Assurance Is of the Essence of Saving Faith

Thank you, Bob. Nice to be here. I’d like to assure Jody Dillow that I am going to extend him absolution for using the New American Standard Version. But there is no absolution for trashing my reputation, and I will take some form of penance, which I have yet to devise, for Jody. See me afterwards, Jody.

My topic this morning, as you’ve already been told, is assurance, is of the essence of saving faith. A recent political cartoon in USA Today caught my attention, and it’s very relevant to my subject this morning. In the cartoon, a man and a woman were facing each other. Both of them looked like somewhat offbeat types. In the first panel, the man said, “Elvis is alive,” and the woman said something like, “I agree with you.” In the second panel, the man said, “I was kidnapped by aliens,” and the woman said, “I believe you.”

In the third panel, the man said, “Congress and the White House are cooperating on the budget,” and the woman turned away from him as he said that. Of course, the cartoonist is engaging in some political satire. He’s suggesting it may be easier to believe that Elvis is alive, or that alien kidnappings occur, than it is to believe that a Democratic president and the Republican Congress can cooperate on something of political significance. But along with his satire, it seems to me, comes a reminder about the ordinary, common-sense way of talking about belief.

As the cartoonist, and all the rest of us, know, believing may have very little to do with the amount of evidence for what we believe. A person can believe that Elvis is alive, even though the evidence for that is presumably rather meager. The same goes for the idea of alien kidnappings. On the other hand, some people would argue that the idea of Republican and Democratic parties cooperating on something important does require a lot more proof than we have of that at the moment. Like I read recently, the budget talks have collapsed. But the fact remains that if a person thinks any of these things is true, he obviously believes them.

Saving faith is not really any different from that. A person either believes the offer of eternal life, or he doesn’t. It really isn’t relevant how he came to believe it, or how good his reasons are for believing it. The issue is not how a person came to believe, but whether or not he does believe. But that leads me to the subject for the day. If someone does believe the offer of eternal life, as the Bible presents this offer, he will also be sure that he has eternal life. This is what we mean when we say that assurance is of the essence of saving faith.

What we do not mean by this claim, however, is that saving faith and assurance are synonymous. Let me repeat that. We do not mean by this that saving faith and assurance are synonymous. There is still objective truth to be believed, but assurance is the necessary result of believing that objective truth. That is due to the character of the truth itself, and not to any special quality that attaches to the faith that believes it.

I will be trying to defend this claim biblically in a moment, but let me just restate the matter in order to make it clear. The nature of the gospel message is such that when a person believes it, he necessarily has the assurance of eternal salvation. No matter what else he might believe, if he is not assured, he has not believed the gospel. The fact of the matter is that a person may believe certain things about the gospel without actually believing the true gospel, or he may believe something very close to the true gospel which is not, in fact, the gospel. In either case, he will not have the assurance that goes with saving faith.

It follows from what I just said that nobody ever got saved by believing the lordship gospel. Of course, some people do believe that gospel who are already saved. I’m not talking about that. I just mean that on the terms of the lordship gospel alone, no one can get saved, since this form of doctrine garbles the gospel so badly that assurance of salvation is not available. And if some people do find assurance in a lordship gospel, that assurance is a delusion, since it is not founded on biblical truth.

So you see how important this issue is. This is not just an adjunct discussion in connection with the gospel. It goes to the core of things. Only the true biblical gospel gives that assurance, and believing that gospel always is valid assurance. False gospels either give no assurance at all, or they give an assurance that is false and deceitful. Why is that? The reason is because only the biblical gospel is true, and if I do not believe truth, I cannot be saved or have valid assurance. Remember that Jesus said, “My word is truth.” Believing something false never saved anybody, although believing a falsehood may give false assurance.

Let me repeat that. Believing something false never saved anybody, although believing a falsehood may give false assurance. So suppose that I believe that Elvis is alive, and humans have been captured by aliens, and I also believe the true biblical gospel. Am I saved? Of course. And suppose I believe Clinton and the Republicans are working hard together on the budget, and that God and I must work hard together to get me to heaven. Am I saved? Of course not. In the former case, I will have valid assurance. In the latter case, I will not.

So much for my introduction. Let me now proceed to consider my topic under three headings. These are, number one, the biblical basis; number two, assurance and the current debate; number three, the practical consequences for the pastor.

The biblical basis. A doctrine is only as good as its biblical support. Biblically speaking, why do we say that assurance is of the essence of saving faith? We can make the case easily, I think, from the Gospel of John. As you all know, two kinds of statements in John’s Gospel describe saving faith. One is the phrase “believe in,” or, by former Greek students, pisteuo eis. The other phrase is “believe that,” and again, for my former Greek students, the phrase is pisteuo hoti.

Although some interpreters have tried to see a difference between these phrases, this is impossible, since both kinds of statements are used to indicate how eternal life is attained. There can be no difference between them. Two things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Redoff Bookman, believe it or not, was quite right to say this. He said, “To believe in Jesus is shorthand for to believe that Jesus is the Christ.” To believe in Jesus is shorthand for to believe that Jesus is the Christ. In other words, a phrase like pisteuo eis auton, which occurs in John 3:16 and many other places, is a shorthand way for saying pisteuo hoti Iesous estin ho Christos, “believe that Jesus is the Christ,” which, of course, is found, among other places, in John 20:31.

Naturally, John 20:31 is determinative, precisely because it is part of the thematic statement of the Gospel of John. I also need to remind you of a statement found in 1 John 5:1, which has the same effect. You remember it. There the Apostle writes,

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” Please note, for John, there are no exceptions to that. It has not said that many people who believe that Jesus is the Christ are born of God. Instead, John claims that whoever does so is a regenerate person.

Before I go further, let me note this. There is no difference in kind between believing that Elvis is alive and believing that Jesus is the Christ. Both are acts of faith. Of course, the former faith is unfounded. The latter is divinely sanctioned. The former is misplaced faith. The latter is saving faith. The Christian community has been plagued for a long time by its misapprehension about faith. We’ve been told so often that saving faith is more than intellectual assent that we have fallen into a trap.

I have argued in Absolutely Free that the debate over intellectual assent is semantically flawed. Today, the phrase intellectual assent implies that the assent in question is emotionally detached, or that it is somehow abstract or theoretical. But such ideas have no place in the discussion about faith, or even about saving faith. Is the belief that Elvis is alive intellectual assent? Not for most people who hold that belief. It is usually accompanied by rather obvious emotions. But that is irrelevant to whether the matter is believed or not. Emotions may or may not accompany belief, but they are not part of the definition of faith.

In Absolutely Free, I suggest that we give up using the phrase intellectual assent because of this majority of overtones. But I will not hold my breath waiting for the lordship people to give up one of their favored and theological cuss words. If the grace position was as weak as theirs, I wouldn’t give it up either. But I insist that believing that Jesus is the Christ means believing one of the most wonderful truths known to man. Furthermore, it is God’s truth. I would never describe anything like that as intellectual assent.

But, of course, a question immediately arises. If I go out on the street and ask passers-by whether they believe that Jesus is the Christ, many of them will affirm that they do. And many more might reply, “Of course. Wasn’t that His name?” This leads to an obvious consideration. We need to know what it is that John means when he talks about Jesus being the Christ. What exactly does a person believe about Jesus when he believes that? Fortunately, John makes this clear to us, and here the crucial text is the famous one already referred to in this conference that is found in John 11:25-27.

Please note that the text in John 11 stands at a pivotal point in John’s Gospel. The last and the greatest of John’s signs was about to take place, the raising of Lazarus. Remember, too, that the signs in John’s Gospel are written to bring men to believe that Jesus is the Christ. That is clearly stated in John 20:30 and 31. So we might rather expect a significant statement in the climactic text like John 11, and that is exactly what we get.

You remember the narrative. Jesus has just assured Martha that her brother will rise again. Her reply indicates that she believes he will, but only in the resurrection at the last day. So she needs a reminder of Who it is that stands before her. That is why Jesus speaks the very well-remembered words,

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

Note how Jesus does more than simply identify Himself. I stress that. Notice how Jesus does more than simply identify Himself. Yes, He is the resurrection and the life, but He is more than that. He is the One Who guarantees certain things to the believer in Him. As the resurrection, He guarantees that even if the believer dies, he will live again. That is, he will be resurrected. As the life, He guarantees the believer will never die. That is, that he will have eternal life.

Jesus’ statement to Martha, therefore, is an identification of Himself in reference to everyone who believes in Him. Please note that Jesus’ statement to Martha is an identification of Himself in reference to everyone who believes in Him. Then comes the crucial question. Jesus says to Martha, “Do you believe this?” Notice the simplicity that is involved here. Jesus says, “I have just stated certain facts about Myself, and the one who believes in them. Do you hold these facts to be true? Is this what you believe about Me? Do you believe this?”

And what is Martha’s reply? Well, not surprisingly, it is a full-fledged articulation of the theme verse in John 20:31. Martha replies,

Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, Who is to come into the world.

“Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, Who is to come into the world.” Notice closely, Jesus says, “Do you believe this?” and Martha says, “I believe that You are the Christ.” To believe what Jesus just stated about Himself is to believe that He is the Christ.

What does it mean to believe that Jesus is the Christ? It means to believe that He guarantees resurrection and eternal life to everyone who believes Him to be the Christ. The Christ is the Guarantor of these things to every believer. To deny that He does this for every believer, or to doubt that He does it, is not to believe what Martha believed. To deny or doubt this is not to believe what John wants his readership to believe.

Obviously, Martha could not have said something like this: “Yes, Lord, I believe this, but I’m not sure You will resurrect me.” To have said that would have been to challenge the veracity of Jesus’ statement, or to doubt His ability to keep His word. In other words, it would have been a form of unbelief. Martha could not make herself an exception to Jesus’ words without calling the whole statement into question.

Of course, some people will still try to say, “I believe it is true, but how do I know I really believe it, and therefore it is true of me?” But no matter who makes this statement, it is actually nonsense, which is like saying, “I believe that Elvis is alive, but how do I know I really believe it?” We would send such a person who said that to see a psychiatrist, but in theology we actually take such a statement as if it were a meaningful observation. It is not. It is actually the product of years of theological brainwashing.

We have been told so many times that people have a spurious belief, or can have a spurious belief, and that we should check out our own faith to make sure it is true saving faith, that we almost believe such nonsense. The Bible knows nothing about this sort of thing. To the man born blind, but now possessing sight, Jesus said, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” The man replied, “And who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus answers, very beautifully, “You have both seen Him, and it is He Who is talking with you.”

What, then, does the man reply? “I think I believe”? “I hope I believe”? “It remains to be seen if I persevere”? No. Instead, he says, “Lord, I believe.” As surely as Martha says, “Yes, I believe,” so does this man. It is one of the great absurdities of theology that I can’t really know whether I believe God’s saving truth or not. Of course, I can know whether I believe the same thing that both have believed. But if I do, I also know that I have eternal life. Therefore, assurance is of the essence of saving faith.

I need to add one proviso. I do not mean by any of this that a believer can never doubt his or her salvation, nor do I mean that one’s faith cannot be overthrown. When John the Baptist asked, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” he was doubting his earlier conviction that Jesus was indeed the Christ. And Paul spoke of people whose faith had been overthrown, 2 Timothy 2:18. But what I do mean is this. At the moment of saving faith, that believer is sure that he is eternally saved.

I do not hold to the doctrine of the indefectibility of faith, meaning that the faith of the believer cannot be destroyed. I do not hold to the doctrine of the indefectibility of faith, as Reformed theologians, or even as Calvin, apparently, did. But I do hold to the indefectibility of God’s saving work in the believer. Several years ago, GST was in Dr. Charles Ryrie’s apartment with a friend of mine. My friend asked Dr. Ryrie a question. He asked, “Dr. Ryrie, can a believer stop believing?” As usual, Dr. Ryrie was crisp and to the point. His answer was, “Of course.”

Number two, assurance and the current debate. One of the most effective responses that the free grace movement has made to lordship salvation is to hone in on their doctrine of assurance. There is no doubt that we have scored a direct hit, and that the other side felt the blow. Since the publication of Absolutely Free, the other side has been fairly prolific in addressing the assurance issue. And while the doctrine of assurance has been a notorious problem issue in Reformed theology for centuries, much ink has been spilled in that time debating this problem. Now the Reformed people are back at it again, galvanized, as their own writings show, by concern over the charges made by the free grace exponents.

I do not claim to have read all the material written on this subject since 1989, the year Absolutely Free was published, but I’ve certainly read some of it. I would like to survey several writers quickly on this theme, and then turn more careful attention to R. C. Sproul and to his recent book Faith Alone, published in 1995.

Of course, I must mention Dr. MacArthur. His first edition of The Gospel According to Jesus had only one reference in the index to assurance. It was found on page 23, where he said this: “Genuine assurance comes from seeing the Holy Spirit’s transforming work in one’s life, not from clinging to the memory of some experience.” This false dichotomy was all he had to say on this weighty issue in the first edition. In the revised and expanded edition of 1994, the statement remains unchanged, but assurance is also listed in the index as appearing on pages 21 to 22 of the introduction, and on pages 135 to 142, 215, and 273 to 275.

In addition, Dr. MacArthur wrote a whole book on assurance, Saved Without a Doubt, 1992. I refrain from the obvious comment on that. And he refers to assurance numerous times in Faith Works: The Gospel According to the Apostles, 1993. All I wish to say here is that his position has been brought up to speed in terms of standard Reformed teaching on assurance, which stresses, as Jody was pointing out, both the objective and subjective grounds for assurance.

I also want to mention two other books, both of which I have reviewed in the GES Journal. First, there is the 1991 volume by John H. Gerstner entitled Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism. The second is the 1992 volume edited by Michael Horton, who is the president of CURE, entitled Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation. Both of these writers are rather intense polemicists and do not go out of their way to fairly represent their opponents. Both men reflect the basic Reformed position on assurance, and if you want more information about their statements, the GES reviews, hopefully, will give you that.

Let me, however, move to some material that I’ve not yet evaluated in print. In 1992, Robert A. Peterson wrote an article for Presbyterion entitled “Christian Assurance: Its Possibility and Foundations.” Peterson was, at the time, and he may still be, associate professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary. Surprisingly, he rejects Roman Catholic opposition to absolute assurance. In typical Reformed fashion, he grounds assurance on the promises of the Word, the inward witness of the Spirit, and the believer’s perseverance in the faith.

This carries him right back to the Westminster Confession’s doctrine of assurance, which speaks of the infallible assurance of faith, based on the three foundations just mentioned. Peterson does not seem to realize that the Westminster Confession actually makes infallible assurance impossible. Peterson, however, is kinder to our camp than most writers are. For example, he says, “Some well-meaning evangelical Christians” — notice that, “well-meaning evangelical Christians” — “would reduce the three foundations of assurance to one.” “Zane Hodges and the grace evangelicals want to make assurance completely certain.”

Later on the same page, he says, “In an effort to promote the doctrine of absolute assurance based on faith in Christ alone, Hodges and his colleagues have resorted to forced exegesis of biblical passages.” I appreciate the irenic spirit of that, believe it or not, though that’s a soft blow compared to some that have been hurled in our direction, and I thank Dr. Peterson for his irenic attitude. Maybe some of you, my friends in GES, do not appreciate being reduced to the nameless category of colleagues of Zane Hodges. If so, I suggest you write and introduce yourself to Dr. Peterson. There are no clones in GES, as far as I know. The only successful cloning, so far, has been of an English sheep.

Rather less irenic is D. A. Carson, who in 1992, in an article written for Westminster Journal of Theology entitled “Reflections on Christian Assurance,” I have reviewed this article in the GES Journal, so I will not repeat myself here. I will point out again, however, that Carson is tied to the standard Reformed objective-subjective grounds for assurance, and has not escaped the inherent difficulties of that position. For example, he states, “I have not argued that perseverance is the basis for assurance. Rather, I have argued that failure to persevere serves to undermine assurance. The basis of assurance is Christ and His work and its entailments in the flow of redemptive history.”

This is pretty standard Reformed stuff. The objective realities of Christ’s work on the cross, and His promise of salvation to the believer, are considered certainties which all good Reformed people believe without question. But the problem is that Reformed people are not sure that the promises apply to them personally, and, yes, they can confirm that they are among the elect, of whom the promises are effectual. Thus, perseverance, as an essential sign of election, becomes the basis for subjective, or individual, assurance. But since I cannot know until the end of life if I have persevered, if indeed I can know then, of course assurance is held hostage to my perseverance in faith and good works.

Jody made this very clear to us this morning. Carson ought to have said the possibility of failure to persevere undermines assurance. In fact, it effectively undermines all possibility of personal assurance. I note in passing that the theonomist Kenneth L. Gentry doesn’t like the grace position either. In a periodical called Dispensationalism in Transition, September 1993, he writes an article entitled “Assurance and Lordship Salvation.” There he states, “If we say that assurance is essential to true faith, then we are ultimately saying that no man is saved in Christ until he has come to believe that Christ has saved him forever.” Though Gentry calls himself a Calvinist, he conveniently overlooks that this is virtually what Calvin himself also said. I shall quote Calvin just a little later on.

More interesting is the position of Joel R. Beeke, who, as of 1994, was the pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Beeke has written a doctoral dissertation entitled Personal Assurance of Faith, and a book called Assurance of Faith: Calvin, English Puritanism, and the Dutch Second Reformation. I have seen neither the dissertation nor the book, but I have read, with interest, his article in The Master’s Seminary Journal for spring 1994, bearing the title “Does Assurance Belong to the Essence of Faith? Calvin and the Calvinists.”

Beeke admits that, “Whereas the early Reformers held that assurance is part and parcel with faith, in other words, that it is of the essence of saving faith, post-Reformation divines felt free to distinguish assurance from faith, as witnessed by chapter 18 of the Westminster Confession.” He also makes this further, and I think significant, admission: “The bulk of current scholarship, however, no longer views the post-Reformation struggle to develop a detailed doctrine of assurance as a faithful outworking of early Reformation principles.” So he is saying that most scholarship in this area no longer thinks that there was a faithful development from the position on assurance of the early Reformers to the current position of Reformed theology. In other words, that the development has not been a faithful reproduction, or development, of the position of the early Reformers.

Among the writers mentioned in this connection are R. T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, published 1979; and Charles Bell, Calvin and Scottish Theology: The Doctrine of Assurance, published 1985; and Holmes Rolston III, who, as far back as 1972, wrote a book entitled John Calvin Versus the Westminster Confession, published by John Knox Press. I own and have read all three books, although there is much other literature that I have not read.

Beeke’s admission is significant, it seems to me, in that, unlike most writers that I’ve been talking about, he frankly admits that the prevalent view in contemporary scholarship is that post-Reformation theologians departed significantly from John Calvin’s own view of assurance. Needless to say, it would be awkward for protagonists in the lordship debate to admit that they were defending a view of assurance significantly at variance with Calvin himself. Most are very guarded, to say the least, on this issue.

I personally think there can be no doubt that John Calvin held to the view that I am maintaining today, that assurance is of the essence of saving faith. For example, in Institutes 3.2.16, Calvin writes as follows — and I’m going to be quoting from the 1960 Westminster Press edition edited by John T. McNeill, translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Calvin writes: “We shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

Shortly after these words, he has this statement, which is justly famous: “Briefly, He alone is a true believer who, convinced by a firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him, promises himself all things on the basis of His generosity; who, relying upon the promises of divine benevolence toward him, lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation.” I don’t see how this could be much clearer.

I admit, however, that Calvin’s belief in the indefectibility of faith led him into some very dubious discussions. Jody has pointed this out in Reign of the Servant Kings, as he did also in his talk this morning. Still, insofar as my own reading in Calvin goes, I think Calvin always attempted to be consistent with the statements that I’ve just quoted from him. That he did not always succeed should not greatly surprise any of us who have done a lot of writing, especially on theological topics.

To return briefly to Beeke, we find in him an effort to ameliorate, or bridge, the gulf modern scholarship often sees between Calvin and later Calvinists on the issue of assurance. His efforts are not very persuasive. Beeke has recourse to Alexander Comrie, 1706 to 1774, one of the leading lights in the so-called Dutch Second Reformation, and to a somewhat abstruse distinction between faith as a habitus, a habit or disposition, and faith as an actus, a specific act of faith. This is not the place to analyze Beeke’s position, except to say that we probably don’t need to worry that it will catch on.

This brings us, finally, to R. C. Sproul and his 1994-5 Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification. As far as my own reading goes, Sproul appears to be the most competent American theologian of the Reformed persuasion. Faith Alone is a model of theological clarity. One can almost always comprehend exactly what Sproul believes, and why he believes it. This is saying a lot for a theological writer.

Of course, Faith Alone was not written to address the lordship salvation controversy. Instead, it was written to critique the concord reached between certain evangelicals and Roman Catholics, which is expressed in the 1994 document entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. I will refer to this document from here on as ECT. Among the leading figures associated with the framing of the document is the Lutheran-turned-Catholic John Richard Neuhaus and the noted evangelical Charles Colson, a post-Watergate convert to Christianity. Other evangelical signers of the document include J. I. Packer, Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, and Pat Robertson.

Sproul is properly dismayed that the document compromises the biblical gospel. He is disturbed by the statement in ECT that reads like this: “All who accept Christ as Lord and Savior are brothers and sisters in Christ.” Rightly, Sproul wonders, “Does faith in Christ as Savior and Lord include trust in the biblical gospel? Does saving faith require a trust in the righteousness of Christ alone as the grounds of our justification, or may a person have a different view of the gospel and still be a Christian?” Good question. Good question.

Sproul proceeds to argue that faith alone, sola fide, is the essence of the gospel, which means that without it any gospel is not the biblical gospel. He states, “If a doctrine is essential, it is of the essence and cannot be rejected without departing from essential Christianity.” He further states, “If sola fide is essential to the gospel and to Christianity, and if one has not adopted sola fide as his doctrinal position, then ECT seriously betrays the gospel.” To this he later adds, “The unity that was once tacitly assumed to exist among professing evangelicals does not in fact exist. One repercussion of ECT is that it has revealed a serious disunity among evangelicals on the question of justification and the nature of Rome.”

I have no quarrel with any of this. It is as logical as it is uncompromising. But the same sword could be turned on Sproul’s own view of saving faith. Sproul has a great deal to say about saving faith. It is striking that he completely ignores the controversy over the difference between Calvin’s concept of faith and that which is common to most Reformed theologians today. Had Sproul admitted that here, too, there is no evangelical unity, his case against ECT would have been eviscerated. If evangelicals cannot even agree on what is meant by true saving faith, how can they reasonably object to the absence of sola fide from ECT? That would be like defending the personal dignity of the Unknown Soldier.

If, in fact, Calvin held, as I believe he did, that assurance is of the essence of saving faith, then Sproul must pronounce Calvin wrong and post-Reformation Calvinists right, and he must give up the pretense that evangelicals have a historical unity on the nature of saving faith. As it turns out, Sproul bases his view of the nature of saving faith almost entirely on the word fiducia in the famous threefold analysis of faith, in which fiducia is the third element. Remember that notitia, understanding, and assensus, agreement or assent, and fiducia. We’ll say more about that in a minute.

To this word, Sproul loads all the implications that Reformed theologians like to see in saving faith, and which imply a change of attitude toward God and His commandments. It is precisely these implications that make it impossible for Reformed people to verify the act of their faith apart from perseverance and its works. Sproul has no Scripture for any of this. His argument is basically an exposition of the implications of fiducia in the famous definition. In passing, note that “Gordon Clark makes a fascinating case that even this added element is at root intellectual.” That is the understatement of the year. That is putting it mildly.

What Clark really said was that fiducia in the famous definition is really a tautology, since it means trust, and is essentially a synonym for faith. So, says Clark, the popular definition of faith amounts to saying that “faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith.” Of course, this does not need much of a platform for Sproul to build on.

In conclusion, I would say this about the current state of the controversy. We should hold our Reformed critics’ feet to the fire. We should show them that they have departed significantly from the biblical doctrine of assurance and faith, and that their own view of faith cannot even be traced back to the earliest Reformers. We have a great case, and we should press it. And, using Sproul’s own logic with regard to sola fide, we should point out that without assurance, which is of the essence of saving faith, their definition of saving faith is not biblical saving faith at all.

Number three, practical consequences for the pastor. The fact that assurance is of the essence of saving faith can significantly affect how we deal with people about the gospel. We dare not lead people through some process, in which the process allows for a conversion experience in which assurance is not incorporated. R. T. Kendall has made the important point that saving faith is not a decision, but a persuasion. Saving faith is not a decision, but a persuasion.

His text is found in Romans 4:21 and 22, which says of Abraham that

he was fully persuaded that what He, namely God, had promised, He was able also to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

Obviously, Paul was talking about Abraham’s saving faith. Obviously, I cannot decide to believe what I am not persuaded is true. I cannot decide to believe what I am not persuaded is true. And when I am persuaded that something is true, I’ve already believed it.

So Kendall has made the additional point that he believes that most false professions are made when the decision precedes the persuasion. That is extremely important. I want to repeat it again. Kendall states that most false professions are made when the decision precedes the persuasion. That is to say, for example, when somebody is led to say a prayer without the inner conviction that Christ saves him at the moment he believes. Perhaps he only hopes this will save him, and if the minister tells him it does, then he may be able to ignore his doubts for a while. They will probably eventually surface.

I should know, because I am an example of this process. As a young boy, under conviction of my need to be saved, I went forward in response to an invitation given at a Baptist Vacation Bible School. The minister led us in a prayer. I don’t recall whether I prayed in my heart or not, but the minister led us in a prayer. Then he assured us that we were saved. He even visited my house to inform my mother that her son had got saved. But her son was not sure of that at all, and for years I struggled with my doubts.

Finally, years later, as a young man about to enter high school, I trusted Christ in a Plymouth Brethren meeting where the gospel was preached. No public invitation was given that night, and I was absolutely sure, as it happened, in between stanzas of “Just As I Am.” Later, when I told my family about my experience, my brother David, who had been sitting next to me, remarked that he had noticed that I seemed to be singing louder there at the end of the hymn than at the beginning. I was not conscious of that, but if I were Reformed, I’d say it was the first evidence of my salvation. But, of course, I didn’t need it. I was sure.

So I want to urge all you pastors to try to avoid leading people through some process or decision which can precede the genuine persuasion of faith. I myself am very careful about this now. In earlier years, I was not nearly so careful, and this is one of the practical benefits that has accrued to my own experience in dealing with people. I’m very careful on this point.

So I want to close with an illustration. A couple of years ago, an appointment was arranged for me to talk with a young man who had been attending our meetings at Victor Street Bible Chapel, and he was going with one of our Christian young ladies. At this appointment, I went through the gospel carefully, using chiefly the Gospel of John. When I was finished, I asked if he had any questions, and he said he did not.

Then I said something like this. I said, “I don’t want you to say anything to me right now, but perhaps you have already believed this, or perhaps you will in the near future. If you have, or when you do, please tell us,” that was the girlfriend first, “please tell us, and then tell me, because I would like to know too.” I did this that way for a reason. I was well aware that the very polite Hispanic culture would incline a young man like this to tell me that he believed what I said, whether he did or not. I did not want a false profession, no matter how provided I was.

So I repeated my instructions about not saying anything to me right then and there. But when I finished doing this, my young friend proceeded to ignore my directions. This is what he said. He said, “Zane, I do believe I have the gift, and I will be with you in heaven.” So much for trying to script a confession of faith. Obviously, my friend had something which no prayer or public invitation can bestow. He had the assurance of eternal life. The belief he had claimed was also accompanied by assurance of a future in heaven, as is true of everybody else who is saved. Assurance was of the essence of the faith that saved him. Thank you.

Now we have a few minutes in which we can take questions. I don’t want you to write them down. I’d rather take them orally, so that I can identify you, and if I need a follow-up explanation, I’ll do it. Robert.

What do you think? Is it confusing to lead someone in a sinner’s prayer, and how would you, using that as a model, and how would you test whether someone has believed and come to some persuasion then? And how do we handle an invitation at the end of the service? I ask people to come forward and express—

Stand up again, Robert, and repeat that question for the tape. Okay. Well, let me see if I get all the parts of that. Would I find it questionable to lead a person in any kind of prayer? How would I determine whether they had assurance, and what do I do about invitations at the end of meetings? My doctrine of invitations, right?

Okay. Well, first of all, I think leading a person in any kind of prayer is potentially confusing. I hope we all understand that it’s not necessary to pray in order to get saved. All we need to do is believe. You can believe without praying. You can believe without articulating anything. So what I’m concerned with is, does the person understand it? And so, basically, I don’t try to lead them through any process at all. I try to ascertain after the fact if they have, after all, understood it.

One of my methods for doing so, obviously, was presented in the illustration I used. Not too long ago, we had a Vacation Bible School at Victor Street Bible Chapel, and I think Vacation Bible Schools have often been tagged by the invitational process. We ask the kids to, you know, raise their hand, or something else, or say a prayer. And I was determined to get away from that, and to labor at the process of making sure that they understood what the gospel was.

And I had charge of the lessons each day. I’m taking a leaf out of Dr. Ryrie’s group, who wrote a couple books on object lessons. It was Theodore Epp who said, “If you can’t tell object lessons, you probably can’t teach theology.” That’s my philosophy. And so I tried to make as clear as possible, through the object lessons, that the moment you believed the promise of eternal life, you had eternal life. And there were various ways of doing this on an object lesson basis.

And then on the last day, after the morning exercise, I said to the kids, I said, “Now, if any of you, during the week, at any time, have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you know that you have eternal life and are going to heaven, if you’ve done that at any time during this week, with your head bowed, would you just show us that you’ve done that by raising your hand?” We had hands all over the group go up. There was no need to read them a prayer. There was no need to ask them to come forward. And I believe that the likelihood is that most of them understood exactly what they were doing when they did that.

So I believe that stressing the clarity of the gospel, and in preaching to people, I usually will say something like this after stating what the gospel is. I will say to the audience, “Now, if you weren’t saved when you came today, if you will believe that at this moment, you will be saved forever, and you will be that salvation based on God’s promise to you.” Something like that. So I give them the opportunity to do that.

Years ago, I started to learn this lesson by dealing with a woman who is still a member of our congregation. This was many years ago. I went to her house and talked to her and her husband about salvation, but I didn’t ask for them to make any decision. In those days, I might have done that, but fortunately, on this particular occasion, I did not. So I left. Several days later, I got a letter from this lady, and she said in the letter, she said, “I got saved while you were out at my house,” and she didn’t know how to tell me, so she was telling me in the letter.

Let’s not think that we have to give the gospel a lot of assistance. If we will make it clear, people will believe it. And if we have made it clear, and they believe that, they will know that they are saved. That would be my answer there. Yes, Gary.

I’ve heard Kendall say, he hasn’t put it in print, but from the part that I’ve heard him say, that is assurance. I noticed that you were fairly careful to make a distinction there between those two things. Why is it important to make a distinction between those two things, especially as it relates to, forgive me for quoting the NIV, in Hebrews 11:1, that faith is being sure?

Well, I mean, that’s important because what we’re saying is that saving faith has objective content to it. Its content, essentially, is the content we stated in John 11:25 to 27. This is what we believe. But because of the nature of the content, an inescapable byproduct of that content, if I believe it, is that I know that I’m saved. And therefore, to my mind, it is unguarded to say that assurance and faith are synonymous. But granted that it’s unguarded, it may not — if you push Kendall into a corner, he would probably explicate it very much the way that I’m doing. It’s a really helpful, really helpful pastor, really helpful man, maybe so.

Of course, he believes that faith is a conviction about something, but saving faith, furthermore, has to have an object. You have to have truth to believe. That’s one of the weaknesses of Gordon Clark’s little book on faith, or saving faith. He makes it clear that faith is not qualitatively or quantitatively distinct from other kinds of faith, but he can’t tell us what you believe in order to be saved. That’s a fairly serious deficiency in the book. I think Absolutes is free, so it sort of works out.

Yeah, he does. If you believe everything that the Bible wants you to believe, you’ll hit it, sort of thing. There was something else, Gary, that stuck in my mind. Maybe it’ll jog my memory if you just run that question by me again.

Yeah, as it relates to Hebrews 11:1, for example, faith is being sure of what we hope for, and let us draw near in the full assurance of faith. There’s a sense in which they, I gather, your senses, they are the same in certain elements, but are different.

Okay. I think my marker on this is that we keep saying faith, notice the omission of the word of. I think that is very critical. It raises a serious question in my mind about MacArthur, because the normal way of referring to this in the literature — in fact, Sproul refers to it when he talks about sola fide being of the essence of the gospel — the normal way of talking about this is that it is of the essence. It’s not the essence of saving faith, but it’s of the essence. I think he has to know that we said of the essence. He wishes to caricature us by omitting our repetition of “of.” It’s not an accurate reflection of what we’ve said in the literature. Normal question, and then we’ll — yes, sir, right down here, Dave.

The way I have found is the most effective to do that is, in fact, to major on the area of eternal security and assurance, because, yes, the Catholic person will agree that you need to have faith, but they will import into that the consideration that you also need the works, and you need to be in a state of grace when you die, and all of this baggage goes right along with it. And I found that you rarely make it clear, the difference between what you’re saying and what the Roman Catholic Church is saying, until they have caught that what you’re saying is that at the moment you trust Christ, you are absolutely secure forever.

And not only are you absolutely secure forever, you know that you’re secure. They don’t believe that, and when they hear that, that produces altogether a different response. Let me just piggyback on this question to say one final thing. It often has happened in my experience of presenting the gospel to people, that at some point or other in the exchange they will say to me something like, “Oh, you mean that if I believe in Christ, I’ll be saved, and then I can go out and do anything I want to?” I’m always delighted to get that question, because that shows I’m getting through to them, that this is a permanent and irreversible transaction.

The way I normally answer this is as follows. I say, “Look, yes, when you believe in Christ, you are saved eternally. It’s like being born into God’s family. You then become a child in God’s family. But God is a Father, and God is a faithful and loving Father, Who doesn’t let His children run wild.” And many times I’m talking to parents themselves when I’m saying this. And I say, “You’re a father, and you know that your children are always going to be your children, and even if they go down to the courthouse and change their name, they’ll still be your children. Nothing can change that. But you’re a good father, and you’re going to pursue them, and train them, and discipline them, and try to get them to walk in the right way. You may not always succeed with all your kids, but that’s what you’re going to try to do.”

So if you become a Christian, you’re going to have the greatest Father there ever was as your heavenly Father, and if you get off the path, He’s going to reach out His hand. He’s going to discipline you. He’s going to train you. He’s going to help you to grow up in the right way. Do you know, I rarely ever get a follow-up question to that, because people understand exactly what that’s all about. Thank you very much. A pleasure to be with you.