Faith and assurance are recurring subjects of controversy in Evangelical circles. We all agree that we are saved by the righteousness of Christ reckoned to us, which we receive through faith alone. Jesus lived and died and rose again as the representative of his people so that all of them will be openly acknowledged and acquitted, rather than rejected and condemned, at the Final Judgment.

But what counts as faith? How does such faith relate to our assurance that we will be vindicated on Judgment Day? Some have said that any sincere claim to “believe in” Jesus counts as true faith, even if, say, the person is living with his girlfriend out of wedlock. The problem with this is that Paul warns professing Christians that they will be eternally condemned if they go on living this way.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary (Galatians 6.7-9).

On the other hand, some traditions (this pops up in Presbyterian history from time to time) stress that faith and assurance are so distinct so that a person can be saved and yet be in complete uncertainty whether or not he is headed toward eternal glory or eternal condemnation. There are some churches where a new pastor will be called by a handful of “members” of the church and a great many “adherents” who have been baptized but who are not permitted to partake the Lord’s Supper because they are not sure if they are really promised anything by God.

But in the Bible, trusting God means trusting him to fulfill his promises to you—not trusting him to forgive somebody somewhere of their sins, but to forgive your own sins. The problem here is that God has spoken definitively in the Bible and yet he has not written down our names in that book saying that specific individuals are to be saved from the wrath to come.

The Bible solves this problem by giving us criteria so that we can identify to whom God will grant resurrection in glory rather than damnation. For instance, it says “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10.13). That’s why many Christian tracts end with an appeal to the reader to pray “the sinner’s prayer” which asks God to forgive him. The tracts are not teaching that one is saved by faith in addition to the good work of praying to God. Rather, the prayer is a manifestation of true faith and immediately grants assurance, since the person who prays to God in that way has met the criterion that marks out those whom God will deliver from Hell.

Of course, there is always the danger that someone might treat a written “sinner’s prayer” as a kind of fire insurance contract that means you can do whatever you want and escape punishment. However, no insurance company will pay a claim to an arsonist, and Jesus states that there are other criteria as well: “it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved” (Matthew 10.21b). Those who abandon the Christian Faith, who despise God’s promised inheritance, cannot expect to inherit what is promised. Jesus warns against being found among those “who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away” (Luke 8.13).

Given the fact that what God has promised is of far more value than anything else, the only reason one could cease following God’s way is because of unbelief. One falls away because he has decided that God is not trustworthy to keep his promises, or that God has dishonestly exaggerated the value of what he has promised, or that God is lying when he warns us against rejecting him.

My own denomination’s Westminster Confession explains the nature of true faith this way:

By this faith, a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word [the Bible], for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acts differently upon that which each particular passage thereof contains; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threats, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come.

Of course, such obedience, trembling, and trusting do not earn anything from God. Jesus is the one who gives his people title to eternal life by his life, death, and resurrection. So the confession goes on to state that the primary “acts” of trusting God “are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.”

But understanding how faith works with the conditions set out in the Bible, we solve several problems at once.

ONE

We can make a distinction between believing in Jesus and imagining, pretending, or hoping that one believes in Jesus. God promises to save all those who follow him and by following him we know that he will saved us. All too often believing in Jesus becomes confused with simple doctrinal affirmation or else becomes impossible to really identify. The question, “Do I possess true faith?” receives complicated and (if one were honest) intangible answers.

TWO

At the same time we can take seriously the warnings that are given to professing Christians that warn them of eternal condemnation if they depart from the faith (e.g. John 15.1ff; Romans 11.17ff; First Corinthians 10.1ff; Hebrews 6.4-8; 10.19-30; etc.).

THREE

Yet these warnings do not throw us into turmoil as to whether or not we are “truly saved” but encourage us to throw off every sin that encumbers us and confidently continue in the salvation Christ has promised us (c.f. Hebrews 12.1-3).

FOUR
Furthermore we can be confident about the status of our children before God whom we mark off by baptism, without becoming complacent regarding them. We assure them of their place in God’s kingdom; yet exhort them to continue and persevere in faith.

FIVE
Finally, we will be able to treat Scripture with a great deal more integrity than is common in Evangelical churches. We will more easily see the harmony between “Law” and “Gospel.” We will understand better that God never told his people to earn his favor toward them. Rather, he always told them they were chosen and adopted by grace:

You are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.

Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. And the LORD will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you (Deuteronomy 7.6-15).

Keeping in mind God’s promise of fruitfulness through Moses, see how Jesus uses the same concepts with his disciples:

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full (John 15.1-11).

This similarity is perhaps what made the Apostle Paul take Moses’ ending summary of Deuteronomy and use it to describe the Gospel. Moses had assured the people:

For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it (Deuteronomy 30.11-14).

I can’t help but think of the way some claim that assurance of God’s grace is so difficult to detect, when I read Moses’ words. Our confidence is not up in heaven so that we have to go get it

And Paul claims that Moses’ appeal to the Israelites is applicable to us. Deuteronomy is about the Gospel and about receiving grace through faith alone.

And the righteousness from faith speaks thus, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”–that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.