The Resurrection as a “Comfortable Sign” of the Believer’s Justification

In his book, Christ Set Forth, Puritan writer Thomas Goodwin (1600-1679) includes a chapter about how the Christian’s faith is supported by the resurrection of Christ. In other words, Christ’s resurrection from the dead on the 3rd day provides us with assurance that the price for our redemption really has been fully paid by Christ on the cross, and has been accepted by God as satisfaction for our sin.  Goodwin writes,

“Although Christ’s obedience in this life and his death past do alone afford the whole matter of our justification, and make up the sum of that price paid for us . . . , so as faith may see a fullness of worth and merit therein, to discharge the debt; yet faith has a comfortable sign and evidence to confirm itself in the belief of this, from Christ’s resurrection after his death. It may fully satisfy our faith, that God himself is satisfied, and that he reckons the debt as paid.” (p.62)

Have you ever thought about the resurrection that way? If you are a believer in Christ, you can look to Christ’s resurrection as a “comfortable sign” (i.e. a sign that gives you comfort and assurance) of the reality of your justification in Christ!

This is just part of what Goodwin understands the Apostle Paul to be saying in Romans 8:34, where we read:

“Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

Christ’s resurrection puts God’s exclamation point on the gospel!

The Covenant of Grace as a Remedy for Sinful Fear

Why study covenant theology? Is there any real benefit in studying the covenant of grace?

In his book, Triumphing Over Sinful Fear, John Flavel writes,

“The first rule for relieving slavish fear is to consider seriously and study thoroughly the covenant of grace in which all believers stand. A clear understanding of the covenant’s nature, extent, and stability, along with our interest in it, will go a long way to cure our sinful and slavish fear.” (p.63)

That quote is found in the chapter entitled “Remedies for Sinful Fear.” In that chapter Flavel discusses no less than 12 different remedies for sinful fear, including things like confirming your interest in Christ (seeking assurance), keeping your conscience pure, recording your experience’s of God’s past faithfulness (journaling!), and considering the providential rule of Christ over all things.

But what is the very first remedy that Flavel suggests? Serious consideration and thorough study of the covenant of grace! He goes on to remind us about what a covenant is:

“A covenant is more than a naked promise. In the covenant, God has graciously considered our fears, doubts, and weaknesses; therefore, He proceeds with us in the highest way of solemnity, confirming His promises by way of oath (Heb. 6:13, 17) and seals (Romans 6:11). He places Himself under the most solemn ties and engagements to His people so that we might take strong comfort from so firm a ratification of the covenant (Hebrews 6:18).” (p.63-64)

A covenant is more than just a promise. The promise of God is sure. But by His grace He gives us even more than that – He gives us a guarantee of His promise to us in Christ by way of an oath!

The Importance of the Lord’s Supper

Do we place much of an emphasis or priority on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or do we barely give it a second thought? Richard Phillips, senior minister of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina, writes of how odd it is that so many believers today have such a low regard for the Lord’s Supper:

“They seldom observe it and assign to it little significance. They are largely ignorant of the theology poured into and out from it. They derive no assurance or comfort, and seek no grace, as they receive from the Lord’s Table. How remarkable this is among those supposedly devoted to the Bible!” (What Is the Lord’s Supper?, p.5-6)

You might be surprised to learn that the church down through her long history has not always viewed the Lord’s Supper with as much disinterest or apathy as many do in the church today – quite the opposite, actually! In his very helpful book about the Lord’s Supper entitled, Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, Keith Mathison makes the following observation:

“One of the most interesting phenomena that one encounters when comparing the writings of the sixteenth-century Reformers with the writings of their twentieth-century heirs is the different amount of attention devoted to the Lord’s Supper. The Reformers devoted volumes of books, letters, tracts, and sermons to the subject. The sixteenth century was a time of heated controversy over such crucial doctrines as the authority of Scripture and justification by faith alone, yet the doctrine that was discussed more often than any other was that of the Lord’s Supper.” (xv)

Another writer puts it this way:

“More ink was spilled over the Lord’s Supper, and more horses were ridden to exhaustion attending conferences about it, than over any other doctrine.” (David J. Engelsma, “Martin Bucer’s “Calvinistic” Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper” (Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, Grandville, MI, 1988)

One need only ask when the last time was that you heard a sermon or any extensive teaching on the subject to see how far we have fallen from such a mindset.

To further illustrate the point, The Westminster Larger Catechism devotes no less than 10 separate questions to the subject, while the Heidelberg Catechism spends three (3) whole Lord’s days on the subject with a total of 8 questions (and some rather lengthy answers). Clearly the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is a very important one. It is a subject that the 16^th century Protestant Reformers and their heirs in the 17^th century spent quite a bit of time and energy studying, teaching, and even debating about together. It was near and dear to their hearts, and should be so to ours as well.

Last but not least, we as believers are commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). He certainly appointed and established this Sacrament for our benefit, to be a blessing and a means of grace, but that makes it no less of a command just the same. It is much like when a mother slaves all day over a hot stove to put a good, healthy meal on the table, but still often needs to tell her children to eat! Surely if it is important enough for Jesus to not only appoint it for our benefit, but also to command us to partake of it on a regular basis, we would be well-served to sit up and take notice, as well as seek to understand what the Word of God has to say about it.

May we learn to think more highly of the Lord’s Supper, to think about it more often, and (even more importantly) to think about it more biblically. And if that means that we end up disagreeing over it and debating the subject, so much the better! Better to care enough about it to vigorously debate it than to view it with apathy.

The Glorious Certainty of the Gospel

What is the relationship between the grace of God in the gospel and assurance? Why is the doctrine of justification by faith alone so important? J. Gresham Machen writes,

Such is the glorious certainty of the gospel. The salvation of the Christian is certain because it depends altogether upon God; if it depended in slightest measure upon us, the certainty of it would be gone. Hence appears the vital importance of the great Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone;  that doctrine is at the very centre of Christianity. It means that acceptance with God is not something that we earn; it is not something that is subject to the wretched uncertainties of human endeavor; but it is a free gift of God. (What Is Faith?, p.200-201)

That is just one more reason why the doctrine of justification by faith alone is so important. It is not just a matter for ivory tower theologians or fodder for theological debate – far from it!  It makes all the difference in the world to each and every believer in Christ. Why? Because it is the only real way to true certainty and assurance in the Christian life.

Justification by faith alone presents us with a choice between the “glorious certainty of the gospel” (i.e. knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you have been fully forgiven and accepted by a holy God) or “the wretched uncertainties of human endeavor.”

If our salvation depends upon our works in even the slightest degree, all certainty and assurance are cast aside. But if salvation is a free gift of God (which is ultimately what justification by faith alone entails), then & only then can the believer truly have the peace and assurance that comes with believing the gospel of Christ.

Book Review: Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart

This book was written in order to help believers in Jesus Christ to (in the words of the author himself) “know, beyond all doubt, that they are saved” (p.3).  In other words, it is about assurance of salvation.  That is always a timely topic, as many sincere believers in Christ struggle with a lack of assurance for a whole host of different reasons.

The title grabs your attention right from the get-go (which is, no doubt, the intention).  How many of us have heard a pastor or evangelist present the call to faith in Christ in terms of asking Jesus into your heart?  It is an all-too-common formula.  And, as Greear points out, it is nowhere to be found in Scripture. (Hence the title of the book.)

Ultimately, though, the author’s concern is not so much the expressions that we commonly use to articulate the gospel (although he is rightly concerned about that as well), but that such practices in evangelism often lead to problems down the road in the form of a lack of assurance for believers who find themselves questioning whether or not they ‘did it right,’ so to speak.  The result is that many sincere believers (including the author!) have asked Jesus into their hearts over and over again down through the years.

The book is filled with the gospel of Jesus Christ, as any book on assurance worth its salt should be.  He notes the biblical basis for having assurance of salvation (chapter 2), as well as the benefits of having it (strength & motivation for living the Christian life).  He even emphasizes the active and passive obedience of Christ (although he does not use those terms to do so), and double-imputation (i.e. our sins imputed to Christ on the Cross and His perfect righteousness imputed to believers by faith alone).

He includes a whole chapter (5) entitled, “What Is Belief?” where he defines saving faith, followed by a chapter devoted to the topic of repentance (chapter 6).  He clearly defines what it is, what it is not, and why it is necessary as part of saving faith.  These chapters are very helpful.

A few points of criticism:

There are a lot of typos in the book (on p.12, 18, 21, 65 & 82 – find them for yourself if you care to do so).  That is not a big deal in and of itself, but that is a lot of typos for such a short book (121 pages).  Maybe his editor(s) needed more coffee that day? I found it to be somewhat distracting.

Also, there are a number of attempts at humor throughout the book that I found to be a little forced.  The humor seems to be a part of his writing style, and no doubt reflects his personality (not a bad thing in itself by any means), but I found it to be a bit distracting at times as well.

Of a more pressing concern is his advice in Appendix 1 (“What About Baptism?”).  The question that he is seeking to answer is what should you do about baptism if you become convinced that you were born again after you were initially baptized?  His advice? Get re-baptized (p.113)!  In other words, stop asking Jesus into your heart after the first time, but get baptized again?!?

As a Baptist, he does not believe in paedo-baptism (baptizing the infant children of believers), so he is just being consistent with his own view.  The problem is that he addresses such an important topic as baptism in such a brief way (not even three full pages).  In my opinion his readers would have been much better-served if he had either treated the subject at some length or simply ignored it altogether.

He flatly (and wrongly, I might add) states that “Every baptism we see in the New Testament . . .was a believer confessing his or her own faith” (p.113).  There are a number of instances in the book of Acts where entire households were baptized (e.g. 16:15, 33). To simply assume that there were no children in those households seems more than a bit arbitrary.  Not only that, but for the Apostles to suddenly and without any explanation abandon the application of the sign & seal of the New Covenant to infants when the sign & seal of the Old Covenant had been commonly applied to infants for about two thousand years (i.e. since the days of Abraham) would be strange, to say the least.

That being said, I did find the book to be generally helpful and would recommend it to anyone who is struggling with a lack of assurance of salvation.   His words in the final chapter of the book are well-worth repeating here:

I’m simply saying that whenever you doubt your standing with God, the solution is the same: trust in the finished work of Jesus (p.107).

Very good advice!  If you want assurance, don’t look primarily to something that you have done in the past; don’t even look primarily to what you are doing now; certainly don’t look to what you promise to do in the future. Instead, look to what Jesus has done on your behalf in the past in His death and resurrection.  Look to what Jesus is doing for you even now – interceding for you at the right hand of the Father and preparing a place for you.  And look to what He has promised to do for you in the future (come back for you, that you might be with Him forever).  That is the primary way to assurance.

If you or someone you know is struggling with a lack of assurance, this book may prove to be very helpful and encouraging.

You can order a copy of the book here: Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart

J.D. Greear on Assurance

In his book, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, J.D. Greear writes,

The Enemy – one of whose names in Scripture is “the Deceiver” – loves to keep truly saved believers unsure of their salvation because he knows that if he does they’ll never experience the freedom, joy, and confidence that God wants them to have. But he also loves to keep those on their way to hell deluded into thinking they are on their way to heaven, their consciences immunized from Jesus’ pleas to repent. (p.6)

How ironic that so often it does seem to be the case that many sincere believers in Christ who have no biblically valid reason to doubt their salvation lack assurance, while others who actually have every reason to doubt the validity of their own profession of faith often continue on in a blissful state of ignorance & delusion about the true state of their souls.

For the former, it is a painfully discouraging situation; for the latter it is truly, sadly, and (if left unchanged) eternally disastrous.

What solution does Greear suggest?  That we stop asking Jesus into our hearts over and over again (which is something far too many a modern evangelical can identify with) and “start resting in the finished work of Christ” (p.11).

In other words, remind yourself often, not of some past (and sometimes often-repeated!) experience or decision (i.e. walking an aisle, praying the sinner’s prayer, etc.), but of the gospel itself – the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on your behalf!  At the end of the day, the way to assurance is not so much to look within (essentially to look to yourself!), but rather to look to Jesus Christ and His perfect righteousness and death on the Cross for sinners.

John Murray on Sanctification

In his book, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, John Murray writes the following about the sanctification of the believer in Christ:

There is a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it is another for us to live in sin. (p.145)

If you are a Christian and you struggle with sin . . . welcome to the club!  That is not a cause for worry or despair.   The work of the Lord in your sanctification is ongoing; it is lifelong.  You will spend the rest of your life repenting of sin, and you will do that because of the grace of God at work in you!

The time to worry (as Murray says) is if you are complacent in and about your sin.  That is a sign that sin is still reigning in your life.  It is a sign that, despite whatever profession of faith you may have made, you are simply not yet a Christian.

But if you are a believer in Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin.  As Paul writes in Romans 6:20-23,

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is vitally important that we understand the difference between “surviving sin and reigning sin.”  The better we understand not only the nature of our justification, but our sanctification in Christ as well, the better equipped we will be to deal with our sins and the doubts that sometimes accompany them.

Justification is an “act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.33).  So we are not justified by anything that we do (not by any righteousness of our own!), but only on the basis of the perfect righteousness of Christ, accounted to us by faith alone!

And sanctification is “the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness” (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.35).  So, unlike justification (which is a one-time act of God’s grace), sanctification is the ongoing work of God’s free grace in the life of a believer, conforming us more and more into the image of Christ.

Understanding the work of God’s grace in our sanctification (like the act of His grace in our justification) is a key to experiencing the assurance of our salvation in Jesus Christ.  In fact, truly understanding the difference between the two (our justification and our sanctification) is one of the keys to experiencing the assurance of our salvation.

And God most certainly does want every one of us who believes in the name of Jesus Christ to know that we have eternal life (1 John 5:13).

Who said that theology wasn’t practical!

“At Home” In Sin?

Some strong, but ever-so-timely words from the late John Murray (1898-1975) regarding the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers:

“If we find ourselves at home in the ungodliness, lust, and filth of this present world, it is because we have not been called effectually by God’s grace.” (John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, p.92)

What is effectual calling?  The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q.31) defines it as “the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convicting us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.”

So in other words, if we (to use Murray’s phrase) still “find ourselves at home in the ungodliness, lust, and filth of this present world” it shows that the Holy Spirit has not worked in us to convict us of our sin and misery.  Sinners who are “at home” in sin do not perceive the sinfulness of sin.  Sinners who are “at home” in sin do not see it as the source of their misery.

And so Murray is also saying that being “at home” in sin is also evidence that one has not truly been enlightened in the knowledge of Christ, nor has he or she truly embraced Jesus Christ by faith as He is freely offered to us in the gospel.  All this is to say that being “at home” in sin is evidence that one is not yet truly a believer in Christ at all.

Are you “at home” in sin?  Then, simply put, you are not yet a Christian.

But there is a world of difference between being “at home” in sin (in other words, seeing nothing wrong with it, being quite comfortable in it), and being a believer who simply struggles with sin.  Struggling with sin shows that one is convicted that it is, in fact, sin.  Struggling with sin shows that one is convicted of the misery of sin.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ and are struggling with sin, welcome to the club!  You are in some pretty good company.  Even the Apostle Paul himself struggled with sin!  Look at his words in Romans 7:15-23 (ESV):

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Sound familiar? Feel familiar?

And what was his solution?  Look at what he wrote in the next two verses:

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25 ESV)

When you feel the weight of your struggle with sin, let that drive you all the more to Jesus Christ.  Cling to Him by faith.  Thanks be to God through Jesus our Lord, for He is the One who will deliver us from this body of death!