The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character: What must you do to be saved? How may you know that you are saved?

“What must I do to be saved? How may I know that I am saved? It is obvious that these are two different questions, and it is just as clear that the Bible gives a specific answer to each of them. In answer to the first question, the Biblical directive is unmistakable. One must repent of sin and believe in Jesus Christ the Lord if he is to be saved (Acts 20:21). All Spirit-wounded, convicted sinners must be urged to look away from themselves, and in a penitent faith to fix the gaze of their souls upon Christ alone for mercy as He is offered to them in the Gospel. But the second question demands a different answer. How one may know that he has truly repented and believed is not a question touching the ground or means of one’s acceptance before God, but rather the proof and evidence of one’s saving relationship to Him in Christ. The Bible’s answer to this question is that we must “examine ourselves and prove ourselves whether we be in the faith.” Accompanying that command the same Scriptures lay out objective evidence of the fruits of true repentance and faith. “Great confusion and subsequent delusion has flooded the professing church in our generation through a failure to distinguish the difference in the Bible’s answer to these two questions. “In most Evangelical circles today anyone who asks the question “How may I know that I am saved and that I have truly repented and believed?” is encouraged to simply rest on a text which declares that all believers are saved. But this is circuitous reasoning and fails to come to grips with the real issue. “The answer given to this vital question by the author of this little volume proceeds along a different line of evidence, one which has far more of the sanction of the Bible and of Historic Christianity. His thesis is that there are what he terms “distinguishing traits” evidenced in the true sons of God, which traits are the accumulative indication that God has begun a good work in the soul. Thus he begins his essays by stating some of those things which are not an evidence that we have been savingly joined to Christ, and he concludes his treatise by setting forth those traits of life and character which form conclusive evidence of the work of God in the heart of a man.” -—Albert N. Martin and Ernest C. Reisinger CONTENTS: VISIBLE MORALITY SPECULATIVE KNOWLEDGE FORM OF RELIGION EMINENT GIFTS CONVICTION FOR SIN STRONG ASSURANCE THE TIME OF YOUR SUPPOSED CONVERSION LOVE TO GOD REPENTANCE FOR SIN FAITH IN CHRIST EVANGELICAL HUMILITY SELF-DENIAL DEVOTION TO DIVINE HONOR AND GLORY OF GOD THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER BROTHERLY LOVE SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD GROWTH IN GRACE PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE CONCLUSION