The Truth about Assurance
Here
is a quotation from a prominent person: “[Editor]
What are your greatest challenges as president? “[Reply]
I see four basic areas: assurance of salvation, Global Mission, our
youth, and effective church organization. “The
first on my list and most important is to emphasize assurance in Christ.
I see that as a unifying force in the church . . “[Editor]
After assurance of salvation, what comes next? “[Reply]
Global Mission will not work unless you understand assurance in Christ.
I believe the greatest hindrance to mission has been our confusion over
the relationship of works to salvation. We say, officially, that we are
saved by grace alone, but many act as if works are part of the basis of
our salvation. If I don’t have peace of mind, I don’t have good news
to share. ‘No assurance’ leads inevitably to ‘no witnessing.’
You can no more promote the church into witnessing, apart from the peace
that comes from assurance in Christ, than you can push a wet noodle!” The
man who gave those replies in that article was our General Conference
president, Robert Folkenberg. It
was not the worldliness nor rapidly-lowering standards in our church
that concerned Elder Folkenberg. In his view, the crisis in our
denomination is not sin and disobedience, but personal assurance.
This
interview with the editor of Ministry magazine (printed in its
June 1992 issue) occurred only a short time after the interview of
another prominent man was printed. Here is that person’s statement: “Well,
the genuine Adventist is challenged to share his faith. The great
drawback is so many Adventists lack assurance of salvation; they’re
not good missionaries . . Here in the Australasian [South Pacific]
Division, its administrators are trying to give the gospel its right
place. I am pleased about that.” That
statement was made by Desmond Ford, in an interview by a secular
television talk show host in Australia. It was printed a short time
before, in the March 1992 issue of Spectrum. When
our General Conference president preaches the same message as the leader
of a major Adventist offshoot, no one need be surprised that, since
then, Desmond Ford has been invited back a second time to Sligo, our
denominational headquarters church; there to speak in the 11 o’clock
hour on Sabbath—and to receive a standing ovation! More of our General
Conference and North American Division leaders attend Sligo, than any
other local church in the world field. A
reflection of this teaching that so-called “assurance” is more
important than obedience, was seen in Elder Folkenberg’s sermon to the
students of Southern College, in Collegedale, Tennessee, a little over a
year ago, when he ridiculed the idea that anyone on campus should be
concerned about the wearing of jewelry and cosmetics. He told the
faculty and student body that a relationship with Jesus was what
mattered; not adornment. Why
is “assurance of salvation” pushed so strongly to the front? We
surely do not find that emphasis in the Word of God. The
truth of the matter is that, when so-called assurance is made the
objective, nothing else is really important. According
to the new theology, it is assurance which counts. Once you have that,
everything else is said to fall into place. —Yet, in reality, once an
emotional feeling becomes the dominant concern, everything else falls
out of place! What
is the easiest way to eliminate standards and doctrinal absolutes? —by
elevating emotional feelings above them. Absolute beliefs, definite
standards—disappear from the heart and life when the wishy-washy
relativism of feeling good is placed as the highest objective of
life’s pursuit. According
to this strange religious teaching, feeling must come first. Nothing
else matters; forget about obedience and standards.
Get assurance. Then, once you have it, keep thinking about it,
lest you lose it. On the side, you might give some attention to clean
living and helping others, but first must come feeling. Yet
such a religious experience is obviously a see-saw operation, with a
special feeling the goal, whether you are having an emotional rise or an
emotional fall. How
then should we relate ourselves to assurance? My friend, I tell you:
Forget about relating yourself to assurance, and determine that you will
relate yourself rightly to God! When
you come to your heavenly Father, you are to repent of your sins and
plead for His forgiveness and acceptance. And
you are to do more—you are to determine in your heart that you will
not return to those sins. And
then the God of heaven gives you peace. He forgives your sins and you
have peace of heart. There
is no peace for the sinner, apart from, by faith in Christ, renunciation
of sin and obedience to God’s commandments. “As
you found Him, so walk in Him.” As you first came to God, stay with
Him thereafter. You found Him because your focus was on getting rid of
sin and surrendering your life to Him. Your concern was not on feeling,
but on restoring a broken relationship with your God. Arising,
as a new creature in Christ Jesus, you walk thereafter by His side, as a
little child, holding His hand. But,
is your concern henceforth to change to feelings and assurance? No. Now
your concern is to please your kind Father in all things, because you
love Him so. Your
focus now is on obedience by His grace to all that He asks of you in His
Inspired Writings. Your
Christian experience began by obediently coming to Him; it continues by
obediently walking with Him. All true obedience is by empowering grace,
yet it is obedience nonetheless. It
is the sin/obedience issue which brought you to God; it is the
sin/obedience issue which keeps you with Him. The breaking of God’s
law, through yielding to the temptations of Satan, takes you from God.
The keeping of God’s law, through His Son’s enabling merits, keeps
you with Him. Pleading with God for forgiveness of sin and restoration
to obedience by faith brings you back to Him. So
the search for “assurance” has very little to do with the salvation
process. That is because the sense of assurance is not a cause but a
result. It is a by-product of surrender and obedience; not the cause. Actually,
an effort to center the life around whether or not one has
“assurance”—turns the Christian life upside down. Chasing after
good feelings is a chaotic way to live. A life centered on “how one
feels” is a life that is unproductive and worthless. It is a
self-centered life. “My feelings, my assurance; that is my
religion.” True
assurance follows right thoughts, right choices, right actions. It does
not precede them. Then
why do men want to elevate the need for assurance—feeling good—to
the status of the highest objective of the Christian life? There
is a reason: By
doing so, they are able to lessen the importance of obedience to God’s
requirements. According to the new theology system of error, we were all
saved at Calvary, and our salvation is already a thing of the past.
Therefore, all we now need is to buoy up our hearts in this
self-deceptive stance that “we are already saved.” According to the
theory, we need not worry about obedience any more; all we now need is
to give our attention to having a feeling of assurance. But
the Holy Spirit continues to convict the heart of sin, and the
individual begins to suspect that the new theology teaching may be in
error. This frightens the religious leadersip. In order to keep their
people in subjection to the error of “already saved,” the people are
urged to ignore their conscience when it pleads with them to put
obedience to God first in their lives. They are told that such leanings
toward obedience to God’s laws are
just legalistic tendencies. Instead, they are told to spend their
time thinking they have “assurance.” Then they will be happy. According
to this new formula, Christian experience is feeling good about
yourself. But,
in reality, assurance is the effect of a genuine Christian experience;
it did not initiate it! Seeking Christ and obeying Christ, we have
assurance. Seeking assurance, we shut out Christ and center our lives
around ourselves. We become self-centered. Contrary
to the teachings of Folkenberg and Ford, a genuine Christian experience
of obedience by faith not only produces assurance, it also produces
missionary fervor. In contrast, making “assurance” the goal to be
reached—will stiffle missionary work, because it turns the soul inward
on itself! Serving
the great god of your own feelings, you become a desolated wreck, and
rather quickly find yourself chasing after sinful pursuits as an outlet
for your selfish craving for self-centered feeling. Serving selfish
interests first, always leads to ever deeper falls into sin. Now
let us consider how, in the daily walk of the Christian, it is quite
normal not to have continual feelings that everything is doing well. It
is an aspect of life that is good for us, because it keeps us close to
God. The
great sense of our need of God’s help urges us to prayer and pleading
with God for help. Because we do not receive answers right away, this
strengthens our faith. Perseverance in prayer increases our
determination to have the promised blessings. Having to wait and press
our petitions more urgently at the throne of grace, enables us to better
appreciate and use those blessings when they come. And
those blessings are needed, so we can help others. But if our mind has
been trained to think that seeking our own peace should be our chief
pursuit in life, we will not be pleading for blessings to help others. Indeed,
those who focus on their own well-being—will be dissatisfied with life
most of the time. In addition, they make themselves wide open for Satan
to enter and tempt them. Let
us now look more closely at assurance of salvation alone. As
mentioned earlier, when we kneel and plead with God for
forgiveness of sin, determined to put it away and obey His
requirements,—we receive that assurance. Then,
rising to our feet, to the degree that we live in accordance with our
prayers and, in the strength of Christ, resist temptation, obey God, and
seek to bless others,—we retain that assurance! It
is as simple as that. It
is God’s servants who have His peace,—and “serving God” means to
obey Him. But
there is another issue in all this: Can we in this life have
certainty—right now—that we will ultimately be saved? Here is the
answer: I
can this moment have certainty that God accepts me just now. But I
cannot have certainty that God will accept me tomorrow, next week, next
month, or next year. Why
not? Because the teaching of “once-saved-always-saved” is a
deceitful lie of the devil. There is no way I can know today that I will
be finally saved. Life is a very real battle, and I must daily, moment
by moment, cling to Christ if I am to overcome and be saved at the last. Probationary
life is very short—only a few decades at the most,—and throughout
that short time, you and I must continually be on guard, or Satan will
overcome us. There
is no safety in a false hope that you and I do not have to be guarded,
and cling to Christ. The
new theology short-cut leads to hellfire. The
new theology teaches two special errors which, mingled together, means
ruin to the soul accepting them. First,
the new theology says you can know right now that you cannot be lost.
Second, the new theology teaches that you cannot stop sinning in this
life, and that the habits of cherished sin will be magically removed
when Jesus returns. Therefore,
keep sinning and relax; you cannot be lost! What
a horrible lie! Only
the true Christian can have genuine assurance. Only he can have true
peace with God. He is an obedient child of the King, and he rejoices in
the fact. Yet,
amid that experience, he is not afraid of walking hand in hand with his
Maker—in the darkness. A
lack of a generalized feeling that all is well is a stepping stone to
deeper success in the Christian life. The
true Christian lives by faith, not be sight. Faith is the victory, not
emotional feeling. When
one stops to think about it, it is the uncertainties of life which keep
driving us back to Jesus! We should not fear problems, for they are good
for us. They are to be surmounted in the strength of Christ. In
addition, there are those times when the soul will feel its deep
unworthiness. The true Christian is not always on an emotional high, and
should not expect to be. We must learn to trust Him in the darkness, as
well as in the light. We
may be exhausted, we may be ill. A loved one may be in trouble; someone
special may be dying. All kinds of problems can and do occur. Through it
all, we keep walking forward by faith, holding tightly to the hand of
Him who has promised not to let go. It is only by our own choice that we
are separated from Him. Much of our lives, we walk by faith and not by
sight. There
there is the factor of humility. Christianity is a down-to-up
experience. Continually the soul humbles itself before God and submits
its life anew to Him. But
woe be to him who thinks that falling on the Rock is a crisis to be
avoided, and that feeling good is all that counts. The
deepest Christian experience occurs at the feet of the Master, not
standing on the mountaintop. The
true child of God bows in meekness before his Maker,—and God lifts him
up, gives him peace of heart, and uses him in His work. He does not live in continual fear, for perfect love casteth out fear. His eyes are on the Master, and He walks with Him daily. |
