The Reformation's Recovery of Assurance
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· 37 viewsIn the reformation many scriptural doctrines that had been clouded by bad teaching down through the Chrurch were recovered in the reformation. The doctrine of assurance was one such doctrine. We are going to look and see that Calvin saw assurance as a main reason for the necessity of refoming the church. Then we will look and see from the letter to the Hebrews the scriptural foundation for this precious truth.
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The Reformation’s Recovery of Assurance
The Reformation’s Recovery of Assurance
Introduction
I grew up in the evangelical church were each sermon was always followed up with an altar call. The whole sermon was moving towards a response. I remember being 10 or 11 and every Sunday coming up to the front to ask Jesus in my heart again. I was anxious because I thought that if there was any unconfessed sin when I died I would go to hell. I believed that Jesus was my savior, and that he died for my sin, but I had to do my part. I remember after several weeks of coming up front, usually the Pastor had one of the elders pray with me the sinners prayer, but this time he knelt down with me and said “son I don't think that you need to be up here, you have already asked Jesus into your heart.” And I said, “yeah but how do I know he is still there? How do I know?” Maybe this is not the experience exactly of many of you, but I am guessing the question is, “How do I know that I am a Christian? How do I know that I have genuine saving faith?”
A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with gentleman about a discussion we had had in Sunday school about hope. We had said that the kind of hope that Pauls was saying was ours was a sure hope, not like well I hope I get that job. Meaning its uncertain. The gentleman expressed later that he had always thought that hope was mixed with uncertainty—how else would it be hope if it were certain. That sounds true doesn't it. So the question is is your confidence sure? Today is reformation Sunday, every year we commemorate the reformation—recognizing that we stand on the shoulders of Giants. Because last year we focused so much attention on Luther, this year I thought it would be appropriate to look at Calvin. So today we are going to look at the reformations recovery of the doctrine of assurance.
The Necessity of Reforming the Church: To recover the Doctrine of Assurance
Calvin
Calvin was a reluctant reformer. Unlike Luther, who seemed made for the position, Calvin stumbled into it, and embraced it tentatively. Calvin was a French reformer, but was exiled from his homeland to the Swiss town of Geneva. He was born in 1509, so he was just 8 years old when Luther nailed the 95 thesis to the church door in Wittenberg. Unlike Luther, he was not prone to autobiographical details so we do not know much about his conversion to the protestant faith. He began his studies in theology, but then his father soured to the clergy in his town, and so had him transfer to law. This would prove to be invaluable later on when he brought the Protestant faith to bear on the reformation of Geneva. Not long after starting a course of study in law, his father died, so he returned to Paris in 1532 to study Letters. Sometime during this time he was convinced of the need for reformation. He had a hand in creating a sermon that was delivered by Nicolas Cop that led to his being driven out of France. At this point Calvin wanted to be a scholar, avoiding any public life and living a life of ease. God had other plans. He wrote the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian religion at 27 years old in Basle. While making his way from Basel to Strasbourg, Calvin went through Geneva, there an earnest reformer by the name of William Farrel recognized the talent of young Calvin, and conscripted him to assist him in the Reformation of Geneva. Besides a three year exile in Strasbourg Calvin spent the rest of his life in Geneva laboring as a pastor, and teacher. His Institutes of the Christian Religion is considered to be the greatest systematic treatment of the reformed faith from that period.
In 1543 Calvin's friend in Strasbourg, Martin Bucer pressed Calvin to write a letter to Emperor Charles V to defend the necessity of reforming the church. In that letter he argues that for several reasons the church is in need of reforming. One of those reasons was what we might call the assurance of salvation. Calvin argued that this was an essential aspect of our faith, and integral to it. He said, “there was another most pestilential error, [referring to Rome] which not only occupied the minds of men, but was regarded as one of the principal articles of faith…that believers ought to be perpetually in suspense and uncertainty as to their interest in the divine favour.” (Tracts I, 135). To understand this I need to explain a little bit about the Roman Catholic idea of faith.
Let me preface what I am about to say concerning the Roman Catholics position on assurance that I understand I will be presenting an oversimplified picture of their view. I know that there may be more nuance to their position. But I will present it as it was seen by our reformed fathers, and also how it was presented in the council of Trent. You see the Roman Catholic view of grace, is one that is tied to a merit based system. For the Roman Catholic baptism washes away original sin, and the merits of Christ are infused into the person. Justification is not a declaration, but is confused with sanctification, and is a process. As the person obeys God, and especially through the sacraments, they grow more and more in grace—but that grace can be lost through sin. Grace is then more of substance—then a person. Justice is infused in baptism, but is developed and grown through obedience, and is lost in disobedience, until the final day of judgement when the person is finally justified based not on faith alone, but on faith plus our works of charity.
To give you a flavor of this I will quote several statements from the council of Trent, which was formed to answer the reformation. “Canon IX.—If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will: let him be anathema.”
“Canon XIV.—If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected: let him be anathema.”
“Canon XXIV.—If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof: let him be anathema”
You can see from these that there is a radical difference between the Roman Catholic and the reformed conception of how a sinner is saved. The question is What is the nature of saving faith. Because the grace of God in the Roman Catholic Church was dependent on the sacrament of penance, and absolution of the priest—there could be no certainty of faith. Each mortal sin brought the sinner in need of the grace of penance to restore him to favor with God. All of this kept the sinner in perpetual doubt concerning his eternal position. A position that the Roman church thought best to be in, because it did not lead to an over confidence, and kept sinners always concerned with obedience and good works.
The reformers taught much differently. For them Assurance was of the very essence of the faith that justified us. Because they taught Divine election, and the utter inability for man to please God; and they taught that Justification was an act of declaration, whereby our sin is imputed to Christ and his righteousness is imputed to us; and that taught that those who had been predestined would persevere until the end; Assurance was foundational to all this. How could it be considered faith, if the sinner could not trust that what he was believing was true for himself. That is faith was more than just knowledge, but it was trust. Calvin in his institutes said this, “he alone is truly a believer who, convinced by a firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him, promises himself all things on the basis of his generosity; who, relying upon the promises of divine benevolence toward him, lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation” (ICR, 562). And in his commentary on Romans 8:34 he says this, “This so great an assurance, which dares to triumph over the devil, death, sin, and the gates of hell, ought to lodge deep in the hearts of all the godly; for our faith is nothing, except we feel assured that Christ is ours, and that the Father is in him propitious to us. Nothing then can be devised more pestilent and ruinous, than the scholastic dogma respecting the uncertainty of salvation” (Rom. Comm., 325)
You see, the reformers believed very strongly that the promises of God where for us true, and therefore we had confidence to trust in them as being already ours. The assurance that God is for us, everything that he promised in his word, was then of the very essence of saving faith. That is not to say that they were under an illusion that doubts would stalk the believer his life long, but that these doubts came from outside, they were not inherent to faith itself. In other words there would always be an enemy to faith. Our confession is always to be that of the man with the demon possessed child in Mark 9:24, “I believe; help my unbelief!” Instead then of feverishly attempting to make up our every transgressions and sins through penance, the reformers taught a resting in the finished work of Christ. But before we take their word for it let us now turn to the Word of God and see how these things are so. We will look at the book of Hebrews, and then at the life of Abraham as a test case for the reformers definition of true saving faith.
Hebrews Full Assurance of Hope
The letter to the Hebrews is a perfect place to see the importance of the biblical doctrine of assurance. Before I hone in on the particular text we will focus on I want to take you on a very brief survey of the letter. Hebrews is an epistle, but it reads a lot like a collection of sermons. It was probably sermons that were delivered, and then taken up, edited and put into a collection. The purpose is stated in 13:22, “Brothers, Bear with my word of exhortation.” The author which I will call the preacher is encouraging the church in their faith. Exhortation is an “act of emboldening another in belief or course of action” (BDAG, 766). Paul tells Timothy to “devote” himself “to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” This is what we call the ministry of the word.
This epistle is missing the typical opening greeting, that states who the author is and to whom the letter is written. But from the context we can gather a some of the details. It seems that he is writing to a group of believers who are tempted, or are actually going back to Jewish practices—specifically the Levitical sacrificial system. The preacher is writing not only to correct their understanding of the original purpose of the Levitical system, but to show that Jesus is greater. The preacher very often argues from the lesser to the greater to show the surpassing greatness of Christ Jesus. He is greater than angels, greater than moses, greater than the tabernacle, and a greater high priest—whose sacrifice was once for all complete. It is a masterful sermonic letter, not all that unlike our modern essay. He has an argument that develops from beginning to end, but along the way he takes the time to exhort them to faithfulness sometimes giving them stern warnings. Seen from one angle we might say that the preacher wants to exhort them to confident perseverance in faith in Jesus Christ.
The founding of the church was a turbulent time, as witnessed by the book of Acts. It maybe that these saints when facing persecution are tempted to turn back. You see in the Grecco-roman world Judaism was largely accepted. But Christianity was a sect, and was considered suspect. The Greeks and Romans thought Christians were atheist because they refused to sacrifice to the imperial gods. Whats more they went around calling each other brother and sister, so they thought they were incestuous. And it gets worse because they did not allow non-baptized people in the celebration of the Eucharist, or communion, and they described it as an eating and drinking of the body and blood of Jesus—there elder brother, they suspected them of cannibalism. All of these and more went into a general dislike, and distrust of Christians. You can imagine, some join the church in a fervor, but then when it begins to get hard, maybe they attempt to go back to the acceptable—more moderate—Judaism.
The preacher says this is impossible—if you have come to Christ in faith, then you cannot go back to the shadows which pointed to him. [Illus.] It’s like a child getting this awesome toy for Christmas. It is the latest, greatest game system. It does everything, and it includes games, and controllers. You get it out, set it up, strait playing it—it’s awesome. Then the level gets hard, you start dying, you throw the control down. Then the child looks over at the box, picks it up and starts playing with the box, turning it over in their hands, looking at the pictures, even pretending its a controller their playing with. That’s absurd, right. The box is good, and if you didn't have the game system, it might even entertain you, or at least build anticipation waiting for the system to come. The saints in Hebrews are having the same kind of problem. Christianity is hard, it takes perseverance—a long obedience in the right direction. They had the reality, and they are tempted to go back to the box. Obviously this analogy isn't perfect, but the point is that the sacrifices, and the tabernacle, and the priesthood all were copies, meant to be looked on by faith until the reality came. Christ is the reality, so to return again is not only absurd, but it is impossible.
So he warns them, but he doesn't just warn them. Lets look at 6:9-12 and see what the preacher tells them. [read text] He Begin’s in v. 9 with terms of endearment—beloved, yes my warning is stern. But I am sure this is not the case with you, I am confident that in relation to salvation this warning is not concerning you. Because you love the saints, it is evident in what you do that you love God and love the saints, because you are constantly serving them. Your work and your love for the saints is great, and God will not forget these things. However, you need to show the same effort when it comes to your confident trust in the promise of God. The reason is this, if you don’t have full confidence in the finished work of Christ, you will become lazy in your obedience to God. Instead you must imitate the faithful obedience of your Fathers in the faith who have inherited the promise of God—like Abraham.
You see the answer to the question how do you persevere in the midst of suffering, in the midst of persecutions and hardships, it isn't a return to the old practices of Judaism—it is a confident, assurance in the truth of the gospel—it is as Paul told the church in 2 Cor. 1:20-22 “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” Everything that Jesus has accomplished in the gospel, is ours and Jesus accomplished everything in the Gospel. So the bedrock of our hope is Jesus Christ. How would it ever be possible to endure such hardship if we could not trust that what was promised is ours.
We look around our culture today, we are lonelier then ever before, we are more medicated then ever before, and we are more divided by so many different things. And no wonder for we are quickly becoming a godless society. There is an opioid overdose epidemic. In 1999 there was 17,000 deaths from overdose, in 2016 there was 64,000. Here in St. Charles co. We have the 12th highest opioid overdose rate in the state from 2013-2017. “On a typical day in this country, some 175 people die of drug overdoses and 123 by their own hand. That’s one “death by despair” every five minutes.” Death by despair, thats what they have begun to call overdoses and suicide—which many see as an epidemic. I remember listening to a lecture on resilience by a doctor in Portland. He said that someone had told him of a case where a man who suffered from depression, was misdiagnosed with a terminal cancer. The man was so distraught, and had no hope, that three weeks later he died. When the doctors did the autopsy they found no cancer, and no discernible reason for his death. The lecturer said he died of despair.
Why is it important that we have full assurance of faith: because this life, in this poor fallen world is filled with affliction and suffering. Many of you sitting here today are suffering. You have experienced pain, maybe physically in your body—ailments. Maybe emotionally, from someone else. Maybe sexually, maybe verbally—whatever the pain you have experienced knowing that the promise of God are true, and they are true for you is our only hope of persevering in this life until the end. If we don’t have this confident assurance that Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the father, interceding for us, and has purchased our salvation through his blood is our Saviour—going beyond mere knowledge of the facts but a confident trust that Jesus in his person and work is ours. Then lives storms will destroy us, we will succumb to despair. Let me be clear the foundation of confident assurance is Christ, not our works. If we make our works the basis of our confidence lets be honest none of us will be very confident. But it is the finished work of Christ, as the preacher said, that enters behind the veil. And we have that Hope. But how is this how can we have this hope, is it as the Roman Catholic church says only through special revelation? Or is it included in faith? To answer these lets look at the second part of this passage in Hebrews. Look with me again at v. 13-20.
Abraham as Case-Study of Assurance
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Picking up in v. 13, the preacher then lays out a case study illustrating the reason we can have such strong confidence. V. 12 he encourages them to be imitators of the faithful, which moves to an illustration of this kind of confidence in the life of Abraham. When God came to Abraham and promised him to bless him, and make him a nation of people, he swore by himself. Since there is no one greater to swear by. When God swears by himself it means that what he says is as sure as his character is, so that it will come to pass. In Gen 15 we have a covenant making ceremony. We know from antiquity something of the structure of these covenants. Typically a great king would make a covenant with a lesser king. In the covenant the greater would promise things such as protection, maybe land, or water rites; and the lesser king would promise to obey the greater king, if he is summoned to do something he must do it, etc. To enact this there would be a ceremony. The lesser king would divide animals in half, and in front of the greater king he would walk between those—this mobilized that if the lesser king failed to keep the stipulations of the covenant the greater king would tear him in two.
So here with Abraham God condescends to covenant with him, a gracious act all its own, but then as Abraham had divided the animals, the Lord caused a deep sleep to overcome Abraham, instead of making Abraham pass between the animals, the Lord passes between symbolically as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. God is taking upon himself the curse, pointing to the day when in Christ that is exactly what he would do. He is reassuring Abraham what I have promised will come true, I guarantee by myself, and I am not able to lie. But the reference that the preacher to the Hebrews is citing from his gen 22:16-17. There Abraham has been told to take his only son Issac, and offer him as a sacrifice—Abraham obeys—but before he kills Isaac, the Lord stops him and provides a sacrifice for him. Having passed the test, the Angel of the LORD came to Abraham, Gen. 22:16-18
and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
The preacher highlights Gods pledge to keep his promises on his unchanging character so that we would understand the reason for the firmness of our hope. If our hope was not a guarantee, then scripture would not assert that it is built on the solid foundation of God’s unchanging character. We could easily conceive of a promise that rests on man. We have that in the Covenant of works. There life is offered to Adam and his posterity upon the condition of perfect and personal obedience (WCF VII.2). There in the garden Adam was in the state of innocence having neither the inclination toward sin, nor the inability toward righteousness. The gracious offer of eternal life was predicated then on his ability to obey God—that is an assurance free zone. If the outcome of your life is uncertain then you have no assurance how it will turn out. But thanks be to God we are not under the covenant of Works, we have been freed from the bondage of sin and death, that had enslaved us to do its will. Instead we are under the covenant of Grace. Made in the precious blood of our perfect High Priest, who became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.
Now a closer look at the life of Abraham will answer several objections to the doctrine of assurance that some might have. One of which is this, how can we who are finite, and do not have access to the secret things of God, ever with any certainty know that we our one of the elect. After all there are many imposter's, those who resemble the faithful but yet are tares among the wheat, are wolves in sheep's clothing. This has been answered differently some would say, and many puritans developed this idea, that we should look to our works to confirm that we are exhibiting true saving faith. I think that is true to an extent, so long as we recognize that the ground of our assurance is not our works, but in Christ and his work. Others have said that this is the reason why the doctrine of assurance is false, we cant know such things and therefore we never could have assurance apart from some special revelation from God. This I think we have shown to be false. But lets look at the life of Abraham to see how this might work out.
Abraham after God had condescended to covenant with him, and promised him that he would bless and him and give him an heir, the very next chapter finds a way around, a loop hole, to jump-starting this promise. After all Ishmael is his son. It is none other than doubt and unbelief that cause Abraham to seek the covenant promise his own way. The account of the patriarch in genesis is not embellished, we see a man who struggles to remain faithful. Yet he is commended in the Hebrews for his faithfulness. In fact from v. 12 of chapter 6 he is the one whom we should imitate because of their faith and patience, or what might be better called faithful endurance. If Abraham were to trust in his good works to find assurance he would be sunk. BUt to say on the other side that his works did not demonstrate his faithful endurance would be false to the testimony of scripture. What we have here is the paradox of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
The simple truth is the ground of assurance is in the exalted Christ, who is behind the curtain, in the holy of holies. And we are there with him by faith. So that we have great confidence, because we believe that God is who he said he is for us. That he is our loving Heavenly Father, and that in Christ our sins have been forgiven, that we have been adopted as sons, and our counted worthy to inherit eternal life. Keeping those as the firm foundation, the anchor of our soul we endure doubts and unbelief that come from outside to threaten our confidence and tempt us to waver from our confession of Christ.
Conclusion
This is not an arid theological doctrine for theologians to argue over. It is vital for our experience as Christians. Which is why the reformers recovery of this biblical doctrine was so important. We are heirs of their legacy, and so I would encourage you all to consider that in Christ all the promises of God are yes and amen—for you. If perhaps you are visiting tonight and you don't know Christ, but while you heard of the sure foundation of the Christian's hope your heart was stirred. I would encourage you not to leave this place without placing your faith in Jesus Christ. Let me assure there is no other hope. If you would like to know more about Jesus, come and see me, or one of the elders and we would be glad to speak to you. We are glad you are here. Here at Grace our goal is take you from curious to Mission. If you are curious about Christ, and the hope of the gospel, don’t wait to satisfy your curiosity. Speak to someone here today.
[Prayer] Father, we earnestly desire the full assurance of hope. We desire confidence in your promises. We cry out just as the father in marks gospel “we believe, help our unbelief.” Father may you strengthen those who are suffering, with the truth that your promise are for them true in Christ. Grant father that all of our lives would be marked by this kind of confident assurance, and that this confidence would propel us to greater obedience to you. Go with us throughout this week and make this the refrain that echos through our mind, Christ is my lord and my Saviour. Amen