John s Balanced Wisdom On Assurance (October 7, 2012)

Transcription

1 John s Balanced Wisdom On Assurance (October 7, 2012) This morning we are continuing our series looking at 4 Perspectives on Assurance of Salvation. Today the perspective we are going to look at is: John s Balanced Wisdom On Assurance. To set the scene for why I used the word balanced I want to paint two chilling pictures for you of what can happen when your understanding of assurance is out of balance. The first is the picture of Doubting Don.

2 Don heard the gospel at university. He struggled for some time until he finally placed his faith in Christ. His life was transformed. He gave up drinking and women. He met Mary who became his wife. But then financial trouble hit. He was working sixty-hour weeks, three kids meant Mary was constantly tired his marriage became empty. His prayer life and devotional life withered. He stopped going to church for two years. But the death of his mum made him re-examine his life. He became convinced his conversion had not been real. He took stock of his spiritual situation, recommitted his life and was rebaptised. He felt spiritually revitalised. It took time but his marriage began to heal. Over the years his spiritual life seemed to cycle. Periods of stagnation and sin like greed, porn, anger. Then repentance and periods of spiritual vigour and commitment. He checked his heart and felt despite his weaknesses he did love the Lord. But then he looked at his life and thought I simply can t be saved a child of God doesn t do these things yet at other times he thought no I am a child of God I do love Jesus. He stayed in this quandary for years. At sixty he developed terminal bowel cancer. The certainty of death focussed his life. He read His Bible voraciously, confessed every sin he could think of, even considered another rebaptism and yet, he died absolutely unsure if he would wake in heaven or hell.

3 Then there is a second picture that of Deceived Dora. Dora heard the gospel at university. She was captivated by the passion of an evangelist and accepted the invitation to come down to the altar and trust in Christ. She prayed the sinner s prayer and was assured that she had entered the Kingdom of God. By the next day her zeal had waned but she still wanted to go to heaven. Her life barely changed she rarely went to church she lived like the world and she married a non-christian. She did attend church every now and then but she was honest enough to admit this was more to keep her get out of hell card current. On those rare times when she thought about death she remembered being assured that she was saved and no one could snatch her from the hands of Jesus. At thirty-eight she developed breast cancer. Things were serious and she needed to make sure of her eternal destiny. She called the pastor of the church she occasionally attended. He visited her and asked Dora, when you walked that aisle did you truly trust in Jesus? She replied yes and he reassured her that despite her sin she was indeed a child of God. She finally closed her eyes in death convinced she would wake in heaven.

4 But to her horror, Dora awoke to hear these chilling words Depart from Me, you worker of lawlessness. Don and Dora are not rare. They are common all too common. At the heart of Don s Doubts and Dora s Deceptions is a poor grasp of the doctrine of assurance. This is one of the most crucial but also most difficult doctrines believers have to deal with. And so Dave and I are tackling this issue over four weeks by looking at what James, John, Paul and Peter had to say on the issue. But before we look at it we need to ask ourselves what is assurance? Don Carson gives an excellent definition of assurance: Assurance is: A Christian believer s confidence that he or she is already in a right standing with God, and that this will issue in ultimate salvation.1 Basically, it is living knowing that you are a Christian and you are going to heaven. But there are questions we have to ask. Can a believer actually have assurance of their salvation? What is it that gives us assurance that our salvation is real? 1 D.A. Carson, Reflections on Assurance in Schreiner and Ware, The Grace of God, The Bondage of the Will Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1995) p. 384.

5 What will stop us doubting like Don or being deceived like Dora? A number of years ago James Kennedy developed Evangelism Explosion. One of the questions he taught his church to ask people was this: If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to Heaven? Basically, do you have an assurance of your salvation? Initially this question was designed to make non-christians think but over the years it also became a question for those in churches as well. Let me ask you. When you look at this question how would you answer it? If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to Heaven? What would you say? I know for sure that I would go to heaven. I think most likely I will go there but I don t have certainty. I don t think I will go to heaven. I have no idea! The United States is somewhat different spiritually and church culture-wise to Australia but a recent survey of Christians in the US was asked this very question they were just given yes or no options.

6 Of those who identified themselves as born-again, evangelical Protestants 57% said that they were sure they were going to heaven and 43% said they were unsure if they would make it to heaven. 43% of evangelical Christians were not sure that they would go to heaven that is a lot of Doubting Dons. And I suspect that among the 57% who claim an assurance of salvation there would be some Deceived Doras. There is clearly some fog surrounding the doctrine of assurance. I suspect that if I asked all of you to write down your answer to the question: If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to Heaven? We would have a fairly even split among: I know for sure that I would go to heaven. I think most likely I will go there but I don t have certainty. I think that there are a number of reasons for this divergence of opinion. First, very few churches actually teach on this. Writing seventeen years ago, Don Carson said this: So far as I know, there has been no English-language, full-scale treatment of the biblical theology of Christian assurance for more than fifty years. 2 Wow! And unless I am mistaken there has been none in the time since he wrote those words. I asked around very few people have heard a sermon on assurance of salvation. Second, depending on your church and theological background you would have been taught different things. Some churches teach you can have assurance, others that you can t. Different theological systems have different views on man s role in salvation, perseverance, whether you can lose your salvation, election, the nature of the church and these all play into our understanding of assurance. And thirdly, honestly this is a very difficult doctrine to get our heads around. Let me give you a bit of history here. The Catholic Church throughout its history has taught that you can have no assurance of salvation because your salvation is dependent on your works and the dispensation 2 D.A. Carson, Reflections on Assurance in Schreiner and Ware, The Grace of God, The Bondage of the Will Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1995) p. 383.

7 of grace to you by the church. So you will have to wait till glory to find out if your works, your purgatory, your sacraments, your penance were enough to get you into heaven. So it was against this backdrop, Luther appeared blazing his doctrine of sola fide salvation by faith alone. God does it all and our salvation is not dependent on our works. Luther taught that assurance of salvation is an element of saving faith. If you have faith that Jesus saves then you can have assurance that you are saved because eternity rests on Jesus not your works. We might fail Jesus won t fail if we have real faith we will get to heaven. John Calvin pretty much followed Luther in this. He affirmed that assurance is a part of saving faith. Remember that the early Reformers like Luther and Calvin were fighting against the works righteousness of the Catholic Church so they placed a great emphasis on faith and somewhat underplayed any emphasis on fruit. They appealed to texts like Romans 10:9: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Pretty clear if you believe you will be saved. And Ephesians 2:8 9: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works. Salvation is a gift of God He does it it is not dependent on our works. So they stressed that if you have true faith you can be certain of your salvation. But the next generation of the Reformers had the opportunity to look at those in the church and saw that many who claimed to have faith were very unholy. Nothing about them demonstrated transformed lives. They did not want these clearly unsaved men and women to have a false assurance so almost in reaction they placed an emphasis on transformation on fruit more so than faith. They looked at texts like James 2:17 24: So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Works are crucial.

8 They went to 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. True salvation leads to transformation. If you want assurance of salvation look for fruit. So led by men like Beza and Perkins, sections of the church stressed the fruit of a transformed life as the evidence of salvation and the ground of assurance. This became the dominant teaching among the English Puritans and in many Early Presbyterian churches. These next generation of Calvinists stressed fruit far more than Calvin ever did. This debate as to whether our assurance of salvation should be based on faith or on fruit has continued to this day. While it is a generalisation you often have Lutherans, Mennonites, Brethren and others stressing more faith and often Presbyterians, Reformed stressing more fruit. Again it is a generalisation but those who stress faith more write in more sure terms about whether we can have a certainty of our salvation. And those who stress fruit more write in less certain terms you can have assurance if you are persevering, becoming holy, being transformed.

9 I am going to lay my cards on the table here. There are plenty of passages that seem to stress faith believe and you are saved. There are also plenty of passages that stress fruit if you are growing Christlike you can know you are saved. Theology likes things in neat, tidy categories. The Bible doesn t do that. It teaches both faith and fruit and it spells out clearly the relationship between them. The writers of Scripture were careful in their balance, their nuances, their language. Often we are not. Our theology, our preferences, our personalities can make us stress one side over the other and then we run into problems. If you stress faith too much what can you get? You can get people who have a false faith a dead faith with no desire for transformation who think they are saved. You can get Deceived Doras. If you stress fruit too much what can you get? You can get people who are introspective and when any sin arises they question whether they have enough fruit whether they are transformed enough whether their salvation is real. You can get Doubting Dons. After being a pastor for many years, I can say that getting the balance right in a sermon on assurance is incredibly hard. Dave and I questioned whether to even teach on this issue. We know that every time we teach on this some true saints some look at the fruit in their life and question their salvation. We don t want that. And we have concerns that some who don t truly know the Lord are reassured and don t examine their lives. We don t want that. It is so hard to get the balance right. But here is what I want to stress and I pray I communicate this well. When you read the Bible what is abundantly clear is that that the biblical writers went to great pains to be balanced in presenting faith and fruit as necessary for assurance. They are not separate. They are intrinsically linked. Both are gifts from God. When God grants a sinner true faith with that comes the work of the Holy Spirit to change them and produce fruit. Ephesians 2:8-10 is very clear. True faith is a gift of God. And the good works that accompany true faith are also from God. It is not either or it is both. So, after that far too long introduction, to see how this is fleshed out by John, turn with me to the Epistle of 1 John to see what wisdom he has for us in this area.

10 1 John is a letter that has assurance of salvation at its heart. It was written to a church or churches who had suffered a great spiritual shock. The church community was shattered when a number of members were seduced by another gospel an early form of a heresy called Gnosticism. They denied the basic truths of the gospel, they denied Christ and left the church. These were men and women they had lived with, worshipped with, evangelised with who went out and denied the faith. Those left behind were stunned and they had questions. Were our friends, our brothers ever saved? Did they lose their salvation? What about me? If it could happen to them could it happen to me? How do I know I am a child of God and heading to heaven? How John deals with this difficult situation is brilliant. In chapters 1 and 2 he addresses the nature of salvation and the nature of the church. We will look at the nature of the church first. Some of us have a rose coloured glasses view of the church. Sunday morning we all look great. Externally we look like we have all had seven wonderful mountain-top quiet times since last Lord s Day. Perfect family. Always resisting temptation. John knows differently.

11 He paints a picture of the church as it is in reality. It is a very mixed beast. Churches are not made up of cookie cutter Christians all the same. Unfortunately, there are true saints in churches and also false saints. Wheat and tares. Sheep and goats. Among the true saints there are Christians who make up a spectrum of varying maturity, holiness, passion and giftedness. Look at how John describes this. Look at 1 John 2:12 14: I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name s sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. John uses the terms children, fathers, young men as an analogy to describe Christians of varying maturity, holiness, stages in their walk with God. Every church has Christians who make up a whole spectrum. Different gifts, different maturity, different stages of their walk. Some Christians are gifted by God in incredible ways they become the Charles Spurgeons and Elizabeth Elliots of the church.

12 Others seem to grumble on and stay spiritual children. Most are somewhere in between. But and here is a crucial point even the spiritual children the immature are saved. John says even the children have their sins forgiven. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul describes this spectrum by saying some of us build with gold, silver and precious stones while some of us build with wood, hay and straw. He also says there are various rewards depending on the fruit we produce for God. But he is also clear, if you are a child of God even if you build with wood, hay and straw and your work is burned up leaving nothing of eternal value Paul says you are still saved even if it is through fire. This picture should surprise no one. In a congregation we have men and women who have different degrees of holiness and fruit and maturity. But, John then goes on to say that in the church there are false saints he calls them antichrists. In 1 John 2:19-22 he tells us that they were a part of the church everyone thought they were saved they thought they were saved but they left which showed that they had never actually been a true part of the body of Christ. They denied that Jesus is the Christ which ultimately showed their true colours. Here is another key point. It is not as if everyone thought that this group were somehow suspect. No, they seemed just like everyone else. There seemed to be a spectrum there too immature to mature. Judas was an Apostle. Demas was a companion of Paul. Some of the false saints looked pretty mature, some looked immature. So how do you tell if you are a true or a false saint? When you read 1 John clearly some of those John was writing to were worried that maybe they were deceived and not truly saved. John picked up his pen and wrote to these concerned saints. He sums up the purpose of the letter in 1 John 5:13: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. John wrote this letter so that those confused saints could be sure that they have eternal life. How?

13 I want to sum John s answer up like this: Faith is the basis of our assurance Fruit is the proof of our assurance We must continually examine ourselves for these two things true faith and true fruit. Before we can examine ourselves we have to know what true faith and true fruit is. John intertwines these two throughout the epistle. For example 1 John 2:28 29: And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. Faith abide in Him trust in Him which leads to confidence of our salvation when He returns and the fruit of our abiding is our righteousness. And also Chapter 3 verses 23-24: And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. Faith believe in the name of Jesus.

14 Fruit love one another, keep His commandments. Have these and you can know that He abides in us. 1 John 5:1: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. Faith believe and you are born of God. Faith if you love God you love the brethren. John consistently links faith and fruit. It oozes out over and over. But let me just point out a few verses on each. John starts by speaking of faith that leads to salvation. He starts off in chapter 1 verse 3 saying: That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. If you believe the gospel he proclaims you can have fellowship with God you can be saved. Then he says that faith leads to fruit righteousness. Verses 5-7: This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If your faith does not lead to transformation if you still walk in the darkness of sin you are deceived and do not practice the truth. But John is not just a theologian he is a pastor. He knows there are some who hear these words in Him (God) is not darkness if we walk in darkness we lie they hear this and say I have sin in me I can t be saved. No, while we are in this life we will always sin. Verses 8 9:

15 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice this balance here. Salvation leads us to desiring to walk in the light as God is light. If we say we are saved in fellowship with Him and keep walking in darkness we are deceived. But, this is not perfection this is not sinlessness to say salvation means no sin is equally a deception and lack of truth. John goes on to say we can confess our sins and Christ will wash us clean. Chapter 2 we have an advocate who makes propitiation for our sins. But here comes the balance again this does not lead to easy grace. If your faith is real you don t say oh well I am a sinner I can t help it but thank you Jesus for covering my sin. No true salvation means we desire to strive toward holiness. 1 John 2:4 6: Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Examine your heart. Does it love God and want to walk in His ways? John then gives another test do you love your brothers? true faith is manifest in love. He then addresses, little children, fathers, young men we have different blessings, giftings, holiness, maturity John knows this. He then mentions the antichrists those who were in the fellowship but ultimately proved false. If they had examined their hearts they would have found a false faith verse 22 they denied that Jesus is the Christ. They would have found a false fruit verses they loved the world and the things of the world. Loving the world more than Christ is a sign that your faith is not real. John then fleshes these truths out in various ways. The test of fruit. Chapter 3 verses 7 and 8:

16 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. Then in chapter 4 John encourages us to test those who name the name of Christ others and ourselves for faith and fruit. Verse 1 test the spirits. Verse 2 is their faith true do they trust that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? Verse 7 is their fruit true do they love one another? Verse 13 if we pass these tests then we can know that His Spirit is at work in us and we abide in Him and He abides in us. And in case we somehow missed John repeats these same tests. Faith and fruit again and again to the very end of the book. In 1999 I preached through 1 John verse by verse. I struggled to preach through that book verse by verse because week after week it was exactly the same message faith and fruit five chapters of faith and fruit. It got repetitive and boring. But John did this for a reason. Do you want to know that you have eternal life? Examine your heart is your faith real? Have you trusted the real Jesus the Godman that He died for your sins? Has that faith changed you? Is there a love for God, a hatred of sin and the world, a change in your life? Faith and fruit are a package deal. Ultimately your salvation does not rest on your efforts God gives the faith and the fruit. But He changes our desires to want to love Him, to hate sin, to strive for holiness, to persevere to the end. And faith and fruit do not come in a one size fits all package. Some have faith to move mountains others have a simple faith. Some have fruit that is etched on the pages of heaven and earth others bear so little there is not much that passes into eternity. But they are all saints.

17 And no saint lives consistently their whole life. We have seasons where we can almost taste heaven and seasons where earth is too real. But you are still a saint if you examine your heart and your faith is real and your fruit is there. Let me close with a couple of comments. Can you be certain of your salvation? It depends what you mean by this. From God s side absolutely. He calls us, elects us, causes us to persevere and no one can snatch us from His hand. But, from man s side, we can know we are His if we examine our hearts and find true faith and fruit His gifts. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul exhorts us to: Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed you fail to meet the test! If you test yourself true faith, true works then you can be sure Jesus is in you. The Westminster Confession puts it well: Those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus (faith), and love Him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before him (fruit), may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed. (18:1). Peter puts it this way. 2 Peter 1:5 10: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing.. ( you can) confirm your calling and election. While you see right faith and virtue or fruit you can be sure of your calling. But what if you look and there is some faith and some fruit but you are not sure? You don t have faith that moves mountains. You have too much sin and not enough fruit. Let me say that some measure of doubt is very common. John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion said this:

18 Surely, while we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety. I would give this advice. Doubt comes from looking at us. Am I believing right am I living well enough? In your own strength you will never believe well enough or live well enough. True faith and true fruit comes from above. If you are unsure of your calling and election go and talk to the One who has the power to give you true faith and fruit. He delights to answer prayer. Ask Him to make your little faith into mountain moving faith. Ask Him to take your five loaves of fruit and turn it into abundant fruit. Hebrews 12:1 2 says this: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Jesus is the author, the founder, the perfecter of our faith. Look to Him. Ask Him. Ask Him to show the glory of His power in greater ways in your life. Realise that your salvation is not dependent on you and your pitiful works but on His already finished works. Here is my experience the more we meditate on Christ His finished work, His power, His love for sinners the more we are flooded with assurance. Here is John Calvin again from his Commentary on 2 Corinthians: Assurance is a thing that is above the capacity of the human mind, it is the part of the Holy Spirit to confirm within us what God promises. We need to have faith in Christ and His promises that is where our assurance is grounded. We need to believe Philippians 1:6: And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

19 J.C. Ryle in his wonderful book Holiness put it so well: Assurance after all is no more than a full-grown faith; a masculine faith that argues like the good centurion, if the Lord speak the word only, I am healed. Wherefore then should I doubt? (Matt. 8:8). Brothers and sisters, Doubting Dan s arise from not trusting in the promises and work of Christ. Deceived Dora s come from not examining ourselves for the fruit that accompanies true faith. If we look for these things a faith in the true Christ and His cross fruit that comes from above then we: Who believe in the name of the Son of God may know that we have eternal life.

20 John s Balanced Wisdom On Assurance (October 7, 2012) Main Point: Faith and fruit are together are what assures the child of God of their standing before God. Read 1 John 5:13 How would you define assurance? Discuss Don Carson s definition of assurance: Assurance is: A Christian believer s confidence that he or she is already in a right standing with God, and that this will issue in ultimate salvation. 3 Two pictures were painted Doubting Don and Deceived Dora. Discuss why these situations arise and what they have to do with the doctrine of assurance. James Kennedy developed Evangelism Explosion. One of the questions he taught his church to ask people was this: If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to Heaven? How would you answer this? Do you think you can know this for sure or not? Have you heard much teaching on assurance? If so what were you taught? How do different views on man s role in salvation, perseverance, whether you can lose your salvation, election, the nature of the church play into our understanding of assurance? What are the dangers of over-emphasising faith as the key to assurance? What are the dangers of over-emphasising fruit as the key to assurance? Why did John write 1 John? Discuss the nature of the church John describes in 1 John 2:12 14 and D.A. Carson, Reflections on Assurance in Schreiner and Ware, The Grace of God, The Bondage of the Will Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1995) p. 384.

21 What does 1 John 5:13 tell us about the purpose of the letter? What can do verses like 2:28-29; 3:23-24 and 5:1 tell us about how we can know we have eternal life? How does John describe faith in this epistle? How does John describe fruit in this epistle? Why did John add in 1:8-9? How does this add balance? In chapter 4 what does John mean by test the Spirits? How what are the tests? Discuss these quotes: John Calvin in his Commentary on 2 Corinthians: Assurance is a thing that is above the capacity of the human mind, it is the part of the Holy Spirit to confirm within us what God promises. J.C. Ryle in his wonderful book Holiness: Assurance after all is no more than a full-grown faith; a masculine faith that argues like the good centurion, if the Lord speak the word only, I am healed. Wherefore then should I doubt? (Matt. 8:8). In light of this book can you be certain of your salvation? If so how? If not why not? What if you look and there is some faith and some fruit but you are still not sure what should you do?