Gordon Fee on the Spirit Crying "ABBA!"

"Here is the ultimate evidence that we are God's own children; we address God with the same term of intimate relationship that Jesus Himself used. We are not slaves but children. The Spirit has taken us far beyond mere conformity to religious obligation. God Himself ... has come to indwell His people and He has sealed that relationship by given to them the language of His Son, the language of personal relationship. For Paul and us this is the ultimate expression of grace".

Gordon D Fee - "Pauline Christology - An Exegetical/Theological Study" - Hendrikson (2007) - (p219).

Dr Ern Baxter on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

"The Holy Spirit is much more than we have generally concluded. His coming was the result of Jesus' sacrifice before God. One of the reasons why the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the whole matter of the Holy Spirit has been so fiercely contested by people who should know better - is because the Holy Spirit is the communication of God to men concerning the work of Jesus Christ in the Presence of God.

When God baptises you in His Holy Spirit, you have received a bell-like communication that Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, has accomplished His great priestly work. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a peripheral experience for a few freaks. It is the very normal experience of every child of God. Every child of god has the right to the evidence of the golden bells of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to give him experimental evidence that the legal work of the Cross is real".

Dr Ern Baxter - "The Priestly Clothing Series" - "The Robe of the Ephod Transcripts" - personally transcribed and published - (p97).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Grace and Sin

"Grace is the alternative to sin, and the only alternative to sin. Or to put it another way, grace is the only antagonist of sin, the only antithesis of sin".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Romans: Assurance (Romans 5)" - Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh (1971) - (p316).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Amazed by Grace

"The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Banner of Truth Magazine" - Banner of Truth, Issue 275 - August/September (1986).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Irresistable Grace

"The 'grace' that made him (Paul) a preacher drove him across continents and across seas; it made him preach day and night with tears and pleading, it was the most vital force in his life. This was the thing that "constrained" him and made him say; "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel". He was driven by thought of these riches of God's grace and the ignorance of men and women concerning them. It was his chief reason for writing this Epistle to the Ephesians".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Ephesians; God's Ultimate Purpose (Ephesians 1)" - Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh (1978) - (p174).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Abundant Grace!

"We do not shuffle into this grace; we are introduced and presented, standing erect on our feet. "Ah but", you say, "I have been a vile sinner. I have been a terrible sinner - how can I possibly go into the Presence of God with boldness?". My reply to that is that if you do not go in with boldness, then you do not enter by faith. Realize that you go in Christ's hands, that His righteousness is upon you and that He leads you in".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Romans: Assurance (Romans 5)" - Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh (1971) - (p41).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Condemnation and Assurance

"So let us be clear about this. It is no sign of humility, no mark of saintliness, to go into the Presence of God doubting whether God is forgiving you".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Great Doctrines of the Bible" - Crossway Books, Wheaton (2003) - (p355).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on the Highest Assurance and Baptism of the Spirit

"Over and above your intelligent apprehension of it, over and above your intelligent and intellectual deduction of it, there is a direct and immediate assurance given by the Holy Ghost who sheds abroad the love of God in your heart. You are overwhelmed by it, it is poured out in your heart and there is no uncertainty anymore".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Romans: Assurance (Romans 5)" - Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh (1971) - (p80).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Assurance and the Holy Spirit

"This is something beyond understanding, beyond reason, indeed beyond comprehension, and yet it is absolute certainity, it is light, knowledge, the truth itself for it is God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Such is the light and knowledge and the understanding that is given to a man who is baptised with the Holy Spirit of God".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Joy Unspeakable" - Kingsway, Eastbourne (1995) - (p121).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Assurance and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

"This is something beyond believing, beyond trusting, even beyond being sealed with the Spirit. The difference is that in the sealing with the Spirit we are given to know that we are His; the Holy Spirit 'bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God' (Romans 8:16). It is God saying to us, 'Thou art My son, My child'. Is there anything beyond that? Yes; to know God Himself! That is the summit! It is wonderful to know that I belond to God, it is an infinately greater privilidge and blessing to know God Himself".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Ephesians; God's Ultimate Purpose (Ephesians 1)" - Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh (1978) - (p347).

Dr Lloyd-Jones on Assurance and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

"There is a third type of assurance which is the highest, the most absolute and the most glorious, and which differs essentially from the other two. How? Like this. You notice, in the first two types of assurance, what we are doing is to draw distinctions, as we read the Scriptures perhaps. We arrive at the assurance by a process of reading, understanding, self-examination or self-analysis ...

BUT the glory of this third and highest form of assurance is that it is neither anything that we do, nor any deduction that we draw, but an assurance that is given to us by the blessed Spirit Himself".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones - "Joy Unspeakable" - Kingsway, Eastbourne (1995) - (p101)

Thomas Brookes on Assurance of Salvation

"A soul under assurance is unwilling to go to heaven without company".

Thomas Brookes - "Works of Thomas Brookes" - Volume 2 - Banner of Truth, Edinburgh - (p515).

J I Packer on Assurance of Salvation

"He may think and hope and with reason that he is a child of God. But he cannot say, in the unqualified sense of John's First Epistle that he knows his sonship till the Spirit sets this certainity home on his heart".

J I Packer - "Among God's Giants" - Kingsway (1993) - (p239).

J I Packer on Assurance of Salvation

"Assurance is the concious fruit of a supernatural enlightenment and cannot exist till it pleases God to give it".

J I Packer - "Among God's Giants" - Kingsway (1993) - (p239).

Thomas Brookes on Assurance of Salvation

"Assurance is the reflex act of a gracious soul whereby he clearly and evidently sees himself in a gracious, blessed and happy state; it is a sensible feeling and an experimental discerning of man's being in a state of grace".

Thomas Brookes - "Works of Thomas Brookes" - Volume 2 - Banner of Truth, Edinburgh - (p371).

J I Packer on Assurance of Salvation

"Assurance is not normally enjoyed except by those who have first laboured for it and sought it and served God faithfully and patiently for some time without it".

J I Packer - "Among God's Giants" - Kingsway (1993) - (p238).

Spurgeon on the joy of assurance

"He cannot be an unhappy man who can cry, 'Abba, Father.' The spirit of adoption is always attended by love, joy and peace, which are the fruits of the Spirit; for we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the spirit of liberty and joy in Christ Jesus. 'My God, my Father.' Oh how sweet the sound. But all men of God do not enjoy this, say you. Alas! we grant it, but we also add that it is their own fault. It is the right and portion of every believer to live in the assurance that he is reconciled to God, that God loves him, and that he is God's child, and if he doth not so live he has himself only to blame.

If there be any starving at God's table, it is because the guest stints himself, for the feast is superabundant. If however, a man comes, and I pray you all may, to live habitually under a sense of pardon through the sprinking of the precious blood, and in a delightful sense of perfect reconciliation with the great God, he is the possessor of a joy unspeakable and full of glory."

C H Spurgeon - "The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 17" - Pilgrim, Sermon 1027, p 712.

Gordon Fee on Holy Spirit Crying "Abba!"

"Here is the ultimate evidence that we are God's own children; we address God with the same term of intimate relationship that Jesus Himself used. We are not slaves but children. The Spirit has taken us far beyond mere conformity to religious obligation. God Himself ... has come to indwell His people and He has sealed that relationship by given to them the language of His Son, the language of personal relationship. For Paul and us this is the ultimate expression of grace".

Gordon D Fee - "Pauline Christology - An Exegetical/Theological Study" - Hendrikson (2007) - (p219).

Gordon Fee on Holy Spirit Crying "Abba!"

"We need to take seriously that believers "cried out" Abba to God within the gathered Christian community and that they did so with full awareness that the Spirit was moving them to do so, and that they were thus using Jesus own words of intimate relationship with the Father".

Gordon D Fee - "Pauline Christology - An Exegetical/Theological Study" - Hendrikson (2007) - (p127).