Hi Scot
Thank you for this post and thank you for this blog that is conducted in such a generous, loving spirit. I relation to God’s Sovereignty and clinging to God because of and in spite of excrutiating pain I would like to encourage some more of your readers who may be in the same position for different reasons. I have a friend who is a strong child of God but who suffers from a combination of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Manic Depression. His name is Andrew and this is the link to his blog; http://crazyscaredman1.wordpress.com. His posts humble me because his faith remains rock solid even when his world is in blinding and seemingly never ending pain.
May this help someone cling to the Sovereign God of mysterious love.
Yours together
Donovan

I certainly have had my struggles with assurance and sovereignty. The following, which I posted elsewhere, coincidentally fits for the issue being addressed here, and so, if it is not a breach of protocol to reblog, I will post it here as well.
When I was a young Christian, not long after having responded to the
Gospel, and taking my faith seriously, I came across the works of
Charles Finney, particularly about true and false conversion. I was
reading quite a bit on salvation and holiness, because I was looking
for assurance as well as “the secret” to living a genuinely holy life.
In short reading Finney put me in a tailspin of fear, confusion, and
despondency. During this time, I also read some of Comfort’s works,
and works of a related nature by other author’s. What I found was
that there was a lot of disagreement about “the Biblical plan of
salvation” and I found little in the way of assurance and
encouragement to live a holy life. Instead, I basically came to the
conclusion that I was the product of a false conversion, and in
response I tried to repent to the depths of my being and be genuinely
converted. Ironically, instead of spurring my on toward a genuine or
deeper faith I was led to depression and deep despondency, and I ran
from God, both in my heart and actions. I went looking for signs of
genuine faith and repentance, but being the deeply introspective person
that I am, I only found further proof of my sin and depravity. I
understood the Gospel, but I was baffled as to why my experience
didn’t match the experience that Comfort and a few others said I
should have had. It is hard to explain my frame of mind, but I guess
that I was thinking that I was passed over by God, or that I was not
sincere enough in my faith, or that I was… you name it. Basically, it
was if my soul was bent on taking the divergent often-contradictory
assertion of theologians across the spectrum and using them to accuse
and condemn me.
Fortunately, I could not find peace and I did not enjoy running from
God, and I think the Spirit began to show me how it was my own pride
that was condemning me, and how the Devil is the accuser of believers.
And mainly, I saw a kind of twisted strategy at work, one that began to
look like the work of the enemy. Basically, what I saw was that my
attempts to make sure my experience was genuine, or to make sure that I
had a genuine experience, was leading me further from trusting in God.
Now, I take comfort in God’s sovereignty and wisdom, and though I
know that God made us human agents, with appropriate responsibilities,
ultimately my well-being is in his inscrutable and glorious work.
Having said all this, I still have to confess that the aftermath of
this confusion still lingers in my heart.

I like the ending here. His help was found in a Christian community, as it should be. Of course that helps us to keep walking by faith, or learn to do so in such darkness, so that eventually we can arrive to God’s peace and help. But in the meantime, we need that support.
Sounds like a good read, and I hope the book will help many.

My thoughts …
Assurance refers to the confidence a Christian should have of complete forgiveness following genuine repentance that restores our right standing with God. This forgiveness is based solely on God’s grace and not on anything that we have done to earn that forgiveness. As Christians we can be confident of our salvation as long as we remain faithful to our calling, so “assurance of salvation” is contingent on continuing faithfulness. However we can be fully assured that God will remain faithful to his promises to us, and the Holy Spirit he gives us is that guarantee. God won’t turn his back on us, but we can turn our back on God if we so choose.

Scot,
This post resonated with me. For years in that environment, I struggled with assurance. It’s not on the stress upon the soveriegnty of God in every aspect of Christian experience, it is usally coupled with another stress: the deceitfulness of heart. These two twin beliefs stressed over and over as doctrine are capable of bringing dark, lingering clouds for years to those wrestling with self-contempt, self-hatred, or depression. I almost left Christianity because of this. My departure from that world opened a whole new world of joy, goodness, and sweetness for me.

That should have been, “It’s not *just* the stress upon the sovereignty of God…”

This may sound odd, but social justice played a major role in my “assurance of salvation”. I struggled with assurance for a long time and it always came when I focused on me. Was my belief genuine and real, was it really sincere? Better to pray for salvation again and make sure I really mean it this time! Or I wondered how could a Holy God really love me when once again I have fallen deeply into a pattern of sin. But serving in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, or working with young people from troubled homes who really struggled in the reality of everyday life made me feel connected on a deeper level to both God and neighbor. And when I combined my service with a focus on the character of God and the amazing compassion Jesus had to the outcast, the untouchable, the demonized, and those in sin I just felt his love and assurance. Also, knowing the flaws of both biblical characters that God deeply loved and reading biographies of great men and women of God which were honest and didn’t try to cover up their shortcomings helped me along the way.

This may sound odd, but social justice played a major role in my “assurance of salvation”. I struggled with assurance for a long time and it always came when I focused on me. Was my belief genuine and real, was it really sincere? Better to pray for salvation again and make sure I really mean it this time! Or I wondered how could a Holy God really love me when once again I have fallen deeply into a pattern of sin. But serving in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, or working with young people from troubled homes who really struggled in the reality of everyday life made me feel connected on a deeper level to both God and neighbor. And when I combined my service with a focus on the character of God and the amazing compassion Jesus had to the outcast, the untouchable, the demonized, and those in sin I just felt his love and assurance. Also, knowing the flaws of both biblical characters that God deeply loved and reading biographies of great men and women of God which were honest and didn’t try to cover up their shortcomings helped me along the way.

i have wrestled with this somewhat as well having been troubled by the Calvinist/Arminian split as well as concerned about a God would would only choose some people to be saved. ____I found assurance in Paul’s “in Christ” from Ephesians 1 and Jesus illustration in of the Vine and branches of John 15. ____God chose us in Christ. Eph.1:4. i think that means that Christ, the one chosen from the foundations of the world, fulfilled the Covenant requirments that humans could not (he is the true covenant keeping Jew). Through union with Christ (through faith, pictured in baptistm and the Lord’s supper) we are united with Christ, (in Christ the chosen one, the elect one, the true covenant keeping jew). ____I think faith involves Christ’s faithfulness to God in keeping the Covenant and our trust in Christ’s finished work. It is a faith that is binding and uniting. John 15 also says that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches… that speaks to me about a new source for life, for holiness, for righteousness. In Christ, i am saved, i am being saved and i will be saved. it is an ongoing work of salvation and transformation in Christ. ____I also believe that there are times when we don’t feel that union or presence of the Spirit… very dark times about which the church seldom speaks. We too often spout the “be happy all the time” philosophy and don’t make room for genuine human emotions and struggles. those who go through dark nights are not always encouraged or even accepted–which makes it harder to go through dark nights. ____my thoughts for what they are worth.

I’ll say right off that, even though I’m Presbyterian, the doctrine of election is one that I continue to wrestle with. Even so, I is my understanding that one never can know that one is NOT one of the elect. One can only know that one IS….

I’ll say right off that, even though I’m Presbyterian, the doctrine of election is one that I continue to wrestle with. Even so, it is my understanding that one never can know that one is NOT one of the elect. One can only know that one IS….

I have wrestled with this for my entire life. IMHO, one big problem is that many of us evangelicals have emphasized not “assurance,” but “certainty.” I’ve heard so many evangelistic preachers say “you can leave tonight knowing for sure you are saved!” Particularly when I was younger, I responded every time — yes, this time I will know.____This is supposed to be comforting, but I think it places unnecessary burdens on introspective “thinker” types such as myself. Of course I can’t “know for sure” I’m saved — I can’t even “know for sure” that Christianity is true. There is no “proof,” and in fact there are lots of apparently good reasons not to believe any of it is true. IMHO, all I can do is decide there are some good reasons to believe Jesus really was who he claimed to be, believe God is somehow calling me to Himself, and commit myself to this life of faith in him. And if that is true, then I can’t “know” I’m saved. It isn’t a matter of cognitive certainty.____Likewise, I can’t “know for sure” by testing the vicissitudes of my emotions. I would say bluntly that anyone who claims to have constant and perfect emotional certainty of salvation is either lying or an emotional cripple.____What I can start to see, once I let go of the need for epistemic certainty, is an embryonic, mustard-seed-like sense of “assurance” that starts to calm my ache for “certain” knowledge. “Assurance” isn’t absolute — it grows from faith, hope, and love, which are always contingent and partial, I think, for us human beings in this world.

Pastorally, I think the immediate declaration of certainty/assurance of heaven after an initial prayer or a “decision” to a “plan of salvation” has led to the deplorably anemic condition of the USAmerican evangelical church. Couple that “assurance of salvation” scheme within a theistic determinism (Reformed) view of Christianity and you have a context for confusion, fear and depression.
I think the New Testament presents “conditional assurance” as some comments above suggest. No sinning persons should have assurance of salvation that serves as their “get out of hell free” card that they carry in their spiritual pockets. But many, many of them do! “I prayed the prayer. I was told heaven was mine as a biblical certainty. So I sin a little? Nobody’s perfect. I’m in! The preacher/evangelist told me so.” It is spiritual mediocrity waiting to happen.

John,
One thing that impressed me about the Rome to Wheaton conversion stories in Scot’s book Finding Faith, Losing Faith is the paralyzing nature of “conditional assurance” for so many. The depression could be as severe as described in this post on the issue of election.
What is the right Biblical line?
I think dopderbeck is on the right track.

Ok, comment was rejected I hope this isn’t a repeat.
Anthony and all who have suffered from self examination – in a time in my life of such, but not whether I was saved or not, someone gave me a thought of C.S. Lewis – that we don’t help our faith by examining it as if pulling up a plant by the roots. Meaning doing such to a plant harms it. I guess the trick is how to self examine without pulling up the plant.

I was fortunate that I had such a strong conversion experience as a young teen that I never really worried about this. However, some years later I began to see how the way salvation is taught coupled with biblical warnings about who will and won’t be saved were hurting people. I really think that this is at the root of much of the division, anger and fear which can dominate some churches and Christians. With that kind of fruit, there’s no way the teaching as it stood could be of God.
I started looking into the matter of salvation and came across an alternative which I found to be more faithful, biblical and fruitful than the usual Calvanist/Armenian choices; that being a biblical universalism rooted on a different translation of the word “aion” and its derivatives. In universalism, I found a picture of a God who both could and would redeem all of His creation. I also found that people who have accepted this teaching find it much easier to let go of unhealthy fear and demonic condemnation which leaves them freer to follow God in love. For a while I was pretty hard core universalist. However, at this point I know better than to deal in absolutes when it comes to what God does/will do. However, I definitely lean towards universalism, mostly reject Calvinism and can see some limited room for Armenianism. It seems to me to be such a shame that this issue of assurance of salvation, which is so destructive and harmful, is something that most Christians are so attached to that they are unable/unwilling to take another look.
I’m also coming to understand salvation differently than I did before. A closer reading of scriptures shows that we are almost certainly in error when we assume that salvation refers to going to heaven when we die in most places where it is used in scriptures. I really think that salvation is far more about how we live and who we are in the here and now. And that matters because when God transforms us (ie He saves us from wasting our lives and making this world a worse place) we will avoid the heart rending experience of standing before God and realizing our failure for the first time. We have such an individualistic understanding of salvation. However, the bible rarely speaks to individuals and almost always addresses communities of people. In that light it is difficult to believe that our individualistic understanding of salvation is actually faithful to the original meaning of scriptures.

I wonder how Reformed theology may have emerged if Martin Luther had access to medication for depression.

In some hard places in my life, the “in Christ” statements Commenter #8 points toward meant a lot to me.
I no longer think of “salvation” as something you “get”, but rather as something one steps into. I think limited atonement is very shortsighted. I believe that because of the Cross, Jesus has reconciled/is reconciling everyone, and that he will one day present *all things* to the father, so for me the effects of his death and resurrection extend very far indeed.
I used to gain assurance from God loving me because he “has to”, so to speak. Everything changed for me when I came to believe that there is no limit to the kindness of God’s intentions toward us. (Willard) This happened mostly in contemplating the Incarnation.
Dana

I really resonate with the comments of Rebeccat (#14). I was going to recommend a dose of thinking about universalism as an exercise for those seeking assurance. That among other things has changed my view of the character of God in recent years. Although I still have questions about universalism, I no longer believe in a God who assigns the great majority of those created in His image to “eternal conscious torment” as the saying goes. If you are of a philosophical bent read Tom Talbott’s “The Inescapable Love of God”.

Like Rebeccat and Ken I lean towards universalism. The problem is not God’s sovereignty. I believe, wholeheartedly in God’s sovereignty. The problem is tying that belief to the notion of election and eternal torment for the non-elect. One recurring theme I have seen on blogs of people who have been conservative Protestants and are struggling with their faith is that they say they do not “trust” God. THeir image of God is one of a deity that is cruel and capricious. They cannot truly “love” God because they fear and distrust Him. I am mystified by this. What is the point of a God you cannot trust? When I first became Christian I believed in a “weak” God – a God that knew a lot, but didn’t know everything, a God that was powerful but not all-powerful, a God that made plans that didn’t always work out. As time went on I realized there wasn’t much point in a weak God – you can’t trust that sort of God either. Now I utterly put my trust in God. If I did not trust God I would have never put my daughter in His hands. I believe in a God that not only has a plan which He will see completed, but who loves us and has our best interests (along with the rest of creation) at heart. It is God’s will that NONE should perish and I believe that’s God’s will will be done – even if it takes an what would seem like us an eternity to do so.

To Ken, Mariam, Rebeccat and others attracted to universalism because “eternal conscious torment” seems incongruous with a loving God. I also reject the proposition of “eternal conscious torment” but struggle to find convincing support for universalism in scripture. However, I do see annihilation following judgement to be well supported by scripture.

God always grants His grace freely. No one has to wander around wondering if he got it. Instead, the question each of us has to answer is: Have we accepted God’s grace? Do we live it? Can you tell it? Do we walk the walk, to be trite? Are we Christians only in name and convenience? Do we live for Christ? Do we keep His commandments? Do we love ourselves enough to love our neighbors? When did we last praise God for His great glories and constant miracles that surround and infuse everything in our lives and in the universe? These are questions one should spend time answering. God has already answered the one about grace. If one doesn’t think so, check in with the Devil. He is the one in charge of doubts.

To Angus (#19). I don’t know if the following scriptures provide the “convincing support” of universalism that you seek or desire, but to me they require an explanation other than universalism or universal restoration.

Sorry. I’m lots of difficulty getting post to be accepted
To Angus (#19). I don’t know if the following scriptures provide the “convincing support” of universalism that you seek or desire, but to me they require an explanation other than universalism or universal restoration.
John 12:31-32; Acts 3:19-21; Romans 5:18;11:32; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 5:19; Eph. 1:10; 1:16; Phil. 2:5-11; Col. 1:20; i Tim. 2:3-4; 4:1-10; Titus 2:11; Heb. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:18-20; 2 Pet. 4:16; 1 John 2:2

I personally think the NLT (second edition) is streets ahead of other translations. Its language is very contemporary without being colloquial and it really brings the Bible to life. For Bible study I usually compare several translations but typically find the NLT to be as good or better than other translations. My old NIV and ESV Bibles are now gathering dust because I’d rather buy someone a new NLT than give them these other translations. However, I can’t quite bring myself to throw them out yet.

Hi again Ken. Thank you for your thoughtful reply and the numerous verses provided which you believe support universalism. I’m conscious that this is off topic so feel I should be very brief in reply. I agree that a couple of these verses seem to state unambiguously that everyone will be restored into God’s kingdom. However, most of these verses are ambiguous at best and often the context makes it clear that by ‘everyone’ the writer means that the Jewish Messiah is Good News to ‘all peoples’ not just Jews and that the writer’s immediate audience would fully understood that just as not all Jews will be saved, so not all Gentiles will be saved. However, while acknowledging the couple of verses that seems to unambiguously support universalism, these are overwhelmingly outweighed in number by those verses that state the coming judgement and destruction of those who continue to reject God’s rule, and that ‘God’s people’ will be the minority not the majority of humankind.
ps: sorry for the above post, either my browser or this blog server is playing up as that wasn’t my posted reply.