Christian assurance

We live in a time marked by great uncertainty. This is the case at every level of life whether at the levels of government, economy, family, education, and aspiration. Yet the Bible assures us that assurance at many levels is possible. No doubt many Bible verses come to mind.

 

We know that God works all things together for good for them that love him. Paul affirmed that he knew a crown of righteousness awaited him when he left this life. Peter wrote to Christians marked by great rejoicing although they lived in troubled times. John wrote his first letter to give reasons why his readers could know that they had eternal life. Luke wrote his Gospel to relate the certainty of the things that Christians believed.

 

We may be familiar with Question and Answer 36 of the Shorter Catechism. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification? Answer. ‘The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.’ There assurance is an awareness of divine love and that love is itself a vast subject.

 

What do I mean by assurance? Here is a definition: ‘the comfortable awareness that God is for me, has saved me through the gospel, and will bring me to heaven.’

 

What is Christian assurance?

The Westminster Confession of Faith has a helpful chapter on assurance in which the delegates at the Assembly explain three levels of assurance, sometimes likened to a three-legged stool. The three levels are (1) acting on the promises of the Bible, (2) having various marks of grace, and (3) special impressions on a person’s soul called ‘the witness of the Spirit’. We can think about them briefly.

 

An example of acting on the promises of the Bible is believing the gospel invitation. In John 3:16, we read that if a person believes in Jesus, he/she becomes a recipient of eternal life. A common suggestion is that a person can insert his/her name rather than ‘the world’ to see how suitable it is. The same deduction can be made from John 6:37 where Jesus says that if anyone comes to him, or believes in him, he will never cast out that person, no matter the number of sins committed by them. Many people have this basic form of assurance through responding to the gospel. This is level one.

 

Nevertheless, more is needed than level one. Having done that level, the individual now begins the Christian life. He engages in activities required by the Bible, commonly called the means of grace. So he reads the Bible as a special book, he prays every day to his Heavenly Father, he meets for fellowship with other Christians, he witnesses for Christ when it is suitable to do so, he fights against the remnants of sin in his nature, he confesses his faults to God, and thus gives evidence that he is a changed person.

 

This is level two, and it obviously includes regular self-examination by the individual. There are many verses in the Bible that require self-examination and not only when preparing for the Lord’s Supper. The psalmist David even asked the Lord to search him to see if there is any wicked way in him, and then to lead him as a Shepherd in the way everlasting.

 

Sometimes, a Christian experiences the third level of assurance called the witness of the Spirit. This experience has been described in several ways. A believer’s heart may be warmer than usual towards God, a Bible promise can come with greater power into the believer’s soul, he may enjoy samples of the fullness of joy that will be known in heaven, Jesus becomes increasingly precious to him, brotherly love overflows in great measure. What has happened in these scenarios is that the Holy Spirit has intensified the conscious awareness of these blessings to the believer.

 

It is obvious that each of those levels is very desirable. Yet we can also see that it is possible to have assurance with only two of the legs, the first two, providing it. Even as it is possible to balance a three-legged stool on two legs, so many believers can get by with following the invitations and other promises and by producing the marks of grace.

 

Yet there is also the question of why we don’t often have the third level or why we may have lost it. Some put having this kind of experience down to divine sovereignty, saying basically that God decides whether his people can have it. Yet that suggestion ignores many divine promises of great blessing. So maybe the reason for not having the third leg is because we are not doing something necessary to have the third leg.

 

Direct or indirect assurance

In a sermon on the way of assurance, Andrew Bonar provides a solution to this dilemma. He divides assurance into two levels. One he describes as direct and quick to obtain from God and the other he describes as indirect and longer to obtain.

 

We may ask why we should listen to Bonar on this matter. One answer would be that he claimed to have constant assurance throughout the long length of his Christian life.

It is important to note that Bonar was not saying that we have a choice between his two levels. Rather, he means that we need both and should aim to have both. When we take his description of assurance and compare it with the three levels of the WCF, we can see that his indirect way covers two of the legs – that of accepting the gospel invitation and the later self-examination of whether we have the marks of grace. Not to have them would mean that any claim to assurance was invalid.

 

His direct way concerns having a deeper assurance and what he means by direct is that we focus on Jesus directly. Why should we do that? Because he is the One through whom great blessings come to his people. So we can think about this in several ways.

 

Direct contact with Jesus

We can first consider repentance. It is possible to have true repentance when we compare ourselves with the Ten Commandments. After all, Christians love God’s law and usually feel convicted when they disobey it. Yet such repentance is not as strong or as comforting as when we look at Jesus on the cross. We know the details of the prophecy of Zechariah about our sins: ‘And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn’ (Zech. 12:10). Looking at the suffering Saviour gives sweeter repentance.

 

Another verse that helps us with this sweeter experience is 1 John 2:1: ‘My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.’ Often when we draw near in confession of sin, we are apprehensive in case God will judge us. This verse informs us about another way to get comfort, which is to realise that Jesus speaks on our behalf in the heavenly courtroom, speaks powerfully and effectively by his wounds, and he is always heard in our defence.

 

We can move from considering how contemplating Jesus sweetens our repentance to how he affects our faith. Most believers admire the people of God whose exploits of faith appear in Hebrews 11. We recognise that they are notable examples for us in living the life of faith. Yet we sense our inadequacy as we look at them because we wonder if we could imitate them. However, the author of that chapter does not tell us to look at them. Instead, he tells us to consider the One who exercised faith perfectly: ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Heb. 12:1-2). What do we see about Jesus’ life of faith that is different from the lives of faith described in Hebrews 11? One answer is that he lived that perfect life on our behalf and it is part of the righteousness reckoned to us when we trust in Christ.

 

A third aspect that we can consider is our security in Jesus. One of the ways that Jesus described his relationship with us was by using the illustration of the Shepherd and his sheep. In John 10, he said about his sheep that no one can pluck them out of his hand, not even the ferocious devil. When the devil shouts about us or to us, we should remind ourselves where we are – in the almighty hand of Jesus. We can also remember the parable of the lost sheep in which Jesus explained what the Shepherd did with the sheep that went astray: ‘And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing’ (Luke 15:5). The Shepherd does two things: he carries the sheep and he expresses his gladness that he has found his sheep. Parables are illustrations that point to something greater. The image of a shepherd happily carrying his sheep until he gets it into the fold is a picture of how Jesus deals with his people on their journey through the world.

 

One more aspect to consider is heaven and how we think about it. There is a sense that heaven is a reward for faithful service. Or we can think about it as a place of reunion with other believers. While these are good and encouraging ways to think about heaven, they are not the best way. The best way for spiritual comfort and assurance is to think of heaven as life with Jesus. This is how he described it in John 14:2-3: ‘In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.’ We will be with him in his home.

 

That is only one picture of heaven, of course, but there are many others. Recall the wonderful vision of heaven in Revelation 7:15-16: ‘Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” There is even something precious from knowing that it will be himself who will wipe away the tears.

 

What do you think of Bonar’s distinction between direct and indirect ways of obtaining assurance? Should we look to Jesus or look within for marks of grace? In a sense, we should do both, but when we do so, we should recall the exhortation of Bonar’s bosom friend, Murray McCheyne, who said that for every look at ourselves we should take ten looks at Jesus.