Allow me to rehearse to you a few
random thoughts on the subject of assurance of salvation. From the time of the
Reformation assurance of salvation has always been properly understood to be
distinct from salvation. It is one thing to know Jesus Christ as your personal
Lord and Savior through faith in Him. It is another thing to have the assurance
of your salvation that you know Christ as your personal savior.
I came to Christ on March 31,
1974 in my apartment, in Torrance, California. When I retired for the evening,
I was not at all sure what had happened to me. When I woke up the next morning,
I still was not sure what had happened to me the night before. I recall
thinking to myself while preparing for work the next morning, “If this is real,
it will somehow reveal itself.” Little did I know that God had already planned
for two separate occasions in which I would be suddenly and unexpectedly called
upon to speak of things I had never before in my life been called upon to speak
of. First, in the presence of professing believers, and then in the presence of
belligerent anti-Christian men, I found myself called upon to declare if I had
any interest in Christ. On both occasions, without advance notice or
preparation that I was conscious of, I declared in no uncertain terms that I
was a Christian. I somehow knew this to be true. From the perspective of
decades, I realize now that I then had but a bud of the flower of assurance.
Not having come to Christ as the
result of any church ministry, or the conscious efforts of any believer in
Jesus Christ, I was somehow left to my own devices with respect to understanding
the Spirit’s development in me of the assurance of my salvation. When I was
finally invited to church, and subsequent to my baptism in that same church, I
unconsciously accepted as appropriate the practice of supposedly bringing a
sinner to Christ by leading him to repeat something called the sinner’s prayer,
after which time that supposedly newly converted person was taken to First John
5.13 and given something called assurance based upon the statement of that
single verse. It did not dawn on me until many years later that what the Apostle
John took almost 5 chapters in his brief letter to establish in the heart and
mind of the genuinely converted person should not be, could not be,
accomplished by going directly to his conclusion and ignoring by overlooking his
Spirit-inspired reasoning.
I now understand that there are
several kinds of what is thought to be assurance of salvation. There is
assurance of salvation that is scriptural, that is fostered only in the
believer’s bosom by the Holy Spirit of God, and that quite frankly comes and
goes as the believer yields to and also resists and grieves the Spirit who
provides the inner witness of adoption and well-being. Next, there is assurance
of salvation that is not scriptural, that is not fostered in the believer’s
bosom by the Holy Spirit of God, and that quite frankly does not come and go as
the person (who may or may not be genuinely converted) lives his life. This
erroneous personal conviction that so frequently passes for assurance of
salvation can be the result of two entirely different causes. Most usually it
is caused by the professing Christian remaining convinced from the time he was
taken to First John 5.13 by the well-intentioned personal evangelist who led
him in praying the so-called sinner’s prayer. However, the other cause of this
erroneous type of assurance of salvation can frequently be found in
congregations whose pastors rarely, if ever, address the issue of assurance of
salvation. In such cases, the church members acquire their faulty assurance of
salvation entirely from their understanding of their pastor’s conviction
regarding their relationship with Christ. Without anyone in the congregation
understanding the dynamic at work, the church members derive their assurance of
salvation, not from the personal ministry of the Holy Spirit who may or may not
indwell them, but from their admired pastor. What a travesty!
A third kind of assurance of salvation,
which I will only lightly touch on now, is the assurance that other church
members have concerning a person’s relationship with Christ. There is no
scriptural warrant for anyone to accept as true someone’s claim to be a
believer in Jesus Christ without persuasive corroborating evidence. This is why
the Apostle Paul urged the Corinthian congregation to examine themselves in Second
Corinthians 13.5. This is also why the Apostle Peter insisted that every
professing Christian be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within
him, First Peter 3.15.
I wrap up my thoughts by
rehearsing to you my concern that there are many who are not Christians whose counterfeit
assurance comes not from the Holy Spirit, but from a misused verse improperly
handled by a sincere but mistaken personal evangelist, or by others who are
wrongly led to rely on their pastor’s confidence that they are born again.
Assurance of salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, and is a distinct
and separate work from regeneration. Sometimes the Holy Spirit’s provides
assurance quickly. At other times the Holy Spirit brings assurance slowly.
Assurance that is fostered in the believer’s bosom by the Holy Spirit is a delightful
and comforting confidence that arises from the Holy Spirit working in the heart
of the child of God. When the Spirit is grieved or quenched by sin, He sometimes
chooses to withhold the assurance which properly comes only from him.
Ministers of the gospel of Jesus
Christ must to be very careful to make sure they are people do not
inappropriately seek to give assurance to anyone. That ministry is reserved for
the Holy Spirit alone. I call upon gospel ministers to also be very careful
that they do not unconsciously or inadvertently lead their congregants to base
their personal assurance of salvation on the preacher’s opinion or convictions
about them.
