Introduction
What’s the difference between faith and assurance, and can you have one without the other? Pastor Cam Porter and Pastor Jim Butler explain why assurance is grounded in Christ, not in your own performance.
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Transcript
Keywords: faith and assurance, salvation certainty, theological distinction, Christ-centered assurance, Romans 7 struggle, perseverance of saints, Gospel of John, introspection vs looking to Christ, remaining corruption, pastoral counseling
Speakers: Wim Kerkhoff (host), Pastor Jim Butler, Pastor Cameron Porter
The Question
Wim Kerkhoff: This next question changes gears from planting churches, transitioning, and choosing a church. What’s the difference between faith and assurance? I appreciate that our confession has separate chapters on this. A lot of people don’t understand the difference, and they end up asking, am I saved or not?
Faith Is Necessary, Assurance Is to Be Sought
Pastor Cam Porter: It’s important to establish out of the gate that a Christian may have the one without immediately having the other. Every Christian has faith, but not every Christian has assurance. The Bible sets forth faith as the inescapable reality for every Christian: they have heard the gospel, that a glorious Christ came into the world to save sinners, and that by his death, burial, and resurrection, everyone who believes on him has everlasting life. Assurance, though, isn’t a prerequisite for salvation. The Bible sets it forth as something the Christian is to seek after and rejoice in.
John’s Gospel, near the end in chapter 20, gives a summary of its purpose: so that those who read or hear it preached might believe that Jesus is the Christ and have life in his name. Then in his epistles, in 1 John 5, he writes to those who already believe in the Son of God, that they might know they have everlasting life. So John treats both: believing on Jesus, and the assurance we may have in that belief. Faith is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Assurance is the grip on that, the certain reality, the infallible hope that we truly have that faith and will at the last be found everlastingly with him. One is necessary for a Christian, the other is held forth as possible for that Christian to enjoy.
Look and Live, Not Introspection
Pastor Jim Butler: It’s important that believers seek assurance. A believer without it is always looking at themselves to see whether they’re a believer, and the devil loves that: sidetracked, sidelined, sitting and stewing with yourself instead of looking and living. Trust that what Scripture says about the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ is true. Sure, there’s fruit, there’s a godly life, but boil it all down and it’s a looking to Christ, a believing that everything the Bible says about him is true.
For people who struggle constantly with assurance, the answer is more Jesus. Less introspection, less fruit-searching, more look and live. Trust what Scripture says about the Savior, be done with it, and move on in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, serving and glorifying him. Watch your assurance grow. The onus isn’t on you or your performance, it’s always about looking to Christ.
Assurance Grounded in Christ, Not Performance
Pastor Cam Porter: A lot of the onus is on the believer, but some is on the pastor and preacher too, in what they emphasize regarding faith and assurance. Our confession’s chapter 17, on the Perseverance of the Saints, addresses what our preservation, and the ground and foundation of our assurance, depend on. Paragraph 2 says this perseverance, and this infallible assurance of hope, depends not on our own free will, but on the immutability of the decree of election flowing from the Father’s unchangeable love, the efficacy of Christ’s merit and intercession and our union with him, the oath of God, the abiding of his Spirit, and the nature of the covenant of grace.
If we look with one eye on Christ and one eye inward, searching for the motions of the Spirit and evidences in our deeds and thoughts, rather than looking principally at Christ as the ground of our preservation and assurance, we’re faltering. A pastor who points people anywhere other than the triune God, the mediator Jesus Christ, and the perfection and exclusivity of his salvation has something wrong with his system.
The Danger of Making Doubt Noble
Pastor Jim Butler: People do struggle with assurance, dispositionally some more than others. But for a church to address a lack of assurance by almost presenting it as noble, that it’s good you struggle, strips away the simplicity of the gospel. Look and live. You knew you lived because you looked, by God’s grace, and were healed from the bite of the fiery serpent. You’ve been healed. Now move on and live like you’ve been healed. Churches that want that perpetual adolescent state of doubt are doing something bizarre.
Wim Kerkhoff: I’ve analyzed hundreds of sermons for a project, and about a third of it is introspection, without much to actually help people grow in grace and knowledge and be productive.
Romans 7 and Remaining Corruption
Pastor Cam Porter: It grieves me when Christian pastors, preachers, and theologians come to Romans 7 and treat Paul there as unconverted. That can be soul-destroying, casting a burden on a Christian that ought not to be cast. Paul says the good he wants to do, he doesn’t do, and the evil he doesn’t want to do, he does. What does that struggle do? It drives him to the Savior, to his God, to his Christ. That struggle is never a cause for despair. We don’t relish remaining corruption, but the very presence of the struggle is encouraging, because it means that believer recognizes his sin and recognizes Christ as the Savior who has saved him, and as the exemplar for his conduct until we reach the glory to come.
Pastor Jim Butler: I’m not going to panic. I’m going to keep looking, seeking by the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the flesh. But I won’t conclude that remaining corruption in me means I must not be saved. I thank God through our Lord Jesus.
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