Luther on Assurance

Tony Reinke Assurance, Martin Luther

Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Werkes, 33:288–289):

For my own part, I frankly confess that even if it were possible, I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive toward salvation. For, on the one hand, I should be unable to stand firm and keep hold of it amid so many adversities and perils and so many assaults of demons, seeing that even one demon is mightier, than all men, and no man at all could be saved; and on the other hand, even if there were no perils or adversities or demons, I should nevertheless have to labor under perpetual uncertainty and to fight as one beating the air, since even if I lived and worked to eternity, my conscience would never be assured and certain how much it ought to do to satisfy God.

For whatever work might be accomplished, there would always remain an anxious doubt whether it pleased God or whether he required something more, as the experience of all self-justifiers proves, and as I myself learned to my bitter cost through so many years.

But now, since God has taken my salvation out of my hands into his, making it depend on his choice and not mine, and has promised to save me, not by my own work or exertion but by his grace and mercy, I am assured and certain both that he is faithful and will not lie to me, and also that he is too great and powerful for any demons or any adversities to be able to break him or to snatch me from him.

Print, trim, and paste this into your copy of Religious Affections

Tony Reinke Jonathan Edwards

I named my blog and my firstborn after Jonathan Edwards, the brilliant theologian. Yet, I think it would be wise to print and paste the following quote on the inside cover of his classic book Religious Affections (if you own it—and you should!).

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (London, 1873), 3:107:

Many sincere believers are too introspective. They look too exclusively within, so that their hope is graduated by the degree of evidence of regeneration which they find in their own experience. This, except in rare cases, can never lead to the assurance of hope. We may examine our hearts with all the microscopic care prescribed by President Edwards in his work on The Religious Affections, and never be satisfied that we have eliminated every ground of misgiving and doubt. The grounds of assurance are not so much within, as without us.

Fathering

Tony Reinke Family, Parenting

In my reading the other day I came across 1 Thessalonians 2:11–12:

For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Here Paul is communicating with the church in Thessalonikē. It was a new church he had recently founded and a church he found himself quickly detached from. Here he writes to exhort, encourage, and charge the church toward godliness in the same way a father would care for each of his particular children. This passage is deeply personal and affectionate.

Paul is not primarily seeking here to instruct fathers, yet it seems to me there are implications for those of us who are fathers. Note the three paralleled participles:

  • Exhorted (παρακαλοῦντες). Writes one commentator, “In some contexts the verb may signify ‘to console’ or ‘to comfort’ (1 Thess. 3.7; 4.18; 2 Thess. 2.17), but in the context of moral instruction, such as here in v. 12, it conveys the meaning of ‘to exhort’ or ‘to urge’ a person to follow a certain mode of conduct” (Green 135).
  • Encouraged (παραμυθούμενοι). Or to “comfort” (NIV84). The first two verbs overlap. “Both verbs indicate the act of encouraging or cheering someone. The first word more frequently than the second carries the connotation of exhortation, yet both are also used in contexts of admonition. The combination in Paul seems to indicate a positive encouragement to Christian living” (Martin 84).
  • Charged (μαρτυρόμενοι). This is the most authoritative of the three verbs and it means to “implore” (HCSB) or to “urge” (NIV84) a matter of great importance. Paul uses the same term in Ephesians 4:17, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.”

In this passing paternal metaphor Paul gives us a brief picture of godly fathering that is tender, personal, hopeful, encouraging, and yet firmly uncompromising.

The Red Thread of Redemption

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Diety of Christ

In one point in his writings, B. B. Warfield reflects on the ‘Son of God’ theme in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This excerpt is taken from his book, The Lord of Glory: A Study of the Designations of Our Lord in the New Testament With Especial Reference to His Deity (American Tract Society, 1907), pages 282-284:

He writes this about Christ in Hebrews:

  • He is ‘the Mediator of the New Covenant’ (8:6, 9:15, 12:24):
  • He is the Ground of eternal Salvation (5:9):
  • He is ‘the Author of Salvation’ (2:10, cf. Acts 3:15, 5:31):
  • He is ‘the Author and Perfecter of our Faith’ (12:2):
  • He is our Forerunner into that which is within the veil (6:20):
  • He is ‘the Apostle and High Priest of our Confession’ (3:1):
  • He is ‘the Great Shepherd of the Sheep’ (13:20): and, above all (for this is a favorite conception of this Epistle),
  • He is our ‘Priest’ (5:6, 7:3, 11, [15], 17, 21; [8:4]; 10:21) or more specifically our ‘High Priest’ ([2:17]; 3:1, 4:14, 15, 5:10, 6:20, 7:26, 8:1, 9:11). …

He expands:

  • As ‘Mediator of the New Covenant’ He gives His life for the redemption of His people, establishing new relations between them and God by means of His blood.
  • As the ‘Originator of Salvation,’ He tasted death for every man, receiving in Himself the penalties due to them, not to Him.
  • As ‘Author and Perfecter of our faith’ He endured the cross, despising the shame that He might be not merely our example, but our Saviour.
  • As ‘the Great Shepherd’ He laid down His life for His sheep.
  • As ‘the Apostle and High Priest’ He is the One appointed by God to make sacrifice of Himself for the sins of the people–for every High Priest must needs have somewhat to offer, and this ‘our High Priest’ has through His own blood obtained eternal redemption for us.

He concludes:

We see that [in Hebrews] the red thread of redemption in blood is woven into all the allusions to the saving work of the ‘Son of God.’

Substitutionary Atonement and Classic Lit

Tony Reinke Herman Bavinck, Reading

Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck was well versed in classic literature, a point made clear in an excerpt from Reformed Dogmatics, 3:402–404 (abridged p. 444).

In this section he responds to those who claim that Christ’s substitutionary atonement is morally nonsensical (an objection that remains to this today). Yet,

…the idea of substitution is deeply grounded in human nature. Among all peoples it has been embodied in priesthood and sacrifices and expressed in various ways in poetry and mythology.

Origen already compared Christ in his death to those who, according to classical traditions, died for their mother country to liberate it from a plague or other disasters, for, conforming to hidden laws, it seems to lie in the nature of things that the voluntary death of a righteous person in the public interest breaks the power of evil spirits

Christian theology, accordingly, frequently cited the examples of Codrus, Curtius, Cratinus, Zaleucus, Damon, Phintias, and the hostages to illustrate the vicarious suffering of Christ. These examples have no other value, of course, than to show that the idea of substitution occupied an important place in the intellectual world of the Greeks and the Romans.

The same is true of tragedy, whose basic idea can certainly be conveyed not always by “guilt and atonement” but often only by “passion and suffering.” In many tragedies the death of the hero is not a true atonement for sins committed but yet is always a deliverance made necessary by some mistake or error, hence finally reconciling us and giving us satisfaction. But even viewed that way, tragedy proclaims a great truth: all human greatness walks past abysses of guilt, and satisfaction occurs only when what is noble and great, which for some reason has gone astray, perishes in death. The downfall of Orestes, Oedipus, Antigone, Romeo and Juliet, Max and Thekla, Iphigenia, and others reconciles us with them and their generation. “Pure humanity atones for all human weaknesses” (Goethe). …

All these examples and reasonings are undoubtedly somewhat suited as illustrations of the substitutionary suffering of Christ. Against the individualism and atomizing tendencies that tear humankind apart and know nothing of the mysticism of love, they are of great value.

Still, they cannot explain the suffering of Christ. …

Bavinck’s knowledge of Greek mythology and poetry is impressive. It is to this well of literature that he turns to find fitting illustrations of substitution in history, illustrations that have “great value” in cultures where people increasingly live self-sustained and isolated lives (hint, hint).

Yet the classic literature has significant theological limitations. In order to make sense of the unique sacrifice of Christ we must turn to Scripture (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:25, 8:3; Gal. 3:13). Classic literature cannot explain the sacrifice of Christ. Illustrate? Yes, to some degree. Substantiate? No.

Learning Union with Christ

Tony Reinke Thomas Goodwin, Union with Christ

The disciples found it difficult to get their arms around Jesus’ concept of union, notes Puritan Thomas Goodwin in his Works (9:114). He makes this point from John 14:1­–26. The passage is an interesting one.

  • In 14:1–9 Jesus says that to believe in himself is to believe in God. Jesus is “the way” to God.
  • In 14:10–14 Jesus takes it to another level by saying he dwells “in the Father” and that the Father dwells “in me.”
  • In 14:15–19 Jesus then tells them to anticipate the arrival of the Holy Spirit.
  • In 14:20 Jesus presses even further: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

Jesus continues stacking the line of thought until he delivers verse 20. If the disciples were perplexed at the first idea (and they were; see v. 9), how much more perplexed as the line of reasoning continued to develop? The whole trajectory of thought must have been overwhelming. In effect Jesus introduces what will get filled out in John’s writings as something of a triangle* of abiding: believers abide in the Savior (and vice versa), the Savior abides in the Father (and vice versa), and the Father abides in believers (and vice versa; see 1 John 4:12–16).

Goodwin wants us to note the immanence of the Holy Spirit. He was coming to help the disciples make some sense of it all (vv. 25­–26).

* Oepke, TDNT, 2:543