Sermon Tone Analysis

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.