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In the controversy that arose as a result of The Marrow of Modern Divinity in the eighteenth century, one of the questions that arose was whether assurance of salvation is of the essence of faith, or is it a byproduct of faith. “If you believe in Christ, does that mean you are certain to have full assurance of salvation?” Put another way, if someone doesn’t enjoy the full assurance of faith, can they still be a Christian? If you don’t have assurance, “can you really have become a Christian?”

Before and after the Marrow Controversy, pastors have had to help members of their churches who struggled with what it means to enjoy the full assurance of their salvation. It’s a complex and complicated question, but the real complication lies in ourselves, not in the gospel. We are complex and complicated beings. For example, if a Christian has been abused, they may find it is almost impossible to believe anybody loves them.

While it is a wonderful thing for them to discover that Christ loves them, often they’ve scarcely got the framework to comprehend that Christ really loves them. “Nobody has ever really loved me. I see it tells me that in the Bible, and I trust Him, but I don’t feel loved. I don’t feel the full assurance of faith. Does that mean I’m not really a Christian?”

Some would answer, if you’re not absolutely sure you’re saved, there’s no degrees of assurance allowed, no spectrum on which you might fall, you can’t possibly be a Christian because every Christian enjoys the full assurance of faith. The problem is this doesn’t take account of the complex psychological makeup we have as human beings, as individual Christians. “The gospel works equally in us all, but it’s dealing with different obstacles in each of us. And clarity comes at different speeds in our Christian life.”

When we finally “get” a truth of the Christian life, we can get impatient with others who don’t see what we see. “God is much more patient and individual with us than we often are with one another.”

In Church History

In the early church, the was an extraordinary outbreak of gospel power. God raised His Son from the dead. “What could have given the early disciples more assurance than that?” The Holy Spirit was poured out, giving the early Christians great assurance of faith. “They grasped that justification is by God’s free grace received by faith and enjoyed by the believer.” But they also understood there were obstacles to overcome. And some of those obstacles were put there by the church.

By the sixth century, the church’s view was, it might be possible to have assurance of salvation, but that might not be such a good thing. The thinking was that if people did have assurance of their salvation, then they might begin to live any way they want.

Then something began to develop in the way the church understood how salvation works. According to Sinclair Ferguson this was, “Salvation works by God infusing grace into you at baptism.” As we progress in life, God gives us more grace. And as we respond to that grace faithfully, He gives us even more grace. If we lapse back into our old sinful ways, there is a sacrament that will bring us back to the original grace we enjoyed. And as that grace continues to work in us, it changes us more and more.

“It’s like a medicine that has been put into you that increasingly heals you until eventually your faith is suffused with perfect love.” At that point, we become justifiable. God declares us justified on this basis, namely that He has worked in us by His grace to deliver us inwardly from sin. And we are righteously justified because we’re righteous and are therefore justifiable.

The problem with this view of salvation, seen throughout the medieval period, is seen in Martin Luther. He wondered how he could possibly know he had got to the stage where his faith was perfected in perfect love; that he was righteous and God could righteously justify him. The medieval teachers could say, “God justifies us by grace.” But they were not able to say, “God justifies us on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.”

If you are justified on the basis of a righteousness that’s imparted to you, then only when that righteousness is perfect can you be justified.

It wasn’t actually possible to enjoy the assurance of salvation in that system of theology unless you had lived a life that made you a candidate for sainthood; or you had a special revelation from God that you had been justified. Although his fellow monks thought Martin Luther was a candidate for sainthood, he had no assurance of salvation. In that context, the assurance of salvation belonged to a tiny minority. Then came the Reformation.

The story of the Reformation is that justification is given to us not on the basis of infused righteousness, but imputed righteousness. The righteousness of Jesus Christ, not something that Jesus Christ works in us, but what He has done for us. And that justification takes place at the very beginning of the Christian life. And it cannot be increased, and it cannot be destroyed. And from the very moment that we have become Christians, from that very moment we have become Christians, we are as righteous in the sight of God as Jesus Christ is.

Guaranteed Assurance

If you don’t say this, you don’t yet grasp what justification really is. The only righteousness with which you are righteous before God is Jesus Christ’s righteousness. You have no righteousness of your own. “You’re clothed in His righteousness.” And when that realization bursts through, as it did with Luther and then with John Calvin, “there was an outburst of joy, an outburst of salvation.”

It did not mean that people no longer had doubts; that they did not struggle. The assurance of faith existed in a life full of difficulties and it was often challenged. Nevertheless, believers could say: “We rest on Christ by faith. And that means our assurance is guaranteed.” It’s one thing for our assurance to be guaranteed in Christ, and it’s another thing for us to become conscious of it.

Faith in Christ clearly brings assurance, because “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.” (Hebrews 7:25) Faith knows that Christ saves. However, assurance also has something to do with us. “Assurance is not only the way we think about Christ, it’s about the way we think about ourselves in relationship to Christ.”

There is a kind of assurance in faith, “but it’s an assurance of Christ’s ability to save, or we wouldn’t actually be trusting Him. We trust him because precisely He is able to save us.” This is a reality that is progressively worked out in our lives. Some people experience the fruit of it almost instantaneously. Others are like it says in Isaiah, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Isaiah 9:2) And by this light we are transformed into the likeness of Christ, making us, living illustrations of the commandments of God.

This article has been based on “The Marrow of Assurance,” the 10th video in Sinclair Ferguson’s teaching series, The Whole Christ, from Ligonier Connect. Here is a link to Ligonier Connect. The video series is itself based upon his book of the same name. You can review summaries of the Marrow Controversy here and here. If the topic interests you, look for more of my ruminations under the link, The Whole Christ.