With God’s Blessing, and Without It.
IN relation of the soul with God, assurance may I be looked at in three ways.
There is the assurance that rests on divine testimony; the assurance that comes from self-deception; and the assurance that comes too late. In other words,
“THE FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH.”
THE GROUNDLESS ASSURANCE OF UNBELIEF. THE FIXED ASSURANCE OF DESPAIR.
A subject so full of seriousness may well command the reader’s earnest attention. Let us consider each feature separately.
“The full assurance of faith” rests on a solid foundation, all divine.
Faith has nothing of its own to rest upon. The dove sent out by Noah could not rest on the vast expanse of waters beneath her. Only one reliable object presented itself. There must she find rest or perish. She had nothing in herself that could give her rest, and nothing outside the ark could do it. The more she used her rapid wing to find it elsewhere, the more weary would she become. In like manner, we repeat, faith has nothing of her own to rest upon. But has she then no solid foundation on which to place her foot with comfort? Verily she has. Faith’s assurance rests on the revelation of what God is in His own unchangeable nature and character. What can shake that? What He is, He is. And all that He is has been perfectly set forth in Him who is “The Same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Faith’s assurance rests on a faithful testimony. It rests on the testimony of God Himself respecting that which His own honor is bound up with.
This testimony embraces what has already taken place, and what is yet to come also. And it speaks of the present glory of Him by Whom, and in Whom, all has been secured for God’s good pleasure and the believer’s full blessing.
In the case of Abraham, God’s testimony was entirely one of promise. It related to what God would do in the future. He would bring about a day of universal blessing for man, and bring it about through Abraham’s seed. To this end a son must be born. But here natural calculations and divine communications were in conflict. Had Abraham listened to the former he would never have had full assurance from the latter. But not so, “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform” (Rom. 4:20, 2120He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 21And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. (Romans 4:20‑21)).
“My soul looks back to see
The burden Thou didst bear
When hanging on the accursed tree,
For all my guilt was there.”
“Believing, I rejoice
To see the curse remove;
And bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,
And sing redeeming love.”
The Holy Ghost has come down from heaven as Witness of God’s full acceptance of that one precious sacrifice; and this testimony is the stable foundation of “the full assurance of faith.” It does not rest, therefore, on any mere fancy of man’s mind, or on any fickle feeling of his heart, but on the solid ground of God’s declared acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ on the sinner’s behalf. That is, the full assurance on our side is the righteous answer to the full acceptance on God’s. Faith puts the two together and firmly holds them there.
What heavenly comfort does this assurance bring to the heart and conscience of a poor repentant sinner believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, since it is the Heavenly Comforter Himself who bears witness to us of the precious value of the Saviour’s work for us, according to God’s own thought of it! As it is written, “Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us” (Heb. 10:1515Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, (Hebrews 10:15)). That work was on the Cross, and therefore entirely apart from any feeling of ours.
Then there is another thing of great importance. Behind all that Christ has done, and all that the Spirit has witnessed of its value, our attention is drawn in Hebrews 10 to what God is, as shown by the fact that it gives Him positive pleasure to put away our sins. The sacrifices, which did not and could not do it, gave Him “no pleasure” (see verse 6 and 11). God’s “will” was in Christ coming here to do what nothing else could do―remove our sins, dispel our fears, and give liberty of approach to God with holy boldness. That is, God’s heart was in all this; and the Saviour’s work for us, with the Spirit’s witness to us, the blessed outcome. How assuring!
Let us now look at
The groundless assurance of unbelief.
A little child may make a garden of its own by sticking plucked flowers in some chosen plot of the sea-beach sand; but that pleasure is doomed. Her pretty flowers will surely die. The strongest assurance to the contrary could not keep them alive, or even leave them standing where her fancy placed them, for long. There is neither root for the soil, nor proper soil for the root. And the principle applies to the matter before us. For there is, in connection with Christian profession, not only the well-founded “assurance of faith,” but the groundless assurance of ignorance and unbelief. And oh, what a vast difference between the assurance of an awakened heart and conscience, set at rest by the tidings of what God has done to satisfy Himself about the question of sin, and the mere feeling of assurance in the natural mind left to its own vain religious reasonings.
Take a notable instance, Saul of Tarsus. “I verily thought with myself,” said the Apostle, “that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 26:9, 109I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. (Acts 26:9‑10)). But “I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim. 1:1313Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. (1 Timothy 1:13)). Here, then, was assurance; but assurance that rested on his own misguided feelings, sincere and religious though they were. “I verily thought with myself,” How much that short sentence expresses! “Verily thought” proved his sincerity; while the word that begins the sentence and the one that ends it go to show the place which self had in his zeal against the Name he hated, and those drawn by the Father to Him. But all this had been foreseen. “The time cometh,” said Jesus to His own, that “whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:22They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. (John 16:2)). They “will think,” said Jesus. I did think, said Paul, “I verily thought.”
Had Saul’s hatred to Christ continued, notwithstanding all his religious thinking, what a terrible curse would have rested upon him! Of this his own hand was brought to witness (1 Cor. 16:2222If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha. (1 Corinthians 16:22)). “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (that is, “Let him be accursed at His Coming”). Who can measure the calamity?
But the subject only increases in solemnity as we come to consider the assurance that comes too late. A simple incident may serve to illustrate. One afternoon, a few years since, a man in the Midlands was very desirous of going to a place some miles distant. In his own mind, he had no question whatever that a certain train, starting from the Main Junction, stopped, every day in the week, at the N. Road Station. He went in good time to join this train. But when he reached the station he found, to his great surprise, that the main gate was locked and the booking office closed! A mistake somewhere; and no other train that day would serve his purpose! This was very unpalatable assurance.
While expressing his vexation to a friend, he got this answer. “I could have told you that! The time-table makes it plain enough.” All perfectly true. But how utterly devoid of comfort.
What the writer is anxious about in recording this, is that the reader should not make a worse mistake. For, without question, you have been running a terrible risk if you have been imagining that the good news of God’s forgiveness, now proclaimed in the Name of Jesus, is sure to be continued all the days of your life. To that proclamation there will be an end, and that end you may live to see—the end of the present day of grace at the second coming of the Lord. How appalling to contemplate the assurance that such an event will fix upon you! Assurance that the “house” has been filled and the door shut; assurance that God has at last accepted your oft-repeated excuse and furnished the wedding with willing guests without you; assurance that you are forever beyond the possibility of another invitation to the feast; assurance that “the harvest is past, the summer ended,” and you are “NOT SAVED”―the full assurance of despair!
Look at those two words, “When once,” at the beginning of Luke 13:2525When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: (Luke 13:25), and, if you can bear it, read the whole verse, and we think you will not be surprised at our anxiety that such a position should never be yours―a position infinitely worse than that of despairing Esau, who, having despised the birthright, lost the blessing that went with it, and found no place of repentance, “though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:16, 1716Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 17For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. (Hebrews 12:16‑17)).
Thank God, the door is not yet closed, the blessing not yet beyond your reach. The full assurance of faith may yet be yours. Bestir yourself, lest you miss it forever.
GEO. C.