hope of glory. The Holy Spirit convicts a man of sin; the Holy Spirit empties a sinner; the Holy Spirit brings a man to faith in the Son of God - faith in the living Lord. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. Most people's so-called Christianity can be taken off with their Sunday clothes; but a man who is genuinely saved has Christ living in him as an everlasting fountain springing up into everlasting life - he's been born-again - he's been resurrected from the grave - he has the very image of the Son of God stamped on his heart and it cannot be moved.