Am I Unsaved or Do I Lack Assurance?
- Rev. Hans Overduin
- 5 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Question
How can I tell if I am unsaved or simply lack assurance of faith?
Answer
There is, no doubt, more to this question than first appears to be the case. I’m taking the question from the perspective of someone who is genuinely seeking the Lord but struggling whether he or she is even truly saved or not, because of, in fact, not having assurance of faith. Considering the question in that light means having to address the distinction between faith and assurance of faith. Understanding the distinction between these two is crucial for a right understanding of the gospel of grace and rejoicing in that gospel of grace.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say anyone is saved by assurance of faith. No, sinners are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And in the way of true faith, it is not believing that we are saved by Christ but believing that only in Christ Jesus do we find the Saviour of sinners you and I need, and so also, we believe in Him. When we realize that being saved is not knowing necessarily that you are saved but looking to Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, i.e., going to Him, confiding in Him, resting in Him, that can so help in gaining assurance of faith even when you may still feel so sinful and unsaved in and of yourself.
Here let me quote from Paul Helm’s excellent book, The Beginnings—Word & Spirit in Conversion, The Banner of Truth Trust, copyright 1986, page 69.
“Faith is faith in the word of God, and such faith is faith in God Himself. What the believer believes in essence is that Christ is the Saviour of sinners and that whoever comes to Him will be saved, and the believer entrusts himself to Christ. Saving faith is not a person’s belief that he has been saved by Christ nor even that Christ has died for him in particular. [Emphasis mine, pho] It cannot be this because until he trusts in Christ in order to be saved, he has no reason to think that Christ has died for him in particular or that Christ has saved him. For that person to believe that Christ has saved him before trusting Christ would be for him to believe something which is not true. In entrusting himself to Christ he is saved, and entrusting himself to Christ means casting himself upon His mercy. It is not believing that He has been merciful, but trusting Him for mercy. Faith is in order to receive mercy. It is not belief that one has received mercy.” [Again, emphasis mine, pho.]
When this distinction is clearly understood, it underscores two of the wonders of the gospel of grace. For one, it proves how being saved by faith alone means being saved through nothing meritorious of ourselves. How does Paul put it in Romans 4:16? “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace….” And then, secondly, understanding this distinction can truly help in having or gaining assurance of faith even when you don’t necessarily feel or see in yourself reasons for assurance of faith. Strange as it may sound living by true faith in Christ the Saviour of sinners brings boundless reasons to have and rejoice in assurance of faith too. The best way to gain assurance of faith is daily and increasingly to live in faith in Christ time and again asking for His mercy and grace for Jesus’ sake alone
Actually, our Reformation fathers, very beautifully and pastorally also answer the questions of those who struggle whether they might not yet be saved, because of lacking assurance of faith. You find what they say about this and what we confess as reformed churches in Canons of Dort, Head I, Article 16. There we read:
“Those who do not yet experience a lively faith in Christ, an assured confidence of soul, peace of conscience, an earnest endeavour after filial obedience, and glorying in God through Christ, efficaciously wrought in them, and do nevertheless persist in the use of the means which God has appointed for working these graces in us, ought not to be alarmed at the mention of reprobation, nor to rank themselves among the reprobate but diligently to persevere in the use of means, and with ardent desires, devoutly and humbly to wait for a season of richer grace. Much less cause have they to be terrified by the doctrine of reprobation, who, though they seriously desire to be turned to God, to please him only, and to be delivered from the body of death, cannot yet reach that measure of holiness and faith to which they aspire; since a merciful God has promised that he will not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed. But this doctrine is justly terrible to those, who, regardless of God and of the Saviour Jesus Christ, have wholly given themselves up to the cares of the world, and the pleasures of the flesh, so long as they are not seriously converted to God.”
Hopefully this answer to the question is helpful for the person[s] asking it. While this response addresses those struggling with assurance of faith, we know an opposite danger is having a false assurance of faith, based on either, as Dr. Joel Beeke puts it in his book listed below, “the dead end of sentimental emotion or the dead end of dry intellectualism.” Thankfully, by God’s grace and Spirit when His people genuinely long for full assurance of faith, they by all means don’t want to be led astray with false assurance of faith. The Heidelberg Catechism in QA 86 of LD 32 is helpful too in this regard. The above answer also by no means is suggesting that we don’t bother to grow in assurance of faith, but to do so only always in the Christian way of living by faith and in faithfulness before God and all His Word. As we sing in Psalter 400, stanza 3, “Happy is the man that chooses [the new Psalter version has “that trusts in] Israel’s God to be his aid; He is blessed whose hope of blessing—On the LORD his God is stayed.”
As a further help in line with the above a few books can be recommended:
