Center for Biblical Theology and Eschatology
The Assurance of Salvation
October 4, 1998
by Rev. Carl Haak
Do you possess the assurance of salvation? Does that
assurance grow to be a firm foundation for your entire life? If
you do not have the assurance of personal salvation in Jesus Christ,
why not? Is it because you, as a child of God, are slothful? Have
you fallen into an inconsistent, sinful walk of life? Can you
testify today to your own heart's satisfaction of the safety of
your souls now and forever in Jesus Christ? Are you assured of
pardon? Are you assured that you are one of His? Do you ask yourself
these questions?
Assurance of personal salvation and belonging to Jesus Christ
is not a fancy, it is not a feeling, and it is not the result
of one's temperament. But it is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Assurance
is the voice of a living faith in the believer testifying of personal
pardon, confidence, of hope of eternal life, and the persuasion
that I belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.
Understand, the assurance of salvation is not the same as perfection.
You may, and you will, be vexed and troubled by your sin. You
shall be dissatisfied by your weaknesses which cause you, at times,
even to question. But are you yet assured in your heart of gracious
salvation? Yes, you can be, as a child of God. And you should
be.
Many call this presumption. And there are many presumptuous
people who call themselves Christians, who are filled with a false
assurance, a counterfeit, a fake. There are some who say that
true humility before God means that we can never be sure, we can
never be confident, we can never say, with the apostle, "I
know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to
keep that which I have committed unto him against that day"
(II Tim. 1:12). But that idea (that true humility means we can
never be confident of our salvation) is not the teaching of Scripture.
It is a false humility. The Scriptures are plain! "Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil: for thou art with me"
(Ps. 23:4). "For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, (then the apostle goes
on to mention many more things), shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"
(Rom. 8:38, 39). "And we know that we are of God"
(I
John 5:19), we know that, says John. Do you possess real,
God-given, gracious assurance?
Without this assurance of personal salvation, every duty becomes
a burden. Every aspect of the Christian life lacks vibrancy. We
become laxadasical, apathetic, self-complacent, and presumptuous.
Assurance of salvation is not a luxury. It is a necessity for
peace and strength in the Christian life. This is assurance that
may come to a Reformed believer.
What do I mean by a Reformed believer? The Reformed faith is the
teaching in the holy Scriptures of the sovereignty of God; that
salvation is of God, purchased in Christ for His children, and
powerfully bestowed by the work of the Holy Spirit. Now there
are other systems of theology (of Christian teaching), which teach
that salvation is attained by one's works, or by the works of
others (dead saints to whom you are to pray), or the works of
penance as outlined by a church. Or, they say, salvation is attained
by human will-God has done everything that He can do and now it
is up to you and you must choose to be saved. It depends upon
something you yourself must furnish God, not upon something that
God has graciously furnished to you, something you did not have.
Both these systems of theology, both these systems of teaching,
cannot provide assurance to those who embrace them. Therefore
we decry it. We are filled with grief that such teaching would
ever exist. For, if salvation is dependent upon the work of the
sinner, there can be no assurance of salvation. The nagging question
is always going to be: Did I do enough work?
If the salvation of the sinner flows forth from his own will,
which God supposedly would never interfere with because God wants
him to make the decision, if it is all based on something he
did, from fickle, sinful self, there can never be assurance.
For none of the sinner's works, nor his will, is stable, steady.
His will is dead and it is deceived in sin, says the Bible. Then
he could never be sure that sometime he will not change his mind
and no longer be in Jesus Christ.
No, salvation, says the apostle in
Romans 9, is not of him that
works, nor of him that wills, but of God who showeth mercy. Therefore
the teaching of the Reformed faith that salvation is all of God's
grace worked powerfully in the heart of the sinner, that is the
truth. And that truth provides assurance, the experience of assurance.
The Bible often speaks of assurance. One such text to which I
would direct your attention is found in
Hebrews 6:11 where we
read, "And we desire that every one of you do shew the same
diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." That
verse is really the very heart of the exhortation that the apostle
is bringing in this book of Hebrews. In chapter 5:11 the apostle
deviates from his main theme of Christ's priesthood after the
order of Melchisedec. He has been showing that Christ is the true
and the eternal priest. But he deviates to call the Hebrews (and
ourselves) to diligence, to embrace the promises of God fully.
The Hebrew converts to whom the apostle wrote were discouraged
by persecution. They had come to the moment that they were counting
the cost of their confession of Jesus Christ. The rosy and first
glow of being a Christian was gone. They had experienced strong
opposition. There were many appeals that they should return to
their former life. And many had become lackluster and made no
progress in their Christian life.
The apostle says, "You must go on from the first principles
of the Christian faith. You must advance from the rudimentary
truths of the Christian faith toward a fuller and richer understanding."
And in verses 4-8 of chapter 6, the writer warns of the apostates.
Apostates are those who appear to be Christians, who have come
under all the benefits of the truth of God, but depart and are
in reality thorns and briars in the field of God. In verses 9
and 10 the apostle lets these Hebrew Christians know that he is
persuaded better things of them. He did not think of them as apostates.
Rather, he says, his purpose in giving the warning about falling
away was to provoke them to diligence so that they would persevere
in their faith and love. Then he commends them in verse 10 that
they have been faithful in labors of love to minister to the needs
of the saints. And he says that the same diligence that they have
shown in that aspect of hospitality, they must also show in their
own personal faith. They must not be slothful. They must not become
inconsistent and sinful in their Christian walk. But they must
show diligence in order that they might have full assurance, because
it is only in full assurance that the faith of Christ will flower
in them and make them fruitful to the praise of God. And we desire,
says the apostle, that everyone of them do show the same diligence
to the full assurance of hope unto the end.
The apostle there is expressing a very intense desire. "We
desire!" And that word means "crave," or "long"-a
vehement desire. Very frequently, in the New Testament Scriptures,
this very word is used in a bad sense to refer to lust, evil craving,
insatiable desires. Here it is used in the good sense. And it
is used that way in the New Testament:
Philippians 1:23, "I
have a desire to depart," says Paul. I have a vehement craving,
a longing desire to be with the Lord, yet I know that it is better
that I abide on this earth for the good of the church.
So the apostle says, out of a perfect knowledge of the Christian
life and truth, that God has worked in him a great desire for
us. What is that great desire? That great desire that he has is
that we would give evidence of the same diligence onto a full
assurance of hope. He wants, he craves, that we be diligent.
What is that hope? The Christian hope is the confident expectation
of the good things that God has promised, along with a love and
a desire to have them. Christian hope is the daughter of Christian
faith. By faith,
Hebrews 11:1, we embrace the promises of God
as true, and true for me. Those promises right now of pardon and
of glory-by faith we embrace those things. Hope is born out of
faith. Believing those things as real and certain and priceless
and good, we hope for them. If our faith begets no hope, it is
not genuine faith. We do not simply believe in Christ and glory
and all the rest and say, "Well, that's all true. All that
is true." And then say, "Well, that's it." No.
Believing all those things are true, we hope for them, we long
for them, we crave them. The more faith believes, the more hope
longs. The more active your faith in all good works, the more
strong will be the hope in your soul. If you believe the promises
of God, by the grace of God; if you believe in the full enjoyment
of glory with Christ; if you believe that you have been delivered
from your sins and forgiven, then that flame of hope will kindle
in your soul and you will desire and reach out more and more for
these things.
Now that hope is confident. It is confident that God is going
to complete all the things that He has promised and all the things
that we believe. The things that we hope for are not yet fully
ours.
Romans 8:4, "For we are saved by hope: but hope that
is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope
for?" That is, you are hoping for something, and when it
is realized and you have it, then you no longer hope for it in
the future. You no longer expect it, you have it. So all those
things of final salvation and the completion of those things are
not yet fully realized.
But Christian hope for those things is not uncertain. It is not,
"I hope so. I'm not sure. I'd like to believe. Maybe."
Oh, no. Our hope is sure. It is not uncertain, it is real, it
is true. All that we hope for exists. God has promised it to us.
Hope, therefore, is the confident longing, the intense desire
of faith to have those things.
And it is that hope which supports our soul under the troubles
and difficulties of this present life. Difficulties that come
to us especially because of our confession and profession of Christ.
The Hebrew Christians had all kinds of strain and all kinds of
conflict with family members. They were former Jews. And their
unconverted relatives and family would put the squeeze on them.
Therefore, they needed hope, the confidence, the full assurance
of hope to support their souls under those difficulties. We do
as well. Under the strain of the sorrows of our present life and
all that opposes our faith, it is hope that supports the soul.
It is hope that is the anchor of our soul, which keeps us from
being drawn out by the tides of this world or being crashed into
the rocks of despair. It is hope which, the apostle says, is the
helmet of salvation. It protects us. It beats off. It keeps us
from being wounded with the sharp swords and crushing stones of
doubt and unbelief.
Our hope outweighs the present sufferings. Our hope is that all
of our sufferings and trials are sent to make that salvation more
alive in us. You may have a lifelong burden. You may experience
heart-wrenching grief. You may go through a bout of depression
and hopelessness. What keeps us from sinking into the mire of
despondence, of giving up and despairing? It is hope-the sure
hope of the Christian faith. The apostle says: I crave that you
have the full assurance of hope.
We read in
Isaiah 35:3, 4: "Strengthen ye the weak hands,
and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful
heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance,
even God with a recompense; he will come and save you." We
must have the full assurance of hope.
The idea of full assurance is, literally, to bring to a full measure.
It could be translated "persuaded." And it means that
hope and assurance do have degrees in the believer. It is not
always the same in us or in all other believers. The question,
you understand, is not if hope exists in every believer. It does.
But it is a question of degree. The full assurance is what we
must have. It is like a cup. There is water in it, but we must
constantly endeavor that that cup be full. The Christian
life is not like Fort Knox-all the gold bars stacked up and polished
and sitting there. Oh, no! We burn up spiritual energies. We come
under storms, droughts, trials, periods of testing. We must constantly
be replenished. We possess that old man of sin. The devil and
sin do not stop assaulting us because we have been brought to
Christ. They do not give up. So we experience doubts and fears.
Read the Psalms. Yes, God's work is there. He has given to us
that hope and assurance. But it is our calling to be diligent
that we might have the full assurance of hope.
What the apostle craves is an assured hope. Not, "I like
to think so." But the confidence of faith. A weak hope will
not support you under troubles. Without full assurance you will
not be able to carry on your confession to the glory of God in
times of trials. If you lose hope, you will fail in the duties
of your profession. The apostle speaks of that to the Hebrew Christians
in chapter 12. He says, "Your hands have fallen down, and
your knees are feeble, they are shaking, because you have not
been diligent that you might have full assurance of hope."
It is the full assurance that we must possessa hope built
upon the unmistakable promises of God, on the reality of those
promises embraced by faith. This alone can support us through
trial and difficulty. It will give us peace and comfort to bear
poverty or loss, death, sorrow, fears (gripping fears), to find
perfect contentment.
It is through hope that we praise God. It is through hope that
we lay ourselves down in peace and sleep, knowing that the Lord
will keep us in safety.
May the Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures,
make you diligent, studying the Scriptures, that you might have
the full assurance of hope unto the end.
Father, we thank Thee for Thy word so rich. We pray that Thy Spirit
may anoint our hearts in bringing to us the Scriptures and opening
our understanding that we may stand unashamedly in the hope that
Thou hast given. In Jesus' name we pray,
Amen.
Let us pray.
| Rev. Carl Haak graduated from the Protestant Reformed Seminary in June of 1979 and was ordained into the ministry in September, 1979 as pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, MI. In 1986 he accepted the call to serve as pastor of the Lynden Protestant Reformed Church of Lynden, Washington. In 1994 he began serving Bethel Protestant Reformed Church of Roselle, Illinois. In 2004 he accepted the call to the Georgetown Protestant Reformed Church; Hudsonville, MI. He also serves as the radio pastor of the Reformed Witness Hour. |