Many Christians, alas, go badly astray over the question of assurance. Worse, they go sadly astray over it. And this, naturally, enmeshes many of them in a dragging sense of anxiety, sometimes stretched out over many years. One reason for this is that they make far too little use – new-covenant use – of their positional sanctification in Christ.2 And this is precisely the point at which Reformed teaching does so much harm. Reformed teaching on assurance is legal, and it is this which brings so much misery to many believers, leaving them to flounder, virtually without hope, in the slough of despond. When the Reformed talk of assurance, instead of taking the believer to his positional and ultimate perfection in Christ, they direct him, in effect, to the law. I ask you! How wrong can one be? As the New Testament makes abundantly plain, the believer's assurance comes as he listens to the witness of the Spirit who, in effect, takes him back to his positional sanctification, and forward to his absolute sanctification, both being in Christ. The believer's assurance does not come by looking at the law, and concentrating on the feebleness of his personal progressive sanctification under the law. The new covenant takes him to Christ. Grievously, the Reformed, with their legal teaching in such a sensitive and vital area, bring many believers into years of bondage and sadness. |
