Assurance, Anxiety and Application (Romans 11:1-10)

In the previous chapter Paul has explained that Israel as a race had refused to accept that salvation for them could only be found in Jesus. An inevitable question that would be asked in response was whether this meant that God had rejected them as a race. Paul says he has not and gives three answers to the question. The first answer is that his own experience as a converted Jews reveals that God has not cast away his people (vv. 1-2). His second answer is a historical one when he refers to the life of Elijah and says that during that period God had seven thousand followers (vv. 3-4). His third answer concerns the future when Israel as a race will be gathered in to God’s people (vv. 11ff.). We will look at the first two answers in this sermon.

The first comment that can be made is that we cannot judge a person’s future by his current conduct. After all, if we had seen Saul of Tarsus attempting to destroy the Christian church we would not have imagined that in the future he would decide to follow Jesus. But he did, and here he is now writing this letter and using his own experience as evidence that God was still saving Jews.

The second comment that we can make is that God can preserve his cause in the darkest of times, which was obviously the case in the days of Elijah. It looked as if the whole nation had given up on God and were more interested in following a false god Baal. Even Elijah thought that, but God told him that the truth of the situation was otherwise. And we should not imagine that he is unable to defend his cause today even although it is a dark time.

Paul’s assurance

It is clear that Paul expresses a very strong personal assurance of salvation. He had a thorough Jewish pedigree, one at which at one time he was very proud. His family probably called him after the first king of Israel, Saul, who came from the tribe of Benjamin. He had pursued a career in Judaism. If we had seen him during those days, he would have expressed a strong conviction that he was right. Now however he asserts that his former convictions were wrong. And he does so having held to his current commitment to Jesus for many years.

It is worth asking how Paul possessed such strong assurance. Why was he different from the majority of Jews who rejected Jesus? And he is different to many Gentile Christians as well in the strength of his assurance. So I suppose we are thinking about a crucial issue when we focus on the possession of assurance.

To begin with, we should remind ourselves that our Confession of Faith devotes a chapter to the issue of assurance. In that chapter, it stresses that true assurance is possible and desirable, indeed it defines it as infallible assurance, not because it is sinless but because it is true. Moreover it encourages all Christians to endeavour to have it, and even if they have lost it to attempt to recover it. And it says that there are three sources for assurance, with each source working together to produce the kind of person Paul was: they are the promises in the Bible about salvation, the changed life through grace in the behaviour of a sinner, and the accompanying strengthening of the evidence by the Holy Spirit. So our confession informs us that the presence of assurance is part of our beliefs.

Assurance is also necessary for our spiritual comfort. It usually shows itself in a sense of God’s love, an awareness of his peace, and the experience of joy. Those features are connected to salvation and are often not deductible from our circumstances. Indeed circumstances may be very difficult and in themselves be unable to contribute to assurance. Yet in them, we can have strong assurance, and it gives comfort to us.

What is assurance of salvation? We could reword and say it is the enjoyment of the blessings of salvation. It is the case that sometimes Christians can lose this sense of enjoyment. There are several reasons why this may happen. Hear are some. First, they will lose it when they engage in deliberate sin, whether it is public sins of immorality or more personal sins such as bickering and moaning. Second, they can lose it when they go through difficult experiences. Third, they can lose it when they don’t engage in self-examination and look for evidences of spiritual life. Fourth, they can miss out on it because they don’t ask God to maintain it in their hearts.

So it is worthwhile considering how Paul had his strong sense of assurance. Perhaps we can think of such verses as what he wrote to the Philippians, ‘For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ Or what he said to Timothy, ‘But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me’ (2 Tim. 1:12). Here are some factors in the process of Paul's possession of assurance.

The first factor is from 1 Timothy 1:16, which tells us that Paul never forgot who he was by nature, a sinner: ‘The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.’ Paul wrote these words after he had been a Christian for over three decades. We might imagine that a sense of sin would prevent a sense of assurance. But the opposite is the case. His awareness of his personal sinfulness caused Paul to retain an ongoing dependence on Jesus as his Saviour. It looks as if every time he sensed his sin Paul thought of Jesus.

The second factor comes from Galatians 6:14, which tells us that Paul understood what happened to Jesus on the cross. In that verse he exclaims, ‘But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ Paul understood several things about the cross of Jesus. Paul knew that on the cross the penalty due by him for his sins was paid by Jesus, and that no matter how great or strong his sense of sin was it could not affect what Jesus had done for him. Paul also realised that the cross of Jesus was a source of power enabling him to separate himself from aspects of life that would damage his sense of assurance.

The third factor comes from Romans 8:15, which informs us that Paul had an intimate prayer life with the Father. In that verse, Paul describes one of the privileges connected to the doctrine of adoption, intimate prayer in which we address God as Abba, Father. Although a sinner, Paul also knew that he was a child of God and therefore he had assurance.

The fourth factor is found in Romans 8:28 where Paul writes that ‘we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.’ Even when times were difficult, the apostle knew that somehow God could take him through it. Paul would have been aware of the words of Job regarding providence: ‘Though he slay me, I will hope in him’ (Job 13:15) and ‘But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold’ (Job 23:10).

The fifth factor comes from Philippians 3:10, where Paul states the passion of his heart – to know Jesus more and more. This knowledge of Jesus was not merely intellectual although there is no doubt that Paul would have learned more about Jesus as time went on. In addition, contact with Jesus made Paul like Jesus and transformed him into a holy person, conforming him daily to the image of Jesus.

A sixth factor in Paul’s possession of assurance was his delight in thinking about the future world. He describes it from different perspectives: it is the restored creation, it is the state of final glorification, it is the presence of God, it is the possession of the inheritance, it is when God’s people are all together. But he thought about the future often and it gave him strong assurance.

The common detail in each of these factors in Paul’s assurance is the centrality of Jesus. We cannot have real assurance without dependence on, delight in, and devotion to Jesus. Therefore we need to imitate Paul in his pursuit of Jesus and when we do we will have assurance.

Elijah’s assumption and anxiety

The second answer that Paul gives is to remind his readers of the information God gave to Elijah when he complained to the Lord about the circumstances in Israel regarding his cause. From Elijah’s perspective, he had assumed that he was the only Israelite truly serving God. Why he thought this is unclear, but it looks as if he had a tendency to isolate himself from other believers, therefore not having fellowship, and also to serve God by himself. Whatever the reason, God told him that there were still many who worshipped him.

The obvious lesson for us is that we cannot judge the extent of God’s kingdom by what we can see from our vantage point of faithfulness to him. God does not tell any of us everything that he is doing. He can keep secret from us and from the hands of opponents thousands of his people if he chooses to do so.

Another lesson is that God can save Jews even when the majority of Israelites reject him. In Elijah’s day, the majority turned away from God and followed Baal. In Paul’s time, the majority refused to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah. Nevertheless in both periods the Lord had his people among the Israelites, just as he has today. Our eyes should not be on the beliefs of the majority, whatever the ideas are, but on the God who can save his people even when the vast majority of people reject him. At times, the percentage may fluctuate up or down, but the pattern is that there will always be Jews who experience the grace of God.

Paul’s application

His application can be summarised in two facts: first, salvation all depends on divine grace and, second, if we ignore the way of salvation God can give us up to judgement. This was obvious from the cases of Israelites. Yet we have to apply this possibility of judgement to ourselves. Sometimes from our viewpoint the judgement seems limited to spiritual deadness, and at other times the judgement seems to be permanent spiritual deadness. The problem is that we can never assume that someone who is spiritual dead is not about to or may already be under permanent spiritual deadness. Therefore we need to ask God for mercy, because if we don’t, we are indicating that God has placed us under his judgement.

In contrast there are those who will experience his grace. This is a great encouragement to evangelism. Paul reminds his readers that at that time there was a remnant of Jews who accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, even although the story of the gospel seemed ridiculous to most of them. The emphasis on a crucified Saviour was preposterous. Even so today, although we are living in a period when the gospel is ridiculed, we should always remember what Paul wrote in Romans 1:16 when he said that the gospel was the power of salvation to Jews and to Gentiles.

It is clear from this passage that Paul loved to magnify the grace of God. He applied it to every area of life. It was the message he had for unconverted and for converted people. Of course, grace shows itself differently whether a person is converted or unconverted. An unconverted person needs to be told that his sins can be forgiven through faith in Christ. A converted person needs to be told about all the blessings that come his way through faith in Christ.