One Does Not Simply

The Paramount Practicality of Looking to Christ for Assurance

Assurance is, without a doubt, the greatest struggle I will ever deal with in my life. I use the present tense there because this is still something I labor with. I labor with it with all my might. Why? Because even though I know I'm saved God is still holy, and righteous, and just, and I still sin!

Calvin, always of great benefit in the enunciation of beautiful Scriptural truths, says this,

"God, who is the highest righteousness, cannot love the unrighteousness He sees in all. All of us, therefore, have in ourselves something deserving of God's hatred. With regard to our corrupt nature and the wicked life that follows it, all of us surely displease God, are guilty in His sight, and are born to the damnation of hell."

Are we screwed up? Yup. It always bothers me when people "Hate the sin but love the sinner." This is exactly how Christians should live. But it stings me when people say that that is how God acts. God does not just hate the sin and love all sinners. God hates the sinner. That is why, if he remains a sinner he will spend eternity in hell suffering physical, eternal, conscious torment. Hence, we should tremble. If we do not tremble before God in light of this truth we will never understand the gospel and will never find any hope in God. This is rough truth no doubt but Calvin does not leave it there (praise God it never ends there),

"But because the Lord wills not to lose what is his in us, out of his own kindness he still finds something to love. However much we may be sinners by our own fault, we nevertheless remain his creatures. However much we have brought death upon ourselves, yet he has created us unto life. Thus he is moved by pure and freely given given love of us into grace. Since there is a perpetual and irreconcilable disagreement between righteousness and unrighteousness, so long as we remain sinners he cannot receive us completely. Therefore, to take away all cause for enmity and to reconcile us utterly to himself, he wipes out all evil in us by the expiation set forth in the death of Christ; that we, who were previously unclean and impure, may show ourselves righteous and holy in his sight."

I find this repeatedly to be the constant theme of my life. I pray, "God, I've got nothing. I come with nothing. I have no righteousness. I shouldn't even be in your presence arrogantly believing that I the finite should be speaking to you the infinite. I should be dead even in thinking about it. But here, look, I have Jesus. He is holy. May I therefore come into your presence and rest in you since He is holy?" You know what the answer is every time? "I sacrificed my Son that you could come into presence and enjoy rest. You are a sinner, and I do not easily forget sins, but you are covered by the blood of my Son. I will choose to see His righteousness over your sin. Enter." I am beginning to think that real assurance comes from the fact that every day, every single day, is marked by a struggle with sin in which we come and lay prostrate before the God who created us and beg for mercy through Jesus and find it given again, and again, and again. Calvin again,

"Therefore, by his love God the Father goes before and anticipates our reconciliation in Christ. Indeed, 'Because he first loved us" [I John 4:19], he afterward reconciles us to himself. But until Christ succors us by his death, the unrighteousness that deserves God's indignation remains in us, and is accursed and condemned before him. Hence, we can be fully and firmly joined with God only when Christ joins us with him."

So what's the key to being sure? What's they key to real lasting hope?

"If, then, we would be assured that God is pleased with and kindly disposed towards us, we must fix our eyes and minds on Christ alone. For, actually, through him alone we escape the imputation of our sins to us - an imputation bringing with it the wrath of God."

That is what the gospel is about: the death, resurrection and mediating work of Jesus Christ. When it all seems futile and like I am failing miserably and shall never earn my way to heaven I should look up and realize I will never earn my way to heaven! No kidding! It's all found in Jesus. My hope is in Jesus. No one, especially myself, will find a reconciled and peaceful audience with the Father lest it be through the shed blood of Christ. Hallelujah!

He died for our sins. He brings us to God. We can be assured of this.

R.D. Thompson