I was reading a post over at the evangelical blog Parchment and Pen by C. Michael Patton entitled “Why I Don’t Like “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” I understand where he’s coming from and what he’s writing against – the tendency, in certain evangelical circles, to base assurance of salvation on a prayer you prayed when you were a child or the fact that you went forward at an altar call twenty years ago, even though there seems to be no subsequent interest in repentance or faith.
However, the post – and even more so the subsequent comments – illustrates the sometimes unhealthy tendency in American evangelicalism to focus on “what’s happening inside my heart” rather than on “what happened outside of me” – as well as the rather unhealthy (in my opinion) Reformed and evangelical tendency to see repentance and faith as a one-time event, “crossing the starting line” if you will.
I tried to post a comment over at the blog but for some reason it was swallowed up into the void twice (even though I was well under 2000 characters!) so I’ll reproduce my comment here:
As a Lutheran who used to be an evangelical, I think looking inside oneself in any way for assurance of salvation will always place that assurance out of reach.
It’s interesting how “once-saved-always-saved,” “eternal security”, or “perseverance of the saints,” whatever one wants to call it, is used to try to bring comfort to people by saying they can never fall away. Yet the qualifier is “IF their faith is real.” For it to be any comfort, one has to know whether or not they have true saving faith.
I spent years and years on the rat-wheel of morbid introspection, trying to figure out whether my repentance was really sincere enough, whether I had surrendered my life to God enough, or whether I had enough good works to prove I was a true Christian and my faith was real.
It was only when I discovered that the Gospel was entirely outside of me – through Christ’s perfect life lived in my place, and in His death on the cross for every one of my sins, even ones I committed just today or that I commit repeatedly – that I found any sort of peace. I discovered that the Christian life is one of daily repentance and faith in Christ alone, not a “crossing the starting line into true saving faith that you can never lose.” Instead of worrying about whether I am “truly converted”, every day is a day of repentance and faith in Christ, nourished by the hearing of God’s word and the receiving of His Sacraments. He is the one that creates and sustains our faith to the end through His means of grace. The date that I “got saved” matters very little to me. All I know is that I am baptized into Christ, that He put His name on me and that I belong to Him.
I think it is wrong to tell people to focus on their faith rather than on the Object of their faith – Jesus Christ and Him crucified for their sins.
The many comments on the post from folks struggling with the assurance of their salvation, and the well-meaning attempts of others to point them to their works and experiences in order to get that assurance brought back a lot of unhappy memories for me. The comments along the lines of “I-thought-I-was-saved-for-twenty-years-but-found-out-I-wasn’t-and-then-God-REALLY-saved-me-by-giving-me-an-experience-of-REAL-repentance/surrender” brought back even more bad memories, of the sense I had towards the end of my days in evangelicalism that I was unwanted by God and there was nothing I could do about it. He apparently wanted others, because He gave THEM an experience of true repentance/surrender that led to minimal struggle with sin and complete assurance of salvation…but He must not have wanted me, because He gave me no such gift.
The objective promise of Baptism – that through it God forgives my sins and applies to me the benefits of His death and resurrection – led me to the conclusion that God DID want me. It is rooted in Scripture that God wanted me. The words of Christ and of His apostles all said: “This is for you.” Period. Not, “this is for you IF your faith is real.” Just “this is for you.” Such an objective promise leads to faith.
As an illustration: sometimes I really struggle with the sin of apathy. There are days when I find myself completely indifferent to the things of God. The Reformed-leaning evangelical answer to this problem might be: “Maybe your faith is not real. You should perhaps question whether or not you are really a Christian and really have true saving faith.”
The Lutheran answer to this problem is different: “Your apathy is a sin against God. But Christ died even for that sin. Repent and believe that His forgiveness is for you.” Instead of hearing that my sin disqualifies me from being a real Christian, I see God smiling down at me saying, “I forgive you even for that sin. Return to Me.”
Every week I rack up enough sins to earn me eternal punishment thousands of times over (and I’m probably understating that). Yet every week in the Divine Service I hear God’s word to me – “I forgive you even for those sins. Repent and return to Me. Look to the cross, where I suffered and died for you. I put My name on you in Baptism. I give you My true body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins. You are My beloved child.”
Because of the objective promises of God in Word and Sacrament I no longer have any doubt that God wanted me. And still wants me.
How could I not love such a God?
Hey Dawn, realized I didn’t respond to your last post to me.
Yes, you’re right. Fruit is not something that you can choose to do on your own. You can do nothing outside of Christ. It is produced by the Spirit in a genuine child of God. My intent was not to present fruit bearing as a work that is demanded of us, but as a reality that is evident in a believer. Though I believe taking the sacraments are a part of bearing fruit, I don’t believe that is generally what “fruit” is referring to.
We’ve been given the nature of Christ through regeneration, created in “righteousness and holiness of the truth.” It is our nature to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. This involves a complete change of lifestyle rather that something you do weekly or monthly at a gathering. When James stated that “faith without works is dead,” he was not encouraging a works-based salvation, but was explaining that true faith will always result in good works. Do we agree that these works are more than baptism and sacraments?
He continues, “I will show you my faith by my works.” Though faith cannot be seen, the results of it can. This is a great example of the external bearing on the internal and making itself visible not only to that individual, but also to others. This should be viewed with as much importance as the sacraments, yes?
Also, I’m curious to know how often you must take the sacraments in order to know you are continuing in the faith. I may have misunderstood your take on this. Feel free to set me straight. Ha!
Always good talking to you, sis!
I agree Steve, looking to yourself for answers is not the solution. Self-centeredness will always result in either fear and self-condemnation or self-righteousness. Both are deadly. I think we agree on that.
You stated that your faith is in what Christ has done, is doing, and will do FOR you. I may be reading into what you’re saying, so correct me if Im wrong, but isn’t there a crucial point in the scriptures of what is done IN you? Isn’t that the point of faith, repentance, and the sacraments?
Figured I’d ask instead of assuming
Jeffi,
Good question, my friend.
I think FOR YOU, will affect the ‘IN YOU’…but that no one will be able to judge that change since no one (but God) knows the heart, or the real motivation behind the “fruit”…or “works”.
That’s why when many came to Jesus and said, “Lord, Lord”…and did this and that in His name…He said, “depart from me, I never knew you.”
The person who attends church twice on Sunday, goes to every Bible study, and works at the homeless shelter on Saturdays, may not even be a Christian. And the heroin addict dying in the alley may fully belong to Christ.
This is radical…but I do believe it is biblical. It is also why Jesus admonished us to “not judge, lest we be judged”.
Anyway…my 2 cents.
Steve-
Your response to Jeffi confuses me a bit.
Can you know your own heart? Must the condition of the heart be right for the sacrament to be effective? How can one know if the condition of the heart was right? Doesn’t this put you right back into the same problem which the Lutheran view of sacrament supposedly answers with regard to assurance.
How can you know God has worked in the sacrament? His promise in His word… fine, so the grounds of assurance lies in the promise of God contained in His word which is exactly what evangelical Calvinism affirms. There is nothing ethereal, or at least nothing more ethereal than the Lutheran view.
And of course we all agree with the heroin addict / church goer illustration you brought forth… no one here will dispute that.
-Jay
Jay,
The Lutheran view of the real presence of Christ in the Sacraments is different than the Calvinist view.
That is why there is an emphasis in Calvinism on proving to oneself (others also) that they are in the ‘elect’.
My friend, Larry, who was a Baptist, Calvinist, Evangelical, has a great website where he thouroughly examines the differences.
http://aliengoodnews.wordpress.com/
If you get a chance, take a peek and look at those differences. They may be subtle, but they are very important. Thanks!
bad spelling…arrrghhh!
will check it out, and i appreciate the link.
what do you do with 2 Corinthians 13:5?
I don’t want to be a trite complimenter… but you have been helpful so far in this discussion.
Dawn: did you ever expect to have a comment thread this long on this post? It would take a day to read them all.
Jay,
I, too, am being helped along in this discussion, as well. my thanks to you and Jeffi for that!
Those passages in 2nd Corinthians can be misconstrued to lead a person to doubt his faith on the basis of his or her performance.
Sure we ought look at ourselves. Are we trusting in what God has done for us, apart from what WE DO? Or…are we somehow connecting our faith to our obedience?
We are a mixed bag. One day strong in faith…the next day very weak in faith. We are caught in sin (Romans 7 tells us that pretty clearly).
So…I do believe that the Lord has commanded us to eat His body and drink His blood…that we might receive the assurance that we really need in this spiritual battle, without having gin up and rise to a level that we are not really capable of rising to.
Now…should we forget about our works then? No. But we ought never connect them to how God feels about us, but we ought view them in light of what God created us for…and the beneficiaries of those good works..namely our neighbors. And we fall short (again) there…as well.
Hi Jeffi,
I think you have misunderstood what I was saying about the Sacraments. I am not saying that “taking the Sacraments” = “bearing fruit,” but that we bear fruit (i.e. live a life of repentance and faith) not by focusing on our works but through hearing the Word and receiving the Sacraments. The Sacraments are the work of God through the Word, not man’s works. They are a gift to us to increase faith in us, not “something we must do.”
Does that make more sense?
When you say, “my intent was not to present fruit bearing as a work that is demanded of us,” it does unfortunately come across that way when you make assurance dependent upon works. How much fruit do I need to see in my life before I know that I am saved? What happens when I see even the good works I do as tainted with sin?
Dawn
Thanks for all your input to the conversation, Steve! I feel like you’ve been holding the fort for me while I was away…
Hi Jay,
You wrote, “Can you know your own heart? Must the condition of the heart be right for the sacrament to be effective? How can one know if the condition of the heart was right? Doesn’t this put you right back into the same problem which the Lutheran view of sacrament supposedly answers with regard to assurance.”
The difference between the Lutheran view and the Calvinist view of the Sacraments is that their validity does not depend on our faith. God’s Word is true regardless of whether or not we believe it. Without faith there is no benefit to receiving the Sacraments but our faith does not make them what they are any more than our faith makes the Word of God true.
This is different than in Calvinism where in the Lord’s Supper I ascend to heaven to partake of the body and blood of Christ through faith, or in Zwinglianism where the Lord’s Supper is all about my remembrance of Christ. In both Reformed and Baptist understandings the validity of Baptism is also dependent upon faith – in both understandings a baptism isn’t a real baptism unless you believe. For Lutherans, baptism is always a real baptism. Whether it benefits you or not depends on faith – it’s not ex opere operato. But the baptism itself is something for faith to cling to, to say, “In this time and place God put His name on me.” In the same way, for Lutherans the Lord’s Supper is the true body and blood of Christ regardless of whether or not one believes it is – this is why we are warned in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 against eating and drinking in an unworthy manner. But the fact that the body and blood of Christ is “for me” is true regardless of anything inside of me. I don’t have to worry “do I believe enough? Am I repentant enough?” because my faith, though it may be tremendously weak, is in the words of Him who said “for YOU.” And the “for YOU” creates faith.
(This is why the whole issue of limited/specific atonement is so tremendously important. In such a system there by definition cannot be a blanket “for you” … it’s always a “for you if…” But that’s a topic for a forthcoming post!)
Dawn
Hey Dawn, throughout this discussion I’ve seen a common understanding that the object of our faith is Christ and what He’s done for us. I think we all agree on that. In no way am I saying that our faith should shift from Him to us in any way.
I believe the entire point of difference can be narrowed down to cause and effect. This is usually the case, and I believe it was the same issue that came between Luther and Calvin, especially in view of LA. I strongly believe our understanding of all matters of salvation (faith, justification, assurance, sovereignty, endurance, & the like) hinges on this single principle.
Either God causes an effect in us that can be seen, or we cause and effect in God that can’t be seen.
If we look to all that God does as the “cause” and all that we do as the “effect”, God is sovereign and “Salvation is of the Lord.” We can see the effects in our lives and be assured w/o taking credit or facing the fear of not doing enough. These effects include faith, works/ fruit, baptism, regeneration, receiving sacraments, etc., all of which I’ve mentioned in light of this view.
If we look to all or even some of what we do as being the “cause” and all or some of what God does as being the “effect”, then we are at least partially responsible for our salvation and can never be fully assured, resulting in fear that we aren’t doing enough. If we do feel assured, it is by taking credit and becoming self-righteous.
Much of your focus has been placing faith in what Christ has done instead of what we do, and I can agree with that. However, it seems that you switch these roles when it comes to the sacraments and staying in the faith, and that’s where I lose you.
To make my POV as clear as possible, I believe wholly in God being the “cause” of all things and the “effects” being faith, fruit, and endurance. He alone gets the glory and these effects are the biblical proofs/evidences of God working in us. As long as they are lasting and not short lived we can be assured that He will continue this work until the end.
Anyway, because these effects are obviously not something we initiate, your questions don’t really apply. I can only answer them by restating my point
Again, I may be misunderstanding your view on this, so I’d appreciate your thoughts.