“Assurance Of Salvation”
“Assurance Of Salvation” is a sermon preached by guest preacher Michael Beatty at Covenant Baptist Church in New Berlin, Wisconsin – a confessional Reformed Baptist church subscribing to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.
One commentator, when he described the assurance of faith or the certainty of faith, put it this way: until we have a reasonable certainty of our own faith, we’re not really useful for much. You think about that in the sense that if you don’t know whether you’re part of the household of faith, you need to find that out. You need to determine whether that’s something that’s true for you or not. Otherwise, when we hear the promises of the gospel, you wouldn’t know if that’s true for you or if that’s just true for other people. And even in that way, you would need to focus on that because that would be of primary importance – that you might know where you stand with the Lord, whether you’re part of the covenant family or not. And on the flip side, if you know that, you’re freed up all the more to just freely love the Lord and to freely love our neighbor as ourselves.
And so this morning I want to look at that, kind of in preparation for that longer series I plan to do next week. So if you look in your copy of the confession with me, paragraph 14 – if you don’t have one, they are in the back of the Trinity Hymnal – but I’ll also read it. It says,
“This faith, although it be different in degrees and may be weak or strong, yet it is in the least degree of it different in the kind or nature of it, as is all other saving grace, from the faith and common grace of temporary believers, and therefore, though it may be many times assailed and weakened, yet it gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.”
So there’s a variety of things that we can say about this passage, but I think the one that is perhaps most comforting is the sentence where it says although it be different in degrees or weak or strong. What we’re saying then about assurance is we’re not saying that there are not times where it’s stronger or times where it’s weaker, but that there is a sense of having that assurance, though we may all have differing degrees.
In chapter five on providence, if you remember, it says that at times God allows his children into a time of sin, and what is one of the outcomes of that but that they might all the more discover their full dependence upon him. And so if we’ve fallen into those times, or when we do, that may at times cause us to think back to those times and perhaps have somewhat weaker assurance, or it may lead at other times to stronger. There’s a sense in which it can wax and wane over time. As we think about that, we need to consider assurance not as something that has to be the same throughout all of our Christian life, but as something that we may actually possess and something that we can cultivate, as we hear in the scriptures.
I think that’s really important for us as we think about the Christian life. There are times that are difficult for a variety of reasons, whether it be just the effects of sin – whether that’s the common curse (you know, our bodies don’t work the way that we would like) – or we’ve gone through difficult circumstances in our lives, or it’s simply that we’re dealing with sin and it’s a struggle in the way that we’re fighting against it. Or it could even be the battle that goes on with the evil one. In all these things then, when we’re speaking of our assurance, we need to consider that it can wax and wane, but also that the scriptures tell us that there are ways that we can cultivate our assurance, that we can cultivate it – something that we can work towards in this life and that it’s something that we can actually have.
When the Reformers were beginning and they were teaching through the doctrines of grace, that was one of the big things. That’s even something that is called a heresy by our Roman friends – that in this way we’re saying that the assurance of faith is something that the believer, the normal believer, has in this life. It may be weak, it may be strong, but it’s something that we have and that we possess. We can say that when we close our eyes in death, we know that when we open them we will see our Savior. And so it’s a very important doctrine, and I want to talk about then how to cultivate it.
If you look over at chapter 18, paragraph 2, we see again, talking about this type of assurance, our confession says,
“This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel, and also upon the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit, unto which promises are made, and on the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, and as a fruit thereof, keeping the heart both humble and holy.”
So we see three interconnected ways of gaining assurance here in this paragraph. The first one is the promises and the nature of the gospel. That’s the infallible hope that it’s talking about. It’s not a bare conjectural hope where we might say, one day I hope that I get to go to Disneyland, or one day I hope that I will have assurance of faith, or one day I hope that I will go to heaven, or I hope that God sees that my good outweighs my bad, but it’s an infallible hope – one that is certain, one that does not change, and one that is based in the very Word of God.
This mediation and the promises of the gospel, or the mediation of these promises to us, is one of the primary ways that God builds assurance in the believer. If you think about a couple of these, in Psalm 107 the people cry out to the Lord in distress, and he answers them. It comes to the people as a proclamation of this gospel of grace – that there’s a cry in distress, and the Lord hears them. Or in John 6:37, whoever comes to Jesus, he will never turn away. There’s no doubt whether he will respond to those who cry out to him, but he will certainly hear their cry. Or in Isaiah 54:10, that he always remembers his promises. That’s the infallible hope that we see declared to us in the promises of the gospel. Or even in Philippians 1:6, God will bring to completion the good work that he has begun. In all these things, the promise that we have is grounded in just the very declaration and nature of the gospel itself.
And so, attendance upon the means of grace cannot be overestimated. That’s kind of the upshot to this first way that the Lord builds assurance in his people. Pay attention to the means of grace, especially to the Word, to the Supper, and if you’ve been baptized, remembering your baptism. If you haven’t been baptized, that’s something that we look to. We see that picture declared to us of the gospel. Attending these things in full faith that the Lord will meet us there and that he will provide for us according to our needs. Even praying, as it says in our confession, preparing our hearts beforehand as we come together, asking him for his grace that we might grow from the preaching of the Word. That in hearing that, we ask that we might all the more have that assurance of faith.
So if we have that sense that it’s weak at the moment, when we come to gather together on the Lord’s Day, ask the Lord to build that in you, and believe that he will, because he’s promised to do so. Or even in the Supper, the same thing, that we see it declared again and ask him to meet us there as he has promised to do, that he might conform us to the image of his Son by his Spirit. And so this order is important: that we come, we hear the promises of the gospel, and the Lord is using that, for his Word never comes back void.
Secondly, we see that the fruits of faith cultivate assurance. The fruits of faith cultivate assurance. In other words, these are the evidences of God working within us, and this ought to contribute to our assurance of faith and salvation. Oftentimes people will ask or come with some sort of conflict of conscience – perhaps you’ve had a similar experience – and they’re wondering, am I truly saved, or how could I do this or not do this if I’m truly a Christian? I think that sort of approach, while understandable (we’ve all fallen into that camp at times), we should rather ask, what evidences do we see of the Lord working within us? What evidence or fruit do we see in our lives? Rather, look to see the Lord’s handiwork.
If you’d like to look at Matthew chapter 7 with me, I want to look at verses 15 to 20. We see that the works which we do out of gratitude for what the Lord has done for us bear out this fruit. We see this here in this parable that Jesus gives, or the saying that he gives here, speaking in this sense of judging others. We oftentimes think of this in terms of verses 1-6, you know, judge not lest you be judged. But here in verse 15 of Matthew chapter 7, it says,
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”
It’s bearing that good fruit.
I don’t deal much with trees. I’ve gotten a chance to enjoy that somewhat more. My dad has a mango tree in his backyard that he doesn’t want to grow fruit some years, but it does anyways. It continues to grow those good Jamaican mangoes that he has. In that we see that it continues to bear fruit time and time again. That’s what we see with the Christian life – that for those who are in Christ, we will bear fruit. It’s why we look to see evidences. We say, but I really wish that I had more fruit. That’s great – and ask the Lord to build that in you. But if we see the evidences, that should build us in our sense of assurance of salvation.
Even in 1 John 2:3 it says that we will be known by our fruit. 1 John 2 says,
“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.”
And in the same book, in chapter 3:14, we see again,
“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.”
So in all these things then, we see the sense in which the Lord works in us and brings about these things. Because Christ is the author and perfecter of our faith, it allows us to know that we have passed out of death into life. That’s just another way of saying we have assurance – because we love the brothers, because we bear good fruit. That’s that second key plank in terms of how we come to cultivate that assurance in us.
Again, with this particular element, it’s important to remember that in the gospel it tells us what Christ has done and also tells us that the Lord has prepared good works that we might walk in them, in Ephesians chapter 2. So even the good works which we do are those things that Christ accomplishes through us. So it’s Christ at work in us. In this sense, it’s not a sort of treadmill that we get upon and we run along and we hope that we generate enough energy, but rather it’s something that Christ is doing in us. And so when we see the fruit, when we see the love that we have for the brethren or a variety of other things, we can say Christ is truly at work within me. Praise God that we are one of his children.
There’s a variety of other things that we can consider at this point. And so when we sense in us that our assurance feels weak for whatever reason, we self-reflect and we begin to look: what evidences do I see of Christ’s work in me? I believe the gospel. I see the work that he is doing by his Spirit in my life.
Now it’s important, when we consider those things, that we are rightly identifying what a good work is. And we won’t look into that this morning for sake of time, but just in brief – it is that which God has commanded, that which is powered by the Holy Spirit, and it’s done in true faith. Right? The three things that make it a good work.
And so in this way, we’re seeing that the assurance of faith then is not, as our confession said, a conjecture or a hope or something sort of intellectual that we have reasoned ourselves to, but rather it’s grounded on that infallible hope of the gospel, that infallible promise of the gospel, the infallible work that Christ is doing in us – because he is the author of our faith and he’s the perfecter of our faith. He’s going to bring us to that final and good end that he has made for each and every one of his children.
Thirdly then, the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the Holy Spirit. If you’d like to look over at Galatians chapter 4 with me, in verse 6 especially, we see what Paul describes elsewhere as this sort of seal that the Holy Spirit is of our salvation, or an earnest of our salvation. If you think about a really old letter, oftentimes they would put it in an envelope and they’d put a wax seal on it and they would stamp it with something. When you received the letter then and the seal wasn’t tampered with, it would tell you that this letter is real. If you know the sort of stamp of certification that has not been opened, what you’re about to read is really from the person that sent it to you, and it can be trusted. It’s been sealed in earnest.
The Holy Spirit works in a much more profound way, but using that same imagery that the scripture uses, seals unto us the promises of salvation. And so this testimony of the Holy Spirit then, as we see in verse 6, causes us:
“Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father.’”
There’s this testimony of what the Holy Spirit has done in us, that we see in our own person the testimony of what he is doing – that our heart cries out towards that end. Or even as it says in Romans chapter 8, something similar: that the Spirit cries out “Abba, Father” within us. In other words, we have that testimony within ourselves that we are the children of God.
In this way, we see that we have that sort of testimony within us. And you can perhaps understand and reflect a little more with me that perhaps that could be why at times it can wax and wane in our experience of that assurance. We’ve fallen into sin, perhaps significant sin for a time, even as chapter five of our confession says, or as the scriptures give examples – so many examples such as David or Samson, many others – that in that moment our assurance may wane. And that’s because of the sin that’s within us. We still have that testimony, but there’s a sense of the sin that cries out against us, that we need to confess our sin. He’s faithful and just to forgive us all of our trespasses, and we fly to Christ, back to the promises of the gospel, back to what Christ is doing.
And so in having this testimony then, of cultivating that, of becoming aware of what the Spirit testifies in the heart of the believer, we should expect to receive that through the normal means of grace. Through the normal means of grace – baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the ministry of the Word. That’s how the Lord typically works. He works in extraordinary ways, certainly. He’s not in any way constrained to those, but that’s how he’s told us he’ll typically work. That’s why the Lord’s Day is so important. Come and sit under the preaching of the Word. Come ready for the Lord to feed us. Because ultimately that’s what we’re all trying to do – whether whoever is teaching or whoever is preaching – ultimately what we all want to hear is the voice of Christ from the scriptures. It will sound different certainly, whoever will be speaking, but that’s what we want to hear.
And so come ready to hear from the Word, asking for the Lord to grow us in that assurance, that we might all the more have it, that we might give glory to him, but also that we might go and be a blessing to our neighbors because we’re freed up then. Imagine what it will be – how a life is different – if we know the outcome at the end. We know that we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into my rest.” What more would we have to or need to hear in this life, but that we are freed up then unto good works, unto doing that which the Lord has called us to do. That’s the sort of outcome that we should really desire and long for and work towards.
And so our confession, in describing this, highlights again all of who Christ is and what he has done. In this way, we see the outcome of what he has done. I’d like to close with John chapter 14 verse 27. I think it’s important that as we acknowledge that our assurance can wax and wane over time, the Lord never leaves his people without that sense of assurance. He never leaves us nor forsakes us.
John 14, I’d like to pick up in verse 25 just for context:
“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.”
Christ, in saying this, highlights for us that peace which he gives us. Perhaps you’ve fallen into a similar sort of mental exercise that I have at times, especially growing up in the church. I think many of my peers had a similar experience, thinking it would have been great in many ways to live in New Testament times, to walk with Christ, to see him, to see the miracles, to be a witness to those things – an eyewitness.
But I would suggest to you this morning that thinking that way, while understandable – of course we’d all want to see Jesus, we’d all want to see the miracles – really undercuts the blessing that we have now. We already have, as Christ is saying here to the disciples. He tells you before it takes place. We’ve already heard it after it’s already taken place. It’s that which is already done. Christ has already ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Most High. We have the end story in its final, full form. In hearing it, I would suggest to you this morning that we stand at a better place in redemptive history than they did. This is a better place for us to be.
And because of that, our assurance then is not grounded in what we have seen or what we haven’t seen, but rather, as Paul tells the Galatians when he says, “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Was it not before your eyes that Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified?” That’s the better place we are. We have that declared to us. We have that assurance of faith because of what Christ has done, what he has told us in his Word, what he is doing in the lives of his children, and what he testifies to us by his Spirit as we have communion with him.
And so as we think about these things in the weeks to come, about the Christian life, and we consider our own lives and the way that we might grow in Christ, let’s remember that we have an infallible assurance because it’s grounded on the very Word and work of Christ.
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