Quest. How may we know whether we shall go to be with Christ when we die?
Ans. If we are in Christ while we live, we shall go to Christ when we die; union is the ground of privilege; we must be in Christ before we can be with Christ.
Quest. How can we be in Christ?
Ans. By faith; faith is the uniting grace; it is the vital, radical, cardinal grace; this gives the interest. Faith is the queen of the graces; by faith we take Christ as a husband, and give up ourselves to Him as a Lord; faith is a Christ-appropriating grace; it has both a relying and an applying faculty; Christ is the ring, faith is the finger that puts on this ring.
Quest. How may we know a true faith from a spurious one?
Ans. 1. True faith is ever found in an heart deeply humbled for sin, Acts 2: 37. ‘They were pricked in their hearts;’ here was the first budding of faith; you never saw a flower grow out of a stone, nor faith out of an heart of stone. Faith is an herb that grows always in a moist soil, in a weeping eye and a broken heart, Mark 9: 24, ‘The father of the child cried out with tears, Lord, I believe.’ This flag of faith grows in the water.
2. True faith is operative: it works out sin, Acts 15: 9, it works by love, Gal. 5: 6, it is full of good works, James 2: 17, it makes the tongue speak for Christ, the head study, the hands work, the feet run ‘in the ways of His commandments;’ faith comes with power upon the heart, 2 Thess. 1: 11, ‘The work of faith with power:’ it has a restraining and constraining power; by this we may know whether ours is a true faith or not.
Thos. Watson.