MARTIN CAREY | Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Life Assurance Ministries Board Member |
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”—Romans 8:13-15.
Do you wonder if your faith is genuine, the kind that God sees and rewards? You might wonder if you are sincere enough, if your sins are not too frequent and willful, if you have surrendered your will completely. Are you fooling yourself like Judas did? What about those doubts about salvation? Do our doubts indicate that we actually haven’t met the conditions for salvation?
As Adventists, we rejected the phrase, “Once saved, always saved.” First off, we heard that Christians stated it to give themselves license to live a carefree, lawless lifestyle, and then expected to receive eternal life. Secondly, we didn’t like its “Calvinistic” flavor, where God apparently bulldozes certain people into His kingdom, against their free will and choices. Either way,
Nevertheless, the idea of assurance was attractive, although it felt a little dangerous. What then? As Seventh-day Adventists, could we have real assurance of salvation? And during those few moments when we felt we were doing God’s will by keeping His commandments pretty ok, where could we find genuine, unbreakable confidence? And how many hours will that feeling last?
Professor Jerry Moon of Andrews University has explained Ellen White’s statements on assurance of salvation (Jerry Moon, Ellen G. on Assurance of Salvation, April 26, 2006). Moon is confident White does teach assurance, which he has carefully defined as “present assurance in Christ.” What he (quoting Mrs. White) rejects is the belief that assurance of salvation is “an irreversible guarantee” that he believes will lead to “self-confidence, presumption, and casual disobedience” (Moon, ibid.).
It is fascinating how Ellen White assumes that if you are completely confident that God will keep you as His saved child, then you are actually depending on your own good works to save you. So therefore, assurance can only be provisional on your maintaining your faith, submission, good works, et cetera. That is why Moon likes the term, “present assurance.” Present assurance means that you can be confident that God loves and keeps you as a saved person, for just today. But in the future, don’t be so sure, for you have no guarantee that you will not fall away. Yes, God wants to save you, Jesus loves you, but the focus is on you as the maintainer of your salvation. This is an assurance that can slip away, because in the end, it depends on me. That kind of assurance isn’t very assuring.
God’s Testimony
Then there is the testimony of God’s word on assurance. There, we are given three great witnesses of our genuine, irrevocable, irreversible, unbreakable assurance of salvation.
First of all, we can believe His promises. Jesus said in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” We can trust His words here, that when we truly come to Him, He will never cast us out. Interestingly, Jerry Moon modified the text a little by adding the phrase “keeps on coming.” So, he adds the human element of “keeps on,” and weakens Jesus’ own guarantee of “never cast out.”
Notice also the first part of the verse, “All that the Father gives me will come to me…” The word “all” reminds us that our confidence has a firm foundation, for God the Father gives believing people to Jesus. He knows them even before they come to Jesus (2Timothy 2:19):
“But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’”
We also have our Lord’s promise in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
This is only a tiny sample of the many promises in God’s word that give His children solid assurance of their salvation.
Secondly, the presence of Christ-likeness in our lives testifies that we are born of the Spirit, and truly His children. Genuine faith brings real fruit:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”—Galatians 5:22-23
Thirdly, we will have the testimony of the Spirit in our hearts. For me personally, Jesus never became real for me until one day, I was reading John 5 and thinking about how I might pass the final judgment. I read about Jesus words to His enemies; I looked at His magnificent life and words, and how He offered life, even while talking to people who hated Him. After four decades of unbelief, I sensed He was there with me, saying “Come.” At that moment, I believed that He lived and died for me and offered me life, even to me. That was the Spirit’s witness. That great day, I was able to cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit enables us to enter God’s presence, dirty and guilty, like trusting little children, and to know He wants us there.
So what then is assurance? Scott Hubbard of Desiring God states it well:
“Assurance is, first and chiefly, the fruit of beholding Christ and the promises he holds out to us with nail-pierced hands.” —Scott Hubbard, “Am I Real?” Desiring God
You can have real assurance. It is not presumption or over-confidence that enables us to say, “I am saved, now and forever more!” If those words come from your child-like trust and love for Him, that is real faith that only the Spirit can put in your heart. You can know today and next year, shaky little Christian believer, that your faith is real. We have a firm foundation given by Jesus’ own words. When you feel condemned, remember,
“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”—1John 3:19-20
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