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. How do you know that your spouse loves you? In this world, everything depends on definitions. What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Is love a feeling? An emotion? Of course there are components of love that are romantic that are truly based on feelings and emotions that sway like trees in the blustery winds of spring. We see all around us the result of people committing the fallacy of equating love and romance. Romantic feelings come and go, so that does mean love does, as well?
Of course not. So how do you know your spouse loves you? Because they have entered in to a covenant of marriage with you. He or she will love you when the romance is hot and when it's cool, even when it's lukewarm. Your spouse is committed to love you for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do you part. Your assurance is rooted the covenant made between you both. How do you know God loves you? Or rather, what is your assurance of faith? How do you know you're saved? The Confession begins by saying, Although temporary believers and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God and in a state of salvation, which hope of theirs shall perish; yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed. We must admit that there are people who may exhibit the outward show of faith without actually possessing saving faith. These are hypocrites, not true believers. Jesus identifies these hypocrites when he says, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:22-23). There will in fact be those who proclaim the name of Christ who use his holy name for selfish ambition. Who will be rejected at the final judgment? It will be those who did not do the Father's will. And what is the Father's will? "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:40). So who can be saved? They are those who truly believe and love the Lord and seek ongoing obedience. This is what James means when he says that faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Those who truly possess saving faith will seek to obey the Lord, not out of a sense of dread, but from a sense of joy and love, or a desire to be holy as he is holy. This is not salvation by works. It's salvation with evidence. The Confession continues, 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. If your spouse has cheated on you nine times, how strong is your assurance that it will never happen a tenth? I would wager your assurance is quite low. Your trust in someone is based on their record of faithfulness. Christ faithfully kept the Mosaic law. Christ faithfully sought the Father's will in purchasing redemption. Christ faithfully went to the cross instead of calling upon legions of angels to comfort him. Christ faithfully rose from the grave as evidence of his divinely appointed kingship and authority over the gates of hades. There is none so faithful as Jesus Christ, Lord of heaven and earth. This is what the Confessions means by saying our assurance is grounded on the blood and righteousness of Christ. Not only do we have evidence upon which we can look back in history, but we have the inward assurance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul writes, "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him" (Romans 8:16-17). How does the Spirit bear witness? Is it a whisper in our ears? Is it an encrypted email from heaven? Ask yourself, what is the Spirit producing in me? If witnesses give evidence, what evidence is there that I am producing the fruit of the Spirit? Keep in mind that evidence is partial. Think of a forensics unit. They gather bits and pieces to put together a picture of a crime. So do not seek perfection in this life. Perfection comes in the new city. Are there bits and pieces, however much or meager, of evidence that point to the reality of salvation? So what about when my assurance waivers? What about dark nights of the soul? What about besetting sin in my life? The Confession has more to say, to which we will return next week. The promise of perseverance comforts the believer. God both calls us to endurance and promises to preserve us. We can rightly say that perseverance is the fruit of saving faith. It’s not unlike a marriage. What’s the best way to show your love for your spouse? You stay.
But that’s not to say that every day of a marriage feels like the day before. Some are better and others worse. It is not uncommon for any marriage to go through a period where it may very well feel on the verge of dissolution. Why is that? There are an untold number of influences on your marriage, both from the inside and out. In a similar way, there are number of influences on your perseverance and assurance in the Christian life. Some are more serious than others. Therefore, we must be on our guard against these things. The Confession continues, “And though they may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit, come to have their graces and comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.” The Confession lists several ways our perseverance can be affected, leading to a lack of assurance. The first is of outside temptations, namely Satan and the world. We are still in the flesh, but we fight in the Spirit. There was more going on, but if Jesus can be tempted in the wilderness by Satan, then we will not be left alone, either. Jesus tells his disciples, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). We should not expect any different treatment from the people who crucified the Lord. It is precisely because we reject the world and its ways that it hates us. Christ came declaring that all men were equal before the foot of the cross, that all men were sinners and in need of a savior, and that he would save all those who came to him in faith and repentance. Martin Lloyd-Jones gave an excellent sermon about Naaman the Syrian who was sent to Elisha for healing from his leprosy. Naaman expected that Elisha would wave his hand, say some magic words, and send him on his way. Naaman expected special treatment because of who he was. Lloyd-Jones showed how mankind cannot find the cure for our sin, and when we are told the way, we think it is beneath us. But Christ demands nothing else. He is king, and we are his subjects. If the world hated the king, the world his treat his subjects the same. But we should not think that we are innocent victims of the devil and the world. We are reminded of our remaining corruption. We must mortify the sin that remains in us—lust, greed, envy, and the like. These sins are not in the world; they are in us. And if we do not persevere in faith, we are all but assured to fall in to grievous sin. The means of perseverance mentioned are not abnormal. We fill our minds with sound doctrine. We place ourselves under the preaching of the Word and meditate on what we hear. We are held accountable by fellowship with other believers. We regularly receive the Lord’s Supper and examine ourselves. If we fall away from these things, we have no right to expect to feel any assurance. We are in fact called to make our calling and election sure. This means we have an active faith, one that seeks assurance from the Word and not ourselves. Falling way for a time, which is commonly called backsliding, is possible for the believer. It may not threaten their salvation, but it does threaten their peace. The “warning passages” of Hebrews is one of the means of perseverance. They warn us of the dangers of apostasy, or falling way. We do not seek holiness because we think it is up to us. We seek holiness because we want tot be like the Lord in all his holiness. And at times, there are those believers who have let temptation have a foothold and have fallen into great sin. An affair takes place because “harmless” flirting went on too long. You’re fired from your job because you took more than you were permitted over the course of many years without getting caught. Or it could be something less obvious, like forsaking gathered worship on the Lord’s day. Something that seems so frivolous one time stops becoming frivolous when it becomes a habit. If you remove yourself from the ordinary means of grace, you should not expect any extraordinary means of grace. In fact, the normal outcome of removing oneself from the means of perseverance is a hardened heart, making it more difficult to return at all. We start to see the practicality of perseverance. It has consequences. But in the mercy and grace of God who calls and redeems, he does not let anyone falter to the point of falling way for good. In Luke 22:32, Jesus tells Peter, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” This promise took place before Peter denied Christ three times. Christ knew that Peter would fail, so Christ held Peter up with Peter could not hold up himself. This is the love and mercy of God. Perseverance and assurance are tightly bound together, as we see. We will take a deep look next week at “Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation”. A few months ago, many of us in the church read through Charles Stanley’s book Eternal Security. For some, it was the first time the doctrine had been studied in any thorough way. Stanley did a good job of hitting the major components of the doctrine. In the main, I prefer the term “perseverance of the saints” over “eternal security”. Without intending to do so, “eternal security” dulls the edges of good works in the Christian life. Faith without works is dead, and God is not mocked.
There will be many who convinced themselves they were good people, even Christians, who will one day hear “I never knew you.” There is only one promise made to those who are in reality “carnal Christians”, or those who claim the name of Christ but live as though he were meaningless to them—they will be cast outside with the other goats. Eternal life is offered to the one who conquers and perseveres till the end. By no means do I think our works have any role in our salvation; but I do believe perseverance is the fruit of salvation. It’s a paradigm shift from how we often think of good works. Scripture makes no compromise here. The Confession states this position clearly. Those who God has elected will not be lost, and yet God requires perseverance. The Confession begins, “Those whom God has accepted in the beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect unto, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved, seeing the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, from which source he still begets and nourishes in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit unto immortality;” Perseverance will be the final fruit and test of true faith. Since faith is a gift of God, ultimately, so is perseverance. Some pastor-teachers have even argued that a better term is the “preservation” of the saints. From beginning to end, faith is a gift of God. The lease never gets turned over to us. It is always God’s work in us. The most beautiful reminder in this passage is that “the gifts and callings of God are without repentance”. It’s a 17th-century way of saying God does not change his mind. Since he called us, he never un-calls us. He never un-adopts his children. This is a radical departure from the popular way of thinking about salvation. All we have to do is give God a reason for leaving us, and he will, we fear. The presence of sin in my life is evidence I’m not saved. But through the biblical witness, in places such as John 17 and Christ’s priestly prayer, we know that he will never leave us nor forsake us. But that does not mean we will always feel such a way. The Confession continues, “and though many storms and floods arise and beat against them, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock which by faith they are fastened upon; notwithstanding, through unbelief and the temptations of Satan, the sensible sight of the light and love of God may for a time be clouded and obscured from them, yet he is still the same, and they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession, they being engraved upon the palm of his hands, and their names having been written in the book of life from all eternity.” When Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, prophecies in Luke 1, he speaks of God giving “the knowledge of salvation to his people” (v.77). Salvation is surely an experience, but it is not primarily a feeling. Sometimes the things that make us doubt and question are purely outside forces. These are persecutions and mockery. But our own sin can have a similar effect. We may not “feel” God’s presence as an act of discipline upon us. But we must remember that he disciplines those he loves. The lack of our feeling is not the lack of his presence. As the Confession says, he is still the same. It is the power of God that keeps the believer, not our own. It is he who keeps us; we do not keep ourselves. As God tells Israel, “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (49:16). God will not forget us, even at our death or at the end of the age. What is it that causes God to act in such a way toward us? The Confession continues, “This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father, upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ and union with him, the oath of God, the abiding of his Spirit, and the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace; from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof.” God redeems us and preserves us because we are in union (in covenant) with his Son. The Father loves the Son and all those who the Son has redeemed. The Father’s love of the Son is unchanging, and so we are saved in that unchanging love. We are in the Son (union with him), and the Spirit is in us (the abiding of his Spirit). What more could we need! A covenant is always how God relates to his creatures. The covenant of grace is another important component of our perseverance and preservation. It also addresses the issue of perseverance across time and between Israel and the church. Some theological reflection results in seeing two covenants: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The covenant of works is that covenant in which God entered into with Adam before the fall. Should Adam, the head of the human race, keep his covenantal obligations (fill the earth and subdue it, and keep the garden), God would keep his obligations (the gift of eternal life). Adam broke that covenant by not keeping the garden free from rebels (the serpent and eventually himself). The covenant of works was broken, so God entered into a covenant of grace with his people. He covered them with the skins of animals and cast them out of the garden. And yet, he made another covenantal promise, unconditionally, that the seed of the woman would crush the seed of the snake and therefore break the curse. The subsequent covenants (with Noah, Abraham, David, and Christ) are various administrations of that one covenant. Next week, we’ll look at the final paragraph of this important article of faith. We’ll get some greater detail about why perseverance and assurance can sometimes be elusive. |
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