Chapter 15: Assurance

What does Assurance mean?

Google: a positive declaration intended to give confidence; a promise.

The Lexham Glossary of Theology Assurance

The teaching that believers in Christ can know for certain that they are saved or be assured of their salvation.

So what we are looking at here is the Doctrine of Assurance which we could state as a Christian’s certainty that they are in fact redeemed in Christ.

Imagine it this way if it will help you:

I was in the military, and in the military, we rely upon our equipment to work - I was in the Marine Corps, so that wasn’t always promised to me because we were handed down Vietnam Era equipment from the Army - and let’s imagine that this equipment, my rifle per se, is perfect and will never fail, always shoots true, never misses the target - it does exactly what it was promised to do. This gives me assurance. I am certain and have confidence moving into whatever battle I may enter that I will not be failed by my rifle.

Historically Speaking…

Historically there have been many opposing perceptions and opinions on the Doctrine of Assurance.

For Instance, many denominations of Christianity hold the belief that we cannot have Assurance, while others have believed that if you do not have Assurance you would do well to question whether you are in the faith at all or even go so far as to not let you become a member of their local congregation.

Here are some denominations that oppose the Doctrine of Assurance:

Roman Catholic Church (justification is not a one time event, and must be made sure through faithfulness)

Eastern Orthodox (“deification”, what we would call sanctification, but never having certainty of faith)

United Methodist Church (can “lose our salvation” - Arminian theology)

Anglican Church (Thirty Nine Articles - Article 16 - “After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given…”)

However, to the other extreme there have been great Protestant theologians that would argue the opposite - that Assurance is an essential part of faith and without Assurance your “faith” was of no value at all. Both Calvin and Luther taught that if you have true faith, you will objectively have Assurance.

Institutes of Christian Religion: "a wavering and trembling faith is no faith at all."

Where MLJ and I would align on the doctrine of Assurance is found more faithfully articulated in the Westminster Confession and the 1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 18: Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation, Paragraph 3:

“This infallible assurance does not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and struggle with many difficulties before he be partaker of it; yet being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of means, attain thereunto: and therefore it is the duty of every one to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance; —so far is it from inclining men to looseness.”

So, Faith Without Assurance?

We can then see that we can have faith without assurance, but we ought to strive for that assurance, and doubt is not incompatible with faith. There may be a myriad of reasons why we do not have assurance:

Due to the troubles and trials of this present life:

Matthew 14:31 “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand, caught hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?””

We can see that Jesus did not say he did not have faith, but that he was doubting due to his circumstances.

Due to sin which causes a sense of condemnation that will likely lead to a doubting of ones faith. This doesn’t mean that they have lost their faith, but that they begin to be in a state of doubtfulness until that sin is confessed and repented of. Their faith remains, but it is weak.

Due to a misunderstanding of how faith functions in our lives, that it is an active thing. Our faith is something that does something - it causes us to move and act and think in certain ways.

While we may have our faith without assurance, having that assurance is worked out and upon the working out of it, a fuller blessing to us.

2 Peter 1:5–11 “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.”

And John too desires for us to have that blessed assurance, that sure confidence in our salvation.

1 John 5:13 “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

We may have faith without assurance, but that is not what the Apostles desired, nor what God desires for us - he desires for us to have a certain and full assurance of our salvation.

This can be taken in two senses, that we have an Objective Assurance and a Subjective Assurance.

Objective Assurance: the believing and knowing the truth of salvation.

Subjective Assurance: the feelings of one’s own assurance

True, full throated assurance must include both the objective and the subjective.

Foundations of Assurance

This is now turning to the realm of complete assurance, both the objective and the subjective - what has happened outside of us and what is happening inside of us.

The First Foundation

The teaching of the Word of God:

John 3:36 “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”

We can be sure that if we believe in Christ, we have eternal life.

John 5:24 ““Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.”

If we hear the word of Christ and believe in Him, we have eternal life.

John 6:47 ““Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life.”

If we believe in Him, we have eternal life.

Acts 10:43 “All the prophets testify about him that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.””

The prophets testify that if we believe in Him we receive forgiveness of sins.

Acts 13:39 “Everyone who believes is justified through him from everything that you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.”

If we believe, we are justified through Him.

This is the testimony of Scripture, and I can do no other than proclaim what God has said. If we believe in Christ, we have eternal life. This is what the Scriptures say, and as such I may have that blessed assurance of salvation based upon God’s own word, for He cannot lie.

But what of those who have testified of this belief and have since fallen away? This is because they did not truly belong. They were not in Christ. Listen to the testimony of John on this point:

1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.”

Which brings us then to the second foundation of assurance.

The Second Foundation

The test of life:

Here we come to where the rubber meets the road on our understanding of how we can have evidence of our assurance. Put another way - tests to apply to ensure that I truly have eternal life.

The First Test: believing that Jesus is the Christ.

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of him.”

The Second Test: loving the brethren.

1 John 3:14 “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters. The one who does not love remains in death.”

This is further clarified by John on what it means to love the brethren in 1 John 3:16, 1 John 3:17–18 “This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” “If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.”

This love is not merely mental acquiescence, but practical and lived out.

The Third Test: keeping His commandments.

1 John 2:3 “This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands.”

1 John 5:3 “For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden,”

The Fourth Test: having the Spirit.

1 John 3:24 “The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him. And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us.”

But this takes us down a further rabbit hole of seeking, how is it that I know that I have the Spirit? Let’s explore this further.

How is it that I know that I have the Spirit?

Proofs of Having the Spirit:

Foundationally, we have to understand this from the perspective of the Holy Spirit being the seal of the inheritance that we will enter.

Ephesians 1:13–14 “In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.”

So the gift of the Spirit is the promise, the down payment, the seal, the foretaste of what we will receive fully.

But further, MLJ asks the question “how can I know exactly whether God has given me the gift of the Spirit?” and to that question we turn to what Scripture says for our first :

Romans 8:7 “The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so.”

Romans 8:9 “You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.”

1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually.”

1 Corinthians 2:8 “None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

1 Corinthians 2:12 “Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God.”

1 Corinthians 2:16 “For who has known the Lord’s mind, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

1 Corinthians 12:3 “Therefore I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”

From the text of Scripture we can see and believe that because we in fact have that belief in Jesus being the Christ is a sign, the first proof that we have received the Spirit because if we had not, we would not believe these truths. In fact we would reject them, we would hate them.

Second, if we desire to have more of God, to grow in the knowledge of Him and to be closer to Him - if we are led by Him and desire to submit to His authority, it is proof that we have the Spirit.

Romans 8:14 “For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.”

Third, we can see the work of the Spirit in us - the revealing and our recognition of sin. As we are transformed more into the image and likeness of Christ we become more and more aware and sensitive to sin. And on top of that, we grow in hatred to sin. As God hates sin (Proverbs 6:16–19 “The Lord hates six things; in fact, seven are detestable to him: arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked schemes, feet eager to run to evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.” ), so we too should hate sin and flee from it. 2 Corinthians 3:18 “We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

Fourth, we can see in our lives the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.”

Fifth, we cry “Abba, Father”, showing our Spirit of adoption, that we are children of the Most High.

Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!””

Here we can conclude with the collection, the proofs, the tests of what it means to have assurance as witnessed in our lives - all found in Johns first epistle.

The Third Foundation

The Witness of the Holy Spirit

Romans 8:16 “The Spirit himself testifies (bears witness) together with our spirit that we are God’s children,”

This is complicated. MLJ himself says about this third foundation that,

Great Doctrines of the Bible, Volume 2: God the Holy Spirit Chapter 15: Assurance

It is something that is difficult to put into words, but it is an operation of the Holy Spirit within us which is definite and distinct and by means of which He gives us a realization and a consciousness of the living Lord.

The key points here are that there are two operating agents - the Holy Spirit (Spirit of adoption) and our spirit.

By the Spirit we are able to cry in our spirit ‘Abba, Father’ as his sons and daughters. And more than that, the Spirit Himself comes beside us and dwells (makes His home) in us and is made known to us.

In this receiving of the Spirit, this awakening of our own spirits by the Holy Spirit, we come into a sort of inner understanding of Him and as MLJ puts it “He is made real to us.”

Great Doctrines of the Bible, Volume 2: God the Holy Spirit Chapter 15: Assurance

Now this is the ultimate, the final ground of assurance. It is a certain knowledge because He is real to us, because He has manifested Himself to us according to His promise.

How Do We Lay Hold of This Assurance?

Here it is laid out in simplicity:

Great Doctrines of the Bible, Volume 2: God the Holy Spirit Chapter 15: Assurance

Make certain that you are relying only upon the finished work of Christ upon the cross, that you are solely dependent upon His righteousness. Apply the word of Scripture to yourself, get to know it, read it. Take these scriptures that I have been quoting; stand on them; apply them to yourself. Say, ‘I have been crucified with Christ, I have died with Christ. The Scripture says it; I believe it and I stand on it.’ Live the life. Yield yourself to be led of the Spirit. Seek His face. If you ask Him to fulfil His promise and to manifest Himself to you, He has pledged to do it.

Further Thoughts…

What of false assurance and again to further points that our assurance is true?

This is generally the cause of bad teaching, wrong evangelism, the “altar call” and fabricated emotional responses devoid of the working of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 7:22–23 “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’”

Matthew 25, the parables of the Ten Virgins, the foolish servant and his talent, the self-righteous who did not do to the least of the brethren that which was required of them, and this is a false assurance, those that were never of the kingdom of heaven.

Here are some clear marks of a true assurance:

Humility:

the true Christian is humble and expresses that humility, knowing who they are, what they deserve, and Who they owe everything to.

Self-examination:

2 Corinthians 13:5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless you fail the test.”

Conformity to Christ:

Philippians 3:10 “My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,”

Philippians 3:13–14 “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

1 John 3:3 “And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.”

Here we have proofs that some will be deceived of their assurance because they were never of Christ due to their not faithfully doing the will of the Father.

Finally…

Along with all this, and we have already mentioned this, is the clear and definitive teaching of John 14:21, “The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”

Christ will reveal Himself to those who love Him and keep His commands - that is a certainty, and based on that certainty we can then be assured of our salvation. If we have doubt of this, if we are uncertain of the certainty of our salvation - of our faith in the Solid Rock - let us remember what we have walked through today, and acquire that firm foundation.

Let us offer up the short and powerful prayer of Hudson Taylor,

Great Doctrines of the Bible, Volume 2: God the Holy Spirit Chapter 15: Assurance

Lord Jesus, make Thyself to me

A living bright reality.

More present to faith’s vision keen

Than any outward object seen,

More dear, more intimately nigh

Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie.