The Challenges to Assurance
In our final installment of this little four-part study on assurance, we turn again to the Westminster Confession, now Chapter XVIII, Section 4.
“True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it; by falling into some special sin, which woundeth the conscience, and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation; by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light: yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by the which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair.”
Not only are the reality of salvation and our assurance of salvation distinguished at the outset, but those Puritans also had the pastoral insight to address the ways in which true Christians may sense a loss of assurance whether they once had it. Without this further distinction, an additional lie of the enemy emerges. We tend to view our latest states of mind as the more mature—“I used to think x, but now I have come to see.” That may be the case in many instances of life, but it is also true that we can lose touch with reality for various reasons. This section of the Confession is not meant to offer an exhaustive list of ways. Here are a few of the main challenges to consider.
The Challenge of Negligence
If the ordinary means of grace were the central path to attaining assurance, then neglecting these—and, in particular, partaking in these so as to be nourished in exactly this way—will rob one of assurance. What the means of grace do is to keep one rooted in the work of Christ, so that the work of the Spirit is seen to flow in the proper direction.
What I mean is this. One can credit God for one’s joy and peace, for one’s ability to understand the word and for prayer to come easy, and so forth. But the primary work of the Holy Spirit is actually not to enable these things. These are a work of the Spirit that comes second. This foundational work of the Spirit is to apply the Son’s work of redemption.
That means that the moral-transformative work of the Spirit on our lives always flows out of and looks back to the legal-declarative work of the Son in God’s court. Again, “since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).
Negligence can be the result of error. When we are discouraged, it may be that we have believed a lie. Things will only get worse until the error has been corrected.
Charles Hodge wrote,
“Many sincere believers are too introspective. They look too exclusively within, so that their hope is graduated by the degree of evidence of regeneration which they find in their own experience. This, except in rare cases, can never lead to the assurance of hope.”1
Recall the imagery of the root and the fruit. What Hodge is really talking about are Christians who get the idea that the shiny exterior of a piece of spiritual fruit is the whole show, and then proceed to bounce, like a hummingbird, from one branch to another of their life. The result is either pride or despair. In either case, it is unwarranted for one of two reasons.
If one is particularly fond of the view, they are haughty, seeing only the surface and congratulating themselves like the Pharisee in the parable (Luke 18:11-12), who thanked God well enough with words, but it was all a list of how wonderful he looked in the mirror. If one is having trouble locating any of the expected produce, they have forgotten that fruit is a growing thing. It takes time. It is also a corrupting thing, and any rot may only be evident once one has taken a deeper bite.
The Challenge of Grievous Sin
Someone may suppose they can think of more grievous sins than the one committed by Peter. I mean that time when he denied even knowing the Lord Jesus because he was afraid for his own life. Peter would not have thought there was a worse sin. We are told that when he heard the sound of the rooster and recalled the words of Jesus predicting it, that he “wept bitterly” (Lk. 22:62).
No matter what the sin in view, here is the “I have fallen” objection brought by our conscience. But why do we think such examples are everywhere in Scripture? The father of our faith, Abraham, attempted the same ruse of pretending his wife was merely his sister a second time after he had grown so much. Aaron and David and Solomon fell. Even Barnabas was led astray for a moment by the Judaizers. Moses was an old man when he struck the rock a second time, and while he was barred from the Canaan of shadows, he inherited the ultimate promise. Hezekiah was a righteous king throughout, yet sinned in the end, still finding grace. The wives of the patriarchs all manipulated matters to help God fulfill the promise, yet Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel are all still inheritors. What is this objection we bring against ourselves, but a claim that some sin of ours is stronger than that grace of Christ’s?
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised” (Rom. 8:31-34).
The Challenge of Intrusive Thoughts
There is a distinction that needs to be made. This distinction can be made even if we do not know where the exact line was crossed in a given situation. That distinction is between temptation from the enemy versus thoughts being sinfully entertained. If this line did not exist, then we would have no grounds to say that Jesus was both tempted and that He resisted in all cases. The line between temptation and sin can be discerned by asking if we are speaking of an act of the will.
Whether the temptation comes from without (vulgar speech or imagery) or within (a memory involuntarily recalled), the line is crossed when our soul designs to hold that thought, or plans, in the slightest way, to act upon it. Intrusive thoughts can be specific to a lack of assurance by seeming to go all the way to the root of faith.
Bunyan dealt with this as well. The objection that one brings against themselves is this: “But I cannot believe that I come to Christ aright, because sometimes I am apt to question his very being and office to save?” In order to show that such is the devil talking, Bunyan proceeds to ask us these questions:
“1. Do you like these wicked blasphemies? Answer: ‘No, no, their presence and working kills me.’ 2. Do you mourn for them, pray against them, and hate yourself because of them? Answer: ‘Yes, yes; but that which afflicts me is, I do not prevail against them.’ 3. Do you sincerely choose, if you could have your choice, that your heart might be affected and taken with the things that are best, most heavenly, and holy? Answer: ‘With all my heart, and death the next hour, if it were God’s will, rather than thus to sin against him.’ Well then, your not liking of them, your mourning for them, your praying against them, and your loathing yourself because of them, with your sincere choosing of those thoughts for your delight that are heavenly and holy, clearly declares, that these things are not countenanced either by your will, affections, understanding, judgment, or conscience; and so, that your heart is not in them.”2
The Challenge Divinely Orchestrated
The Confession seems to suggest that God Himself is a cause in at least a temporary loss of assurance: by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light. But why would God do that? It may be to cultivate in us a more desperate desire to attain assurance. One of the clearest passages on this comes from the Prophets,
“For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you” (Isa. 54:7-8).
As with salvation as a whole, so with the assurance of salvation. We attain and then we discover that God was behind it all. As the hymn says, “I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.” In the place before greater assurance, God was building that new assurance by tearing down an older defective form. The Psalmist’s more earthly need for salvation becomes a type of this:
“Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your sight’” (Ps. 31:22).
There are other places that testify to this: “let the bones that you have broken rejoice” (Ps. 51:8). It may be said that these are suffering texts, and that, while God ordains suffering for our sanctification, our subject matter is more specific. Our question is whether God specifically ordains the loss of assurance. At this point, however, we ought to consider what might most easily dislodge our souls from their firm sense of being in Christ. Is it not a trial? Another clue comes a few verses down in the same Psalm—“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (v. 12). In other words, our sense of assurance is upheld by God whenever it is present.
Concluding Thoughts
I used Peter’s sin as an example of a grievous sin. But now we should remember what Jesus said even before it happened:
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Lk. 22:31-32).
Three things become apparent here. First, God knows and ordains the exact ways in which we will lose grip of assurance. Second, Jesus is praying for us concerning this very thing (Jn. 17:11, 15; Heb. 7:25). Third, our descent into uncertainty and restoration are designed by God for us to build up our brothers and sisters. All of this is to say that even the challenges to assurance wind up as elements in the greater assurance to come. It is a portion of the “all things” that God works for the good of those who love Him (cf. Rom. 8:28).
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1. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, III.16.8 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 107.
2. John Bunyan, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2011), 39.
