When we construct a theology by examining whether it has “devastated” certain people, what we are doing is constructing a theology according to our human experience, according to what we judge to satisfy us and to work for us. It is the equivalent of looking into our heart, and building a theology that matches what we perceive to be our desires and wishes. The result is a made-to-order theology, a humanism that makes ‘God’ in our own image, according to our self-knowledge. Christianity, by contrast, is a supernaturally revealed religion, not something we make according to our own self-determined desires and needs. A Christian believes rightly that God knows what we need better than do we, even in theology. This is part of the reason why theology is not properly done by anecdotal evidence regarding how some persons responded to it, or by surveys of the respective degrees of self-reported happiness or satisfaction among holders of various religious beliefs. Sacred theology is not psychology, not does it answer to psychology; psychology answers to it.

You want Christ’s death and resurrection to be the “only ground” of assurance. But, then you admit that it is possible to turn away, and not be saved. So, by logical necessity it follows that in order to have assurance that I am in a state of grace, I must know that I am not turning away from Christ. And that requires some looking within. If I do not know whether or not I am turned away from Christ, then, since I know that universalism is false, I have no basis for assurance merely by knowing that Christ died and rose again. Even the demons believe those things about Christ.

Regarding our longing for the truth, if Christ (who is the Truth) were not what most perfectly satisfies the human heart, then there would be no good reason for us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. In that case it might be reasonable for us to love God, but only instrumentally and thus secondarily, i.e. as a means to something else (i.e. pleasure, security, power, etc.) that we desire more deeply than we desire God. Even when we arrived in heaven, we would still be loving God only for something He gives us, and not because He Himself is our perfect happiness. If the fallen heart were truly satisfied by something other than truth, then there would be no reason to bring Christ to the lost. It is precisely because they are not satisfied by falsehood that we have good reason to bring the truth of Christ to them, because we know that the truth of Christ is what they truly, most deeply desire, and hence what most perfectly satisfies them. As Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

Eventually, I came to the same conclusion it seems that you have: that the gospel is that God offers forgiveness through Jesus as a free gift, and that this forgiveness is for all of our sins, past, present, and future. My assurance comes from what Jesus did on the cross, from his resurrection, and from who God is. I take comfort from Romans 4:5. The God who justifies the ungodly does not take away a free gift from someone who does wrong.

You nailed it. Rosenblatt nails it. A lot of other people get it. But most of the people in the church don’t, and the ones that do don’t know how to articulate it.

And there are a lot of people who are going to whip out references from 1 John and try and argue it. But I’m with you on this one: if they’re right, I’m not saved, and never will be. Not only that, no one is saved, and never will be, because no one lives up to God’s moral standard as revealed in scripture. Rather, I will choose to trust the one who nailed all indictments against me to the cross.

This post was chosen as newsworthy at Sensus Divinitatis News….

For instance, Bryan says recently (in part):

“The tricky part with this is trying to judge if you actually believe this. While it is true that regeneration will result in saying the above statement, there are surely a great many non-regenerate people who have said it, maybe even believing that they believe it. Words are just words, and we can say whatever we will at times for motivations for away from righteousness. If being ‘religious’ makes someone happy, they will be religious. They will talk about Jesus all the time, how he died for them, etc. But they aren’t saved and they don’t care about the deeper elements of the faith.”

Sorry, but no one will ever know that about themselves the way you portray it, Bryan. The only direction it goes is Christless in our idol-factory hearts… Christless, hopeless, doom and despair. And too many have figured out that what you’re selling doesn’t pan out, think that’s all that Christianity has to offer, and walk away from the whole thing. They simply aren’t educated enough (yet) to know that what you’re selling isn’t backed by Scripture. I’ve been around enough (stunningly good) theologians to know that that position doesn’t hold water.

So, what’s the point of driving out any vestiges of hope in Christ that the Christian has with that gnostic garbage? Get rid of it, man. Dump it and focus back on the cross, and away from yourself.

Secondly, if I were you, Bryan, I’d focus on getting away from ‘knowing’ what is in the hearts of others and whether they’re saved. You know nothing about what’s in other people’s hearts. Focus on the log in your own eye, would be my recommendation.

There is objective hope in Christ. We know what he did for us as attested by first-hand eyewitness accounts. The testimonies backing what Christ did for us are arguably some of the most reliable in historical record. My hope and confidence remains in the One who died and rose that I may have eternal life.

Later, RonP says (in part):

“Honestly, I think we Christians fail miserably when it comes to encouraging and building each other up when it comes to things like eternal hope and salvation in Christ. In fact, we always seem to be adding more hurdles and hoops to jump through before you get to go to heaven.”

Exactly! And miserable is exactly where everyone then ends up. How about we simply rejoice in the good news of Calvary and quit looking inwards towards despair?

Christ died for the sins of many, for the sins of the world, in order that you may inherit the kingdom. Only in Christ is there confidence. He is the Rock on which my faith stands, nothing inside me, all thanks be to God.

Solus Christus.

Alleine’s book The Almost Christian Discovered is a nuclear bomb to the assurance of any Christian. I can’t read it and believe I am actually a Christian. It demolishes assurance like only a Puritan could do.

Where’s my Lutherans? I thought you had my back?

by Joseph Alleine

We turn from our own RIGHTEOUSNESS. Before conversion, man seeks to cover himself with his own fig-leaves, and to make himself acceptable with God, by his own duties. He is apt to trust in himself, and set up his own righteousness, and to reckon his pennies for gold, and not to submit to the righteousness of God. But conversion changes his mind; now he counts his own righteousness as filthy rags. He casts it off, as a man would the verminous tatters of a nasty beggar. Now he is brought to poverty of spirit, complains of and condemns himself; and all his inventory is, ‘I am poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked!’ [Rev 3:17]. He sees a world of iniquity in his holy things, and calls his once-idolized righteousness but filth and loss; and would not for a thousand worlds be found in it!

Now he begins to set a high price upon Christ’s righteousness. He sees the need of Christ in every duty, to justify his person and sanctify his performances; he cannot live without Him; he cannot pray without Him. Christ must go with him, or else he cannot come into the presence of God; he leans upon Christ, and so bows himself in the house of his God. He sets himself down for a lost undone man without Him; his life is hid in Christ, as the root of a tree spreads in the earth for stability and nourishment. Before, the gospel of Christ was a stale and tasteless thing; but now—how sweet is Christ! Augustine could not relish his once-admired Cicero, because he could not find in his writings the name of Christ. How emphatically he cries, ‘O most sweet, most loving, most kind, most dear, most precious, most desired, most lovely, most fair!’ all in a breath, when he speaks of and to Christ. In a word, the voice of the convert is, with the martyr, ‘None but Christ!’

Excerpt from Alarm to the Unconverted by Joseph Alleine, 1671

What do Catholics say that grace is (more than just “divine favor”):
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines grace as “a participation in the life of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1997). This sharing or participation in God’s life is freely given to us first when we were baptized.

My first thought is: “Wow, how wonderful that we can participate in the life of God!”

Secondly, if the Protestant’s imputed righteousness is something to be happy about, how much more so if God truly makes us righteous and holy! That is not bad news but good news, and this not from ourselves, it is the gift of God. The Holy Spirit can truly make us holy. Why is that something to reject? It is still a gift we can either accept or reject.

If you recoil at the reference to freely receiving this life at *baptism*, you should read my reference in a comment below to Martin Luther vs. John Calvin’s view of baptism and salvation.

In short, the question of whether we have ASSURANCE is one thing, but whether we have some 100% assurance of salvation or not, both Protestants and Catholics agree that salvation is a freely given gift by God, and that we are saved by grace alone.