“Therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men…by one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” –Romans 5:18 {ESV}
Depending on which theological camp you belong to, this may or may not be encouraging news to you. Where I come from as regards my doctrinal rearing, it has always been a breeze for me to accept that all physical descendants of Adam are born sinful and depraved, wholly condemned by Righteous God. Accepting the doctrine of depravity has never been a struggle – intellectually, emotionally or spiritually – for me to embrace. To put it as directly as I can: All humans are completely corrupted with sin and deserving only of death and eternal condemnation from Holy God.
Glad you tuned in this morning?
Let me reveal the other part of what I want to address today: the same Bible which unilaterally condemns the sinner also authorizes us to declare that every single person who has exercised faith in Jesus Christ is fully pardoned and declared completely acceptable before Gracious God for all of eternity. In Adam we are all completely doomed. In Jesus Christ we are all completely justified. All of eternity is (humanly speaking) reduced which of these two you find yourself in. Are you in Jesus Christ by faith? Your standing before God could not be more secure! Accepted. Forgiven. Welcomed. Safe. Have you not yet placed your faith in Jesus Christ? Then you are still of your father, Adam, and have inherited the payment of his sin and rebellion. Both of these standings are permanently attached to these two. One leads you in life, the other in death.
Interestingly, my point today is not to engage in evangelism but, instead, to look at our assurance of salvation. What I want to underscore here is that I have supreme ease in accepting that, in Adam, I was completely dead and damned. My mind, heart and soul are in perfect unison concerning this and there is not the slightest hint of hesitancy. There is no inner struggle or debate as all my inward components harmonize the declaration of the sinner’s damnation. Yet, if I am honest, I can admit some hard-to-define “hitches in my spiritual giddy-up” when it comes to pondering how I can receive a full and lavish standing before God simply because I have bowed in faith to Jesus Christ. My issue is not theological here. This reluctance in me to declare with equally dogmatic zeal that I am justified before God today no matter what I think, feel or do is something I cannot deny. My theologically grounded mind says that this is a settled matter but my guilty conscience hisses, “Not so quick, mister.”
If a non-believer asks me if anything he can do will make him saved I will bluntly respond to him, ‘NO.’ Yet if the tables are turned and someone asks me if there is anything I might do to lessen my confidence as a Christian that I am safe and secure before God, I find that I hesitate for a moment. Before you protest that this is an elementary theological issue I must assert again that I’m fine concerning the doctrine of eternal security. My point here is to examine the subjective assurance that we all want before our God. We not only desire theology that anchors our spirits, we also want the accompanying sense of peace that puts wind in our sails Why do we find that this subjective peace is prone to its own ebb and flow?
Hypothetical situation: You are a believer in Jesus Christ who has shown clear evidence at various times in life that you belong to Him. You have experienced joy, peace, power, wisdom, sacrifice, service and zeal for His righteousness and His kingdom. Then, a lull appears on the radar of your life. Your zeal dissipates. Your sacrifice is encroached upon by selfishness. Sins of thought, word and action are confessed more than they used to be – not because you are growing more in spiritual sensitivity but because your sinfulness itself is growing. Your bible still seems good and true but…no longer alive. You have accepted sinful strongholds as being your new norm in life. Prayer becomes, at best, discipline but no longer delight. Discouragement and apathy and joylessness come to stay for the summer. If that became your reality, would you wrestle with the ability to confidently declare as once before that you undeniably walk in assurance of your soul? Do we not wonder more about this when we are in weakness or waywardness? Doctrinally we can still affirm that all in Christ are accepted by God. Yet the new question arrives on the wings of our personal sins and shortcomings; this question now asks, “But are you actually in Him?” The only reason this question is able to arise is because we are looking at what we do in sins of omission and commission rather than what Christ has done in perfect obedience. The integrity of Christ’s atoning work has been placed behind the filter of our abilities. Our righteousness becomes the template and His righteousness becomes the subject currently being evaluated…or ignored.
Most of us don’t do this with our standing in Adam. We only do it in our standing in Christ. We are reluctant to embrace the pride destroying doctrine of salvation by grace PLUS NOTHING. We long to have a part in it beyond our belief in Him. We presumptuously place our hands upon the ark of His salvation as Uzzah did on the day of his destruction. We seek to steady the Gospel ox cart and, in doing so, reduce our confidence to ashes. We acknowledge that God needs no assistance to condemn us in Adam…but to justify us in Christ? That seems to be a different story.
I’m out of space today and probably generated more questions than I gave answers. If you were waiting for me to explain how you overcome doubts about eternity then I can only state that we either take God at His word or we tremble through life, never finding the subjective peace that comes from objective faith. I hope this post gets you thinking and I welcome your feedback by commenting below.
Glen, thankfully, our subjective feelings are not sovereign. Could you imagine only being as secured as you felt on any given day? Or only being as secure as your personal faithfulness merited? It has to be all grace to be any good.
It’s the seasons of life that magnify my ebb and flow. At the beginning of good times – devine scripting of the gift of a child – I bathe in God’s glory but soon become wrapped (trapped?) in life and lose focus. And in seasons like now, I know that God has great things deigned for me although the struggle is often painful in the ‘now’. I’ve been through these seasons enough to know that God is God and wants the best for me. My place in eternity is secure through it all!!!
Nobody likes me Everybody hates me ‘Spose I’ll go and eat worms Big fat wriggly ones, Little tiny squiggly ones, See how they wiggle and squirm! Bite off the heads! Suck out the juice! Throw the skins away, Nobody knows how much I thrive on Worms three times a day! A song from my youth. I am not sure why you feel that your post is wormy. I found it thoughtful and helpful – and deeply insightful. I too would not hesitate to condemn myself but have paused at the point of the grace of God.
Jonathan, the “wormy” aspect is that I hazarded the potential that people might conclude that I’m vacillating on the doctrine of security. Or, perhaps, that they might think I’m struggling with whether I’m saved. As a pastor you well know that some expect you never to personally tremble.