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The greatest difficulty for lost sinners, besides them being at odds with a holy God, is understanding their fallen position. I have heard one popular spiritual teacher say that people don’t need to be told they’re sinners, that they already know, and what they need is the the hope of the gospel. The question, “Is this true?”, hardly gets the root of the problem. The real question is, “Which part of that statement is true?”
Romans 1 articulates three truths: people know that God exists (1:19), people know that there is a divine law (1:32), and they don’t care (1:21). The greater biblical witness is that even if people know they are sinners, they actually don’t give two rips about it. They don’t want the hope of the gospel. They want to go their own way. There is grief over consequences, not over offense. And such were some of us. That is, until we are regenerated and circumcised in heart. Enter the law of God. There is an enduring law of God which all men and women have flouted. The Confession helps us take this complicated truth and break it down. The Confession begins, God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart, and a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it. From the very beginning, there was a law to keep. Adam and Eve were obedient creatures, as Ecclesiastes makes clear. “God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes” (Eccl. 7:29). If we were upright, that means we kept a divine precept, not our own. What was this law? While we do not have a “ten commandments of the garden”, we can rightly say that the ten commandments of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 are a pure distillation of the law of God which all men know. And in eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the "particular precept", the other commandments were broken. God was not honored, and mankind was banished into a cursed world. God told Adam particularly, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16b-17). The consequence of disobedience was death. Therefore, the blessing would have been life. Until the time of Christ, these were the only two people who had true free will. They could choose obedience or disobedience, and they chose disobedience, thereby bringing down a curse on the ground and punishment on themselves and their posterity. The Confession then explains the codifying of this law of God. The same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall; and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables, the four first containing our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man. Our sinfulness did not negate God’s righteousness, nor his law’s. As Romans 1 told us, recognition of the law of God does not produce a fondness for it. But Romans 2 continues, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (2:14-15). No one wants to be wronged, so at times we will do good to others so they will not do evil to us. That in itself is evidence that the law of God is known to us but that our motivations are selfish, not directed toward God. It is also evidence that morality comes from a transcendent source, not within ourselves. People may argue the relativity of morality, but it is a tactic to disarm those who disagree and obscure the issue further. Note that transcendent morality, the law of God, is not in conflict with itself. We are in conflict with the law of God. Our consciences accuse us when we are in conflict with the law, but we have developed an incredible ability to excuse ourselves. It is the grace of God that he codified his law into ten commandments on Sinai. A parent might try to have one rule for his toddler child: don’t get hit by a car. But to communicate that one rule to his child, he might have other rules: don’t go outside by yourself, don’t go past the fence, don’t go in the road, etc. In a similar way, the ten commandments communicate the two great commandments. When Jesus was asked by a lawyer of the Pharisees to identify the greatest commandment, Jesus responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:27-40). If you keep the ten commandments, you will keep the two great commandments. If you keep the two great commandments, you will keep the ten commandments. But we know that there are many more laws than just these ten. How does the church read and understand all of those? We’ll learn what the Confession says next time.
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Having established that the Christian’s assurance of faith is “founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel”, we can be free from constantly trying to “feel” saved. We can know we’re born again by seeing and believing that Christ truly died and truly rose again from the grave. Salvation is not based on experience; it is based in God’s covenantal promise.
But that does then mean our assurance is never something to be felt or experienced? Isn’t assurance at some point an awareness? The Confession continues, 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. When you read the Psalms and hear of crying out to God, you are reading of someone struggling with faith. For instance, we read in Psalm 88:1-2, “O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!” This is the cry of a person who is struggling with whether or not God hears, and yet, he persists in seeking God. The Psalmist is asking God to hear him. We do ourselves and our fellow believers a disservice when we make faith look easy. Sometimes, it is good to admit that God feels like an idea, or at best, a distant being. But the believer insists that there is no other, and we must seek after God. What a privilege it is to be able to seek him! The unbeliever wants nothing to do with God except the possibility of God meeting the unbeliever’s demands. But the child of God can seek his or her Father, knowing that their words will be heard, even if it feels like walking through sludge. But notice that the Confession calls for “the right use of means”. We should not presume that assurance is something given without being sought. Salvation and assurance are distinct, yet assurance should be the fruit of salvation. So, we seek assurance, not by laziness but through endurance. Hebrews 6:11-12 tells us, “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” If you went to a home store, bought a bunch of material, and laid it out in your backyard, would you expect a new deck to magically appear? Of course not. You would know you had to assemble all the pieces. Building a structure requires earnestly working toward that end. You must take what you’ve been given and put it together. Assurance requires the same kind of earnestness. It does not require “extraordinary revelation”, meaning that it only requires the revelation we currently have. Or, Scripture. We make our calling and election sure through the use of ordinary means. The fellowship of the church is not to be underestimated. When we see our fellow brothers and sisters struggling and enduring, we are edified and encouraged. The one who endures to the end will be saved. But we should not fool ourselves into thinking that assurance is promised despite our sin. The Confession continues, True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which wounds the conscience and grieves the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God's withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light, yet are they never destitute of the seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by the which, in the meantime, they are preserved from utter despair. The believer may fall into temptation and sin, and his or her assurance may suffer. Assurance being diminished is not the same as salvation being lost. However, it can at times feel as though that were the case. But we “are never destitute of the seed of God”. When you sin and your conscience is pricked, you may feel the guilt and shame of offending your heavenly Father. That in itself is not a bad thing. Sin is no light matter. But God is good, and his word endures. Your salvation is sure even if the experience of assurance waxes and wanes. Let your conscience be grieved. But in doing so, seek the balm of God’s pardon. His mercy is abundant, and he joyfully gives it to his children. That does not mean that sin should abound so that grace might as well. But knowing our frame, that we are but dust, our Father bestows mercy upon mercy. And therein lies our assurance. |
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