What Is Final Salvation?

Perhaps a point of general agreement from which we may start is the Biblical teaching that Christ saves us not only from the penalty of sin, but from sin itself. “He died that we might be forgiven; he died to make us good.” Or, in Scriptural language, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies.” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” 

If this be agreed upon, if we all admit that we must no longer be the servants of sin but must present our members as instruments of righteousness unto God, the next questions logically are: What is sin, What are good works, What is righteousness? We want to do good works, we want to avoid evil works; but how can we distinguish between them? 

There need be no vague guessing as to the answer to these questions. The Scripture speaks very definitely. The Scripture says precisely what sin is. “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). “Where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15). “Through the law cometh the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). It should be clear then that sin is always defined by the law. Unless one knows the law of God, he cannot know what is wrong, evil, or sinful.

Gordon H. Clark. What Is the Christian Life? (Kindle Locations 1882-1893). Kindle Edition.   See also:  "The Christian and the Law".  Trinity Review.  March 1979.

Generally speaking, the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark did not address the Federal Vision heresy because it was not yet a major issue.  However, I want to take issue with a few of the responses to the FV that I think go too far in the other direction by way of equivocation.  While it is true that at the final judgment that the elect will finally be justified by the active and passive obedience of Christ through the instrumental application of right belief, it does not follow that everyone who professes Christ is actually an elect believer.  The Federal Vision teaches that at the final judgment the believer's good works somehow contribute to the justification of the believer.  This is not true and would undermine the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

However, the problem is that some have gone so far in their repudiation of the objective covenant teaching of the FV and the FV doctrine of final justification that they have for all practical purposes gone over to the once saved, always saved view of the Baptists.  There is a difference between the Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and the doctrine of once saved, always saved.  The Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is that God before creation not only unconditionally elects those who will be saved, but God also predetermines that the elect will persevere in faith.  That is, God keeps them saved, and He does so monergistically.  The human volition or will does not cooperate in either regeneration or in perseverance.  Both regeneration and perseverance are works of God's mercy and grace.

The point here being that the true believer will demonstrate a changed or transformed life, however imperfect that might be.  The justified believer cannot contribute to his or her own justification.  But a person who has no concern for evidencing their Christian faith cannot legitimately profess belief in Christ.  Furthermore, at the final judgment that person might discover that he or she was never saved or justified whatsoever.  (1 John 2:19; Matthew 7:13-23).  

Is Assurance of Salvation a "Second Blessing"? A Short Response to R. Scott Clark

"Before regeneration a sinful human being does not think this way. He believes that God is too good to condemn anybody, and, besides, he himself is quite respectable. But the gift of faith changes his ideas. Jesus, whom he previously admitted to be an admirable ethical teacher, he now believes to be the Lord of Glory. The sins he has loved, he now hates, or at least begins to hate, for regeneration is not instantaneous perfection."  Dr. Gordon H. Clark

A. W. Pink quoted Walter Marshall, a British non-conformist in 1692:

We are to look upon holiness as a very necessary part of that salvation that is received by faith in Christ. Some are so drenched in a covenant of works that they accuse us of making good works needless to salvation, if we will not acknowledge them to be necessary, either as conditions to procure an interest in Christ, or as preparatives to fit us for receiving Him by faith. And others, when they are taught by the Scriptures that we are saved by faith, even by faith without works, do begin to disregard all obedience to the Law as not at all necessary to salvation, and do account themselves obliged to it only in point of gratitude—if it be wholly neglected, they doubt not but free grace will save them nevertheless. Yea, some are given up to such strong Antinomian[67] delusions, that they account it a part of the liberty from bondage of the Law purchased by the blood of Christ, to make no conscience of breaking the Law in their conduct.

Arthur W. Pink. The Doctrine of Sanctification (Kindle Locations 340-347). Chapel Library. Kindle Edition. 

I understand that R. Scott Clark is opposed to the Federal Vision error.  But the problem I have is that Scott Clark does not differentiate between misrepresentations of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the actual teaching of the Westminster Confession as it is deduced from the Scriptures.  Even worse, R. Scott Clark, who claims to be recovering the Reformed confessions, openly rejects the Westminster Confession on the issue of assurance of salvation.  Or maybe RSC made a typological error?  At any rate, he misquotes the WCF when he says:

Indeed, the divines insisted that believers do finally gain assurance “extraordinary revelation” through “the right use of ordinary means” (i.e., the preaching of the gospel, the use of the sacraments, and prayer). Contra Rome, this doctrine of assurance does not lead believers to lead immoral lives but to lead godly lives. The divines were concerned that people should not think that because they doubt and struggle that they are not or no longer believers. Rather, they were trying to encourage not discourage people.  R. Scott Clark, Heidelblog, "Does The Westminster Confession Contradict Calvin On Assurance And Faith?", October 20, 2016.

Unfortunately, the confession says just the opposite of what I have placed in italics in the quote.  The confession says, 

III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it:k yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain there unto.l   WCF 18:3.

Westminster Assembly. The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1851. Print.

It is often difficult to understand exactly what RSC is talking about.  Apparently, the Calvin versus the Calvinists school believed that assurance of salvation depended on an initial justification and a subsequent second blessing. Furthermore, I take it that the Calvin versus Calvinism school has something to do with the Federal Vision heresy where the FV proponents wish to make the Westminster Confessional Standards agree with their conflation of the visible church with the invisible church;  their conflation of the visible signs and seals of covenant with the invisible graces is one source of the problem.  Additionally, they misunderstand unconditional election, which God only grants to the elect. The adherents of the Federal Vision contend that election and regeneration are conveyed through baptism into membership in the visible church.  They also say that election and regeneration can be lost if the person commits apostasy or falls into grievous sins.  But this is not the position of the Bible or the Reformed confessions.

Oddly enough, RSC is making a similar error by misquoting both John Calvin and the Westminster divines out of context.  I say that because Calvin and the later Westminster divines were indeed dealing with their settings in life or cultural situations.  R. Scott Clark wants to conflate the cultural problems of the 16th and 17th centuries with the 20th and 21st centuries.  Calvin was dealing with the Roman Catholic undermining of the assurance of salvation.  The Westminster divines were dealing with both hypocrisy and the undermining of the assurance of salvation.

There is a dual problem today as well.  But the duality is that almost no one today actually fears God anymore.  So the problem is not so much the lack of assurance of salvation, but rather a lack of concern for their obedience.  Even the Romanists do not fear God anymore.  As Dr. Gordon H. Clark once remarked in relation to the doctrine of repentance, liberals think that God must be too good to damn anyone to hell:

The religious world of the present century has witnessed a tidal wave of anti-intellectualism. Inundated by the outright irrationalism of the Neo-orthodox and the existentialists, popular religion holds every intellectual decision – the acceptance of an intellectual doctrine – to be either insincere or trivial, and that only emotion is genuine and “authentic.” With the prevalence of such views, a further repetition of the Catechism seems called for. Repentance includes an “apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ.” Before regeneration a sinful human being does not think this way. He believes that God is too good to condemn anybody, and, besides, he himself is quite respectable. But the gift of faith changes his ideas. Jesus, whom he previously admitted to be an admirable ethical teacher, he now believes to be the Lord of Glory. The sins he has loved, he now hates, or at least begins to hate, for regeneration is not instantaneous perfection. By this change of mind he turns from sin to God; or, more accurately, this change of mind is his turning to God. Nor can this turning or conversion occur without a full purpose and endeavor to obey God’s law. There is nothing insincere in this. To use John Calvin’s remark, it is the pious assent of the mind.

Gordon H. Clark. What Is the Christian Life?  1990.  1992.  Third edition. (Unicoi:  Trinity Foundation, 2012).   Kindle Locations 270-279. Kindle Edition. 

I did my time in Bible college and seminary; but when I read the Heidelblog it is as if I am reading a foreign language.  I have read the classical systematic theologies.  I have read Charles Hodge, Louis Berkhof, Stephen Charnock, Lorraine Boettner, Gordon H. Clark, and even Van Til.  But when I listen to the podcasts from both the Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Westminster Seminary,  Escondido, California or read their posted literature, it is as if I am reading a foreign language.  Most of it has very little to do with the actual Scriptures or the Reformed confessions themselves.  One doctrine that you will never hear any of them mention, or at least only in brief, is the doctrine of predestination.  Almost everything these schools have to say is colored by their rose-colored glasses of common grace and their focus on christology and covenant theology as the alleged center of their system of analogical theology.

The main  problem I have with the Escondido school is the constant barrage of justification by faith alone as if that doctrine is all there is in the Reformed confessions.  The other problem is the constant appeal to modern and postmodern theologians as if their spin on church history is the interpretative grid which must be imposed on both the Scriptures and the Reformed confessions themselves.  These writers, including R. Scott Clark, wish to emphasize the total transcendence of God above all else so that the Scriptures become merely an ectypal condescension to the human level, not the very words of God univocally.  Of course, we are not omniscient and cannot see the total picture or think with super-intelligence as God does.  He knows everything intuitively and directly, while our knowledge as creatures is discursive and revealed to us through the innate image of God, natural revelation and special revelation; but that is another essay for another day.

The issue here is that R. Scott Clark overreacts to the Federal Vision error to the point that he has tendencies to misrepresent the actual warning passages in Scripture and how the Westminster Confession and the Canons of Dort address those issues.  The fact of the matter is that assurance of salvation does not always accompany conversion to Christ.  That's because many persons come from bad backgrounds, being former criminals.  Others come from a Romanist background and have no assurance.  But the vast majority of new converts--who may or may not be regenerate--have an attitude of easy believism.  That's because of the church growth movement and the influence it has on the denominations.  

Although the Escondido school pretends to reject the pragmatism of the church growth movement, they actually practice the same pragmatism.  Without new churches, new members and new ministers, seminaries tend to become irrelevant and die out.  So that means that there can be no real education in what Scripture actually says on the issues or even what the Reformed confessions say.  Instead the other graces of repentance, sanctification, and assurance must be either reinterpreted or downplayed.  John MacArthur, one of R. Scott Clark's most hated targets, at least emphasizes sanctification.  So RSC attacks pastors he does not like.  He continually attacks MacArthur as a legalist but most of the attacks are in fact straw man fallacies.  RSC also totally despises the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark on many levels.  GHC is a "hyper-Calvinist", a rejecter of the free offer and common grace.  He's one of those despised fundamentalists, according to RSC.

John MacArthur even preaches the doctrine of total depravity, which he calls the most hated doctrine in the world.  Although I somewhat agree, I think the most hated doctrine is the doctrine of predestination.  We are told to never talk about that one:  

There is also the case of the Bible professor in a so-called Christian college, who told me, "Even if you believe in predestination, don't let anyone know you do."  He constantly told his students never to study the subject nor mention it in their preaching.  One student who held his professor in high respect was shocked to find that the Bulgarian laborers with whom he worked in Chicago were extremely interested in the forbidden subject.  But if predestination is not to be mentioned, God must have made an embarrassing blunder in revealing it to us.  

Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today.  1965  Second edition.  (Unicoi:  Trinity Foundation, 2001).  P. 43. 

To get to my main point of this article, however, it seems to me that RSC and many other so-called Reformed theologians are hypocritical on so many levels that it would take a book length response to analyze them all.  RSC says that assurance cannot be lost but only diminished.  But the WCF says that assurance can be diminished and shaken to the point that it is almost completely lost.  (WCF 18:4).  Not only that, the Westminster divines were not as much concerned with assurance as with hypocrisy.  (WCF 18:1).  In fact, it is possible to have saving faith without having assurance of salvation at all.  (WCF 18:3, quoted above).  The doctrines of grace should not encourage looseness in morality but a growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 3:18).  

...And therefore it is the duty of every one to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure; that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance: so far is it from inclining men to looseness.  (WCF 18:3; 2 Peter 1:10)

Westminster Assembly. The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1851. Print. .

R. Scott Clark and others focus on theology from below instead of the doctrines of sovereign grace taught in the Bible and summarized by the Westminster Standards.  I pray that God will grant them repentance.  The system of propositional truth deduced from the Bible and summarized by the Westminster Standards is what we are obligated to believe.   

I highly recommend this online edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms:  The Westminster Standards.

   

For Those Professing Christians Who Struggle with Assurance of Salvation

 

Christ cannot be known without the sanctification of his Spirit: therefore faith cannot possibly be disjoined from pious affection.  John Calvin, Institutes  III:2:8.

 

Assurance of Salvation

As the Bible and the Westminster Standards affirm, there are sometimes new believers or even those who have believed for a significant length of time who struggle with assurance of salvation.  This is because no one is omniscient like God is omniscient.  For Dr. Gordon H. Clark, the technical definition of knowledge is that knowledge must be an absolute truth that is either a universal principle or an inspired revelation from God in Holy Scripture.  So if the Bible says that our Lord Jesus Christ was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, then that is an absolute truth and constitutes knowledge.

However, since our individual names are not written in the canonical Scriptures, we cannot "know" that we are saved or regenerate on the same level of knowledge as it is theologically and philosophically defined by Clark.  This is not to say that we know nothing at all in the sense of commonly accepted experience and facts.  Carpenters and block layers learn their job skills through years of accumulated experience but this is different from making experience the basis for an epistemological theory of knowledge itself.  Experiences vary from one person to another and such a  theory of knowledge would result in relativism, not dogmatism.  A presuppositional view of knowledge must begin with the Holy Scriptures, not with empiricism or commonly accepted views of knowledge as a system of constantly growing and learned skills.  In fact, Dr. Clark held the view that we are not born with a blank slate as empiricism or a Thomistic view of epistemology would affirm.  For Clark there can be no two-fold view of truth where only God knows His truth and we know only an analogical truth revealed as merely human truth.  This would negate the Bible as univocal truth from God and instead would replace the Bible with a neo-orthodox theory of Scripture as a framework of God's revelation and not revelation itself.

So in a pastoral sense, how are pastors to help the members of their congregation understand how to be assured of their salvation, especially when they are struggling with sins in their lives?  Is assurance merely a state of psychological certainty?  Or is assurance based on a change of habits?  Or is assurance based on an objective evaluation of the propositions of Scripture in tandem with an objective self examination of one's progress in sanctification?

Obviously there must be an adherence to the principle of justification by faith alone as the objective basis for any assurance of salvation and any progress in the process of sanctification.  Although justification and sanctification are distinct from one another, they cannot be divorced from one another either.  The Westminster Larger Catechism makes this clear:

WLC 70  What is justification? A. Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners,1 in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight;2 not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them,3 but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them,4 and received by faith alone.5

WLC 71  How is justification an act of God's free grace? A. Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God's justice in the behalf of them that are justified,1 yet in as much as God accepteth the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them and did provide this surety, his own only Son,2 imputing his righteousness to them,3 and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith,4 which also is his gift,5 their justification is to them of free grace.6

WLC 72  What is justifying faith? A. Justifying faith is a saving grace,1 wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit2 and word of God,3 whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition,4 not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel,5 but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin,6 and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.7

WLC 73  How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God? A. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it,1 not as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification;2 but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness.3 (WLC 1:70-73 WCS)

***

WLC 75  What is sanctification? A. Sanctification is a work of God's grace, whereby they whom God hath, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit1 applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them,2 renewed in their whole man after the image of God;3 having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts,4 and those graces so stirred up, increased and strengthened,5 as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life.6

WLC 76  What is repentance unto life? A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace,1 wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit2 and word of God,3 whereby out of the sight and sense, not only of the danger,4 but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins,5 and upon the apprehension of God's mercy in Christ to such as are penitent,6 he so grieves for7 and hates his sins,8 as that he turns from them all to God,9 purposing and endeavouring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.10

WLC 77  Wherein do justification and sanctification differ? A. Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification,1 yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ,2 in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof;3 in the former, sin is pardoned;4 in the other, it is subdued:5 the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation;6 the other is neither equal in all,7 nor in this life perfect in any,8 but growing up to perfection.9

WLC 78  Whence ariseth the imperfection of sanctification in believers? A. The imperfection of sanctification in believers ariseth from the remnants of sin abiding in every part of them, and the perpetual lustings of the flesh against the spirit; whereby they are often foiled with temptations, and fall into many sins,1 are hindered in all their spiritual services,2 and their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.3

WLC 79  May not true believers, by reason of their imperfections, and the many temptations and sins they are overtaken with, fall away from the state of grace? A. True believers, by reason of the unchangeable love of God,1 and his decree and covenant to give them perseverance,2 their inseparable union with Christ,3 his continual intercession for them,4 and the Spirit and seed of God abiding in them,5 can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace,6 but are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.7

WLC 80  Can true believers be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and that they shall persevere therein unto salvation? A. Such as truly believe in Christ, and endeavour to walk in all good conscience before him,1 may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of God's promises, and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made,2 and bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God,3 be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and shall persevere therein unto salvation.4

WLC 81  Are all true believers at all times assured of their present being in the estate of grace, and that they shall be saved? A. Assurance of grace and salvation not being of the essence of faith,1 true believers may wait long before they obtain it;2 and, after the enjoyment thereof, may have it weakened and intermitted, through manifold distempers, sins, temptations, and desertions;3 yet are they never left without such a presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair.4
 (WLC 1:75-81 WCS)

I will leave it to the reader to consult the proof texts from the Edinburgh edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith.  If you do not have this edition, I highly recommend it as the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have both edited the confessional standards so that they fit with a more American view of civil government and other issues.  Also, the proof texts for certain doctrinal areas have been edited by both of these denominations.  I am quoting the entire series of questions for a reason and that reason is that there is a progression of thought from one question to another.  Anyone who reads the questions and answers in context and looks up the proof texts can see that the Westminster divines were concerned not to confuse justification with sanctification yet they were also concerned not to promote hypocrisy or false assurance by means of a lawless or antinomian faith.  Just as good works cannot justify anyone so lawlessness cannot sanctify anyone or give any assurance of salvation.  In short, it is better to have saving faith and not have assurance than to have a false assurance of salvation based on works righteousness or a false security while living a life of licentiousness.

After conversion we must begin somewhere.  That beginning is to study the Bible and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 3:18).  For a genuinely converted Christian to struggle with assurance there must be either past sins or a continuining struggle with current habitual sins interfering with that person's assurance.  An objective knowledge of the Bible must be the starting point for our study.  Dr. Clark referred to the book of Romans and to 1 John as the basis for attaining assurance of salvation.  I highly recommend Dr. Clark's chapter on assurance in the book, What Do Presbyterians Believe? The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today, 1965, (Unicoi:  Trinity Foundation, 2001), second edition.  Also:  First John.   

According to Dr. Clark, saving faith is an intellectual assent to the Gospel message and a subsequent turning away from sin and turning to our Lord Jesus Christ.   For Clark saving faith is not a bare assent but a pious assent to the propositions of Holy Scripture.  Unfortunately I think Clark misunderstood Calvin when he cites Calvin's remarks in Institutes III:2:8 as a reference to emotion:

. . . Yet Calvin in just another line seems to require assent, for he says, “The assent which we give to the Divine word…is from the heart rather than the head, and from the affections rather than from the understanding. For which reason it is called ‘the obedience of faith,’… It is an absurdity to say that faith is formed by the addition of a pious affection to an assent of the mind; whereas even this assent consists in a pious affection.... Faith consists in a knowledge of Christ.” 

In this quotation from Calvin, note the emphasis on assent. Very good; and both against the late Arminians and with Calvin against the Romanists, this assent and faith are not products of our unaided efforts. The Spirit must make us willing. But the willing is assent. 

I regret that Calvin, a giant among pygmies, said that assent comes from the heart and not from the head. This distinction is unscriptural; the Bible nowhere opposes heart to head, for it does not mention this “head.” Naturally assent comes from the heart because all psychological actions of a person come from the heart. There is nothing else for them to come from. 

Aside from this unfortunate slip, Calvin proceeds to say that assent is the obedience of faith. Clearly obedience is a matter of volition. Assent then is an act of will. No pious additions are necessary, for the assent itself is already pious.

Gordon H. Clark. What Is The Christian Life? (Kindle Locations 3228-3238). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition. 

 

Calvin's argument with the papist Roman Catholics is that the papists were accusing the Protestants of antinomianism due to the emphasis on justification by faith alone apart from good works.  The papists said that the Protestants were impious antinomians who had no obedience of faith and no love.  In other words, they accused Protestants of having a bare intellectual assent to propositions in the Scriptures with no subsequent piety or sanctification.  The Protestant critique of the papists, on the other hand, was that they conflated justification with sanctification thereby making justification and sanctification the same thing.  The papists insisted on justification by faith alone in regards to baptism but from that point on the papists insisted that faith that justifies must produce good works in order to continuously restore justification that is lost when a believer sins.  The papists denied that justification is a forensic and legal declaration instead of an infused righteousness that can be lost every time the believer sinned.  Calvin's argument is that saving faith is an intellectual assent that comes from the heart, not merely a bare assent without the involvement of the total person, including the mind, the will, and the affections.   By affections, Calvin does not mean the emotions but the totality of the soul much like Jonathan Edwards' definition of the affections.  Calvin's remarks show that he is rejecting the papist accusation that justification by faith alone is a mere or bare intellectual assent to the Gospel:

8. But before I proceed farther, it will be necessary to make some preliminary observations for the purpose of removing difficulties which might otherwise obstruct the reader. And first, I must refute the nugatory distinction of the Schoolmen as to formed and unformed faith.285 For they imagine that persons who have no fear of God, and no sense of piety, may believe all that is necessary to be known for salvation; as if the Holy Spirit were not the witness of our adoption by enlightening our hearts unto faith. Still, however, though the whole Scripture is against them, they dogmatically give the name of faith to a persuasion devoid of the fear of God. It is unnecessary to go farther in refuting their definition, than simply to state the nature of faith as declared in the word of God. From this it will clearly appear how unskillfully and absurdly they babble, rather than discourse, on this subject. I have already done this in part, and will afterwards add the remainder in its proper place. At present, I say that nothing can be imagined more absurd than their fiction. They insist that faith is an assent with which any despiser of God may receive what is delivered by Scripture. But we must first see whether any one can by his own strength acquire faith, or whether the Holy Spirit, by means of it, becomes the witness of adoption. Hence it is childish trifling in them to inquire whether the faith formed by the supervening quality of love be the same, or a different and new faith. By talking in this style, they show plainly that they have never thought of the special gift of the Spirit; since one of the first elements of faith is reconciliation implied in man’s drawing near to God. Did they duly ponder the saying of Paul, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” (Rom. 10:10), they would cease to dream of that frigid quality. There is one consideration which ought at once to put an end to the debate, viz., that assent itself (as I have already observed, and will afterwards more fully illustrate) is more a matter of the heart than the head, of the affection than the intellect. For this reason, it is termed “the obedience of faith,” (Rom. 1:5), which the Lord prefers to all other service, and justly, since nothing is more precious to him than his truth, which, as John Baptist declares, is in a manner signed and sealed by believers (John 3:33). As there can be no doubt on the matter, we in one word conclude, that they talk absurdly when they maintain that faith is formed by the addition of pious affection as an accessory to assent, since assent itself, such at least as the Scriptures describe, consists in pious affection. But we are furnished with a still clearer argument. Since faith embraces Christ as he is offered by the Father, and he is offered not only for justification, for forgiveness of sins and peace, but also for sanctification, as the fountain of living waters, it is certain that no man will ever know him aright without at the same time receiving the sanctification of the Spirit; or, to express the matter more plainly, faith consists in the knowledge of Christ; Christ cannot be known without the sanctification of his Spirit: therefore faith cannot possibly be disjoined from pious affection.  (III:2:8).

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997. Print.  Beveridge edition.

But I digress here.  The original purpose of this post was pastoral.  How does the pastor encourage new believers and long time believers who are struggling with assurance.  He must emphasize that no amount of spiritual growth could ever justify the believer.  Without this foundation there can be no true sanctification and no assurance.  Although sinful habits must be overcome, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the beginning point for true assurance for without it there can be no assurance  attained.  That applies to Arminians and especially to papists:

Having the opinion that assurance is rare, Ryle extends its possibility to every Christian (103). He allows that Rome denies this possibility. True. And also, “the vast majority of the worldly and thoughtless Christians among ourselves oppose the doctrine.” Possibly true then, but very likely false now. However, Job 19:25-27, Psalm 23:4, 6, Isaiah 26:3, and 32:17, Romans 8:39 on to 1 John 5:19 insist that assurance is possible. Not only was assurance possible in apostolic times, but “many have attained to such an assured hope…even in modern times” (105). This certainly seems to be what the Bible teaches; but Ryle, at least so far, has not told us how to attain such assurance and how to distinguish it from careless presumption or from what Louis Berkhof calls “temporary faith,” so little temporary as to last a lifetime.

Gordon H. Clark. What Is The Christian Life? (Kindle Locations 738-745). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition. 

One subhead under the general title of Sanctification or Holiness is Assurance. Calvin and the first generation of Reformers seem to have held that assurance is inseparable from faith. Whoever is not assured of his salvation is simply not saved. This view may have been encouraged by the severity of Romish persecution, the exuberance of a newly found faith, and the utter impossibility of finding assurance in penance and good works. But as the persecutions diminished and as calmer study could be undertaken, the Westminster divines, a full century later, wrote, “This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties, before he is partaker of it” (XVIII, 3). 

 

I must confess I do not like the word infallible in this context. The Pope claims infallibility, but if this is a false claim, it seems strange that it can be asserted of a thousand or a million Protestants. One of the older divines, whose name I have forgotten, illustrated infallibility by the knowledge of a ship captain’s guiding his ship into a harbor. Though the captain was ignorant of many things, and mistaken about many others, he infallibly knew the channel. But is it not possible, as it actually happened in 1983 when a naval vessel struck a sand bar in San Francisco Bay, that a storm could have closed the previous channel? Scripture is infallible; nothing else is. We all can and we all do make mistakes. 

 

Ryle does not seem to realize this. Nor do many others. Those who are so assured about assurance do not seem to understand the difficulties. Once I had a very friendly conversation with a college professor who was strongly Arminian. I remarked that one difference between Calvinism and Arminianism was that the latter denied the possibility of assurance. “Not so,” he replied, “I’m right now completely assured of my salvation. If I should die this moment, I know I would go to Heaven. Of course,” he continued, “if I should live until tomorrow or next week, I do not know whether I shall be saved or not.” This raises the question of the value of assurance. Assurance of salvation does not mean that you will get to Heaven. Assurance that a good restaurant serves good food does not guarantee that it serves good food. My major professor in graduate school took his wife out one Saturday night to a restaurant which he had often patronized. Before the night was over, he had died of food poisoning. His assurance had been misplaced. Many people are assured of all sorts of things. Some are sure that drinking vinegar will cure warts. But assurance guarantees nothing.

Gordon H. Clark. What Is The Christian Life? (Kindle Locations 712-731). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition. 

 

Perhaps someone will say that it is wrong to seek for a method of achieving assurance. It is a gift of God, we cannot earn it; there is nothing for us to do except to hope that God favors us. Well, it is true that assurance, like faith, is a gift of God, but though regeneration and faith can have no preparation on our part, assurance or at least sanctification requires certain actions by us. Perhaps method is not the proper term, but John tells us that “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” The usual exegesis of “these things” that John wrote is that faith, love, and obedience, while they do not automatically produce assurance, are nonetheless requirements for being a candidate, so to speak, to receive it. Actually love is one form of obedience, since it is commanded, and hence belief and overt obedience are the two prerequisites. 

 

There is, however, a difficulty. It is the same one Luther struggled with before he discovered the doctrine of justification. In Romanism he was supposed to earn his salvation by good works, penance, flagellation, and various monkish practices. But, being very sincere, he was troubled because he could never be sure that he had done enough. A similar difficulty arises here. If we wish to distinguish a valid assurance from a false assurance, how can we know that we have a sufficient theological knowledge and a sufficient degree of obedience to have met the requirements? Do we love deeply enough? Have we satisfied John’s criteria? Is there any devotional writer who has forthrightly faced this problem? It is hard to believe that none of them has thought of it. If as previously stated, Louis Berkhof’s temporary faith can last a lifetime, how can the true be identified in contrast with the false?

Gordon H. Clark. What Is The Christian Life? (Kindle Locations 754-768). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.

Dr. Clark rightly points out that assurance is problematic.  So if there is no absolute infallibility in regards to our assurance of salvation, where does that leave us?  The only place I know of is Scripture.  The words of comfort quoted just after the absolution in the communion service of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer say:

Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him:

Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.

Matthew 11:28–29 (KJV 1900)

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest .

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Also, at the point of regeneration and conversion God forgets all of our past sins and declares us righteous at that point:

Micah 7:18–20 (KJV 1900)

18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, And passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for ever, Because he delighteth in mercy.

19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; And thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

20 Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, Which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.

Romans 5:1–9 (KJV 1900)

1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

In closing, it should be noted that Clark does not stop with his remarks above but transitions over into a discussion of the doctrine of perseverance in faith to the end.  Furthermore, Clark asserts that saving faith is not a temporary faith but God imparts to the believer eternal life which never ends.  Of course, all of this is the gift of God, including the antecedent irresistible and effectual grace of regeneration.  Those who struggle with assurance are encouraged to study the Bible more closely and to study the system of theology outlined from the Bible in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger Catechism.  There are also additional articles in the Edinburgh edition of the doctrinal standards.  In particular, there is an article in the Edinburgh edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith called, "The Sum of Saving Knowledge."  That article outlines what saving faith is and the evidences of true saving faith.  I highly recommend reading, "The Sum of Saving Knowledge," especially the last section, "The Evidences of True Faith."  While this is challenging given the looseness of the modern Evangelical churches, it is completely within the doctrinal standards of the Bible and the Westminster confessional standards. 

Logic and Assurance

"If sanctification is a necessary element in salvation, it is hard to see why some Christians feel no need to understand it better. No doubt the real reason is that they are not presently sanctified enough." Dr. Gordon H. Clark

Logic and Assurance

In recent years I began on my own to read Reformed theology and Reformed systematic theology. During my reading I came across the writings of the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark and his emphasis on the axiom of Scripture as the defining starting point for Christianity. Dr. Clark was an expert in philosophy and for that reason his emphasis is on the logical nature of the Scriptures. According to Dr. Clark, the Bible alone is the word of God (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 4:4; John 10:35). Scripture is not just partly inspired but all Scripture is fully inspired and not one jot or tittle can be rejected without compromising the Gospel. All Scripture is profitable for doctrine. So connected is this emphasis on the Bible as a system of theology that Dr. Clark contended that all Scripture is the Gospel and the Gospel is the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).

Moreover, the Bible teaches that the pre-incarnate Christ, the Word, the Logos is Logic (John 1:1). Furthermore, Dr. Clark exegeted John 1:9 as a verse that is not salvific in purpose but instead he contended that the verse teaches that man as God’s image is also innately endowed with the logical ability to think in rational and logical ways. The soul, according to Dr. Clark, is the image of God. Man is the image of God because it is not the body that is God’s image or the combination of the soul and body that is the image of God, rather it is the soul that is God’s image. Man is the image of God because man is his soul. God is a spirit and spirits do not possess bodies (John 4:24). Likewise, man is a spiritual soul that is created in God’s image. Animals have bodies but do animals do calculus, compose music, do paintings and sculptures, or do operational science? Animals have no language or civilization. Animals cannot keep track of time or have a divine purpose in life. Man alone is uniquely the image of God.

The real question in regards to a Christian worldview is in regards to epistemology. How does man know anything at all? The answer, according to Dr. Clark, is that all secular sources of knowledge or secular epistemological constructs lead ultimately to skepticism. Empiricism, rationalism, and other adaptations of these two basic views leads to skepticism. In fact, some theologians recognized that the two pronged modernist attack against Christianity leads to irrationalism.

Unfortunately, some so-called Clarkian presuppositionalists including the late Dr. John Robbins, asserted that we cannot know if we are elect or saved or not. He drew this non sequitur conclusion from the distinction between saving faith and assurance. Although it is true that at the point of conversion the elect believer is not immediately assured of salvation, it does not follow that assurance is an emotional feeling of confidence as Sean Gerety recently asserted in a blog post at the God’s Hammer blog. Dr. Clark would have strongly disagreed because the Bible itself says that we can know we are saved and elect. 1 Peter 1:10 says that we are to make our election and calling sure. Now it if it is impossible to know if we have made our election and calling sure, why would God command us to do so? (See also: Further Disputations on the Doctrine of Assurance).

Although Sean Gerety and the late Dr. John Robbins asserted that we can have assurance but not knowledge that we are saved, the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark, their alleged mentor, stated otherwise. In fact, Dr. Clark said that we can know that we are saved. In fact, he said so several times in at least two or three of his books. One would think that someone who is allegedly an expert in Dr. Clark’s philosophy and theology, as Gerety claims to be, would know this. Here is one pertinent quote from Dr. Clark’s book, The Holy Spirit:

Although the present writer should avoid the temptation to discuss sanctification too fully, as he resisted the temptation to expatiate on the Trinity, nevertheless a little more description of the Spirit’s work in all Christians needs to be added. If sanctification is a necessary element in salvation, it is hard to see why some Christians feel no need to understand it better. No doubt the real reason is that they are not presently sanctified enough.

Some Scriptural statements on sanctification are deeply disturbing to serious souls. Romans 8:9 says, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” What is worse, 1 John 2:29, 1 John 3:9, and 1 John 5:18 seem to say that if I commit one single sin, I have not been regenerated. Not only “everyone that does righteousness is born of him,” but “Whoever is born of God does not sin.” These are terrible verses. They jolt any conscientious Christian.* The New American Standard softens 3:9 a bit, but only a little bit. So also the New International Version. Even the the Revised Standard Version is better, or should we say worse? [1 John 3:9 NASB; 1 John 3:9 NIV; 1 John 3:9 RSV].

This freedom from sin is the evidence to support an assurance of salvation. And since John seems to have desired to assure his readers, it seems strange that he wrote so severely. The problem here is not how I can know you are saved, but how can I know I am saved. Presbyterians do not admit people to communicant membership on the ground of their regeneration, but on the basis of a credible profession. Obviously sessions often admit persons to membership who later seem to have no spiritual life whatever. But if a single sin certifies one’s unregenerate condition, no one could be a communicant. There would not even be a session to decide.

In this dismal situation Paul offers us a ray of hope, for he acknowledged that he had not attained sinless perfection. Even in his apostolic years he committed some sin. And if that means he was not a saved man, nobody is. To the brief mention of Romans 7 a paragraph or two ago, a bit more can be added. As in Galatians 5:17, “the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh . . . so that you [regenerated Christians] cannot do the things that you would,” so also in Romans 7. The Arminians generally want to assign the whole chapter to Paul’s pharisaical years, after which, they say, we get to the freedom of the Gospel in Romans 8. This incorrect interpretation is partly due to the stupid, unmethodical divisions into verses. If a chapter heading had not been made after 7:25 [Romans 7:25], the THEREFORE of 8:1 [Romans 8:1] might have been more easily recognized. Chapter 8 is a conclusion drawn from the material in chapter 7. Note that verses 4, 5, and 6 picture a regenerate state. [Romans 8:4, 5, 6]. Verses 8, 9, 10, and 11 refer to Paul’s life as a Pharisee, and maybe on to verse 15. [Romans 8:8, 9, 10, 11; Romans 8:11-15]. But there comes a gradual change in the scenery. By the time verse 17 comes into view, we see Paul as a Christian. There is therefore a struggle. Who shall deliver him from his sinful inclinations? God will, through Jesus Christ. THEREFORE there is NOW no condemnation. Hence in spite of John’s disturbing words, Paul gives us a bit of confidence.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark. The Holy Spirit. (Jefferson: The Trinity Foundation, 1993). Pp. 48-49.

As you can easily see, Dr. Clark intimates that we can have confidence in the knowledge that we are saved. Of course, there are prerequisites to this attainment of the knowledge of our assurance. But even here assurance, contra Sean Gerety, is not a “feeling” or an “emotion.” No, assurance is the result of regeneration, justification by faith alone, the positional and progressive sanctification of the believer, and a solid knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures (John 17:17; 1 John 5:13). In order to examine ourselves we would need to compare the information in the Bible with our propositional understanding of ourselves and our assent to that information and our obedience to that information. If knowledge that we are saved is impossible, as Robbins and Gerety contend, then it would also be impossible to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith or to prepare for communion. (2 Corinthians 13:5; 1 Corinthians 11:28). Furthermore, it would be impossible to make our election and calling sure if we can know nothing of ourselves or compare that information with the information in the Scriptures. (2 Peter 2:10). Assurance is therefore not a feeling of confidence or an emotional response. It is a logical deduction made from self examination of the propositions one knows about one’s self and how that lines up with Scripture. After all, it is the moral law of God that reveals us to be sinners in the first place. (Romans 3:20; Romans 7:7). Now if I can know that I am a sinner from the law of God, surely I can know if I have believed the promises of the covenant of grace and the justification merited by Christ in His sinless life and His atoning death on the cross for all the sins of all the elect from the beginning of time to the end of time.

18 "Known to God from eternity are all His works. 19 "Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, 20 "but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. (Act 15:18-20 NKJ)

Sean Gerety ought to know better than to appeal to feelings rather than to the logical system of theology and propositional truths of the inspired Scriptures. [See: Assurance and Knowledge]. This is where Gerety stupidly makes this opening remark:

Having assurance of one’s salvation is not the same as knowing that one is saved. I am not really sure why this is difficult for some people to grasp, but even some calling themselves “Scripturalists” have a hard time telling the difference.

So for those still confused, assurance of salvation means to be free from doubt. It is to possess a confidence derived from the promises of God and the finished work of Christ outside of ourselves revealed in the Gospel. (Ibid.).

Is not being free from doubt a form of knowledge? The blatant contradiction here is just too much to let pass without a critical response. Confidence and assurance are not feelings or emotions. Rather they are logical deductions that we make from the information infallibly and inerrantly revealed in the Scriptures. And the Bible clearly says that this is knowledge, not agnostic ignorance.

Heidelberg Catechism:  Day 1

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with 1body and soul, both in life and death, 2am not my own, but belong 3unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with His precious 4blood, hath fully 5satisfied for all my sins, and delivered 6me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me 7that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair 8can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be 9subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me 10of eternal life, and makes 11me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.

Question 2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?

Answer: Three; 12the first, how great 13my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered 14from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude 15to God for such deliverance.

1 1 Cor. 6:19-20

2 Rom. 14:7-9

3 1 Cor. 3:23

4 1 Pet. 1:18-19

5 John 1:7

6 1 John 3:8; Heb. 2:14-15

7 John 6:39; John 10:28-29

8 Luke 21:18; Matt. 10:30

9 Rom. 8:28

10 2 Cor. 1:22; 2 Cor. 5:5

11 Rom. 8:14; Rom. 7:22

12 Luke 24:47

13 1 Cor. 6:10-11; John 9:41; Rom. 3:10, 19

14 John 17:3

15 Eph. 5:8-10;

It would be odd that the Heidelberg Catechism could give such specific information in concise form as to how to know that one is saved and elect of God and yet supposed "Scripturalists" deny that this knowledge of assurance is possible.  Gerety seems to miss this.

Charlie J. Ray

Further Disputations on the Doctrine of Assurance

If now a person wants the basic answer to the question, Why does one man have faith and another not, or, Why does one man accept the Koran and another the Bible, this is it. God causes the one to believe. But if a person asks some other question or raises an objection, he will have to read the argument over again.  -- Dr. Gordon H. Clark

As a continuing comment on the blog post on assurance over at God's Hammer blog, I want to point out that I am not an opponent of Gordon H. Clark's Scripturalism.  In fact I affirm it, though I would qualify that statement by saying that I might disagree with Clark here and there on minor points.  The issue of saving faith as defined by Clark as knowledge plus belief can be controversial because many of the early Reformers asserted that assurance and saving faith were essentially the same thing.  However, they were not always consistent on this point since obviously new believers can and often do struggle for a long time against known habitual sins before they overcome those sins.  Also, as King David in the Bible proves, Christians can and do fall into grievous sins that cause them to question or doubt their salvation.  And this is well deserved since most Reformed churches require discipline such as exclusion from the Lord's table until the person has repented of their sins.  The doctrine of self examination prior to coming to the Lord's table for communion applies here as well.  (1 Corinthians 11:27-29).

As noted in my previous post, Dr. Gordon H. Clark interacted with other Reformed sources in articulating his position on assurance, which he sharply distinguishes from both justification and sanctification.  Since faith must begin somewhere, it logically follows that assurance is not identical to faith.  Faith and assurance must be distinguished on this point for the consequent of faith cannot be identical to it.  This does not mean, however, that every new believer must struggle long and hard for assurance since not everyone is saved from out of grossly and grievously sinful lifestyles.  

Where Sean Gerety and I part ways, however, is that he asserts that it is never possible to know that one is saved.  He is equivocating on the word "know" here because he is speaking from the view point of logic and rationalism.  Technically speaking, from a strictly epistemological and rational perspective, it is not possible to know that one is saved because as fallen human beings we are all affected by the noetic effects of original sin.  It would require that we be infallible interpreters of our own conscience if we based our salvation on our subjective change of mind and behavior.  (Jeremiah 17:9-10).  Unregenerate men, both elect and reprobate, suppress the truth in unrighteousness.  (Romans 1:18-21).  The difference is that the elect will be granted regeneration and faith while the reprobate is unable to believe.  (John 1:13; 3:3-8; 6:44, 65; Matthew 22:14).  Furthermore, knowledge of our salvation is possible according to the Bible (1 John 5:13).  Whether this knowledge is infallibly understood is another issue.

Furthermore, we are not only imputed with the guilt of Adam's original sin but we also inherit a sinful soul from our parents.  Dr. Clark affirmed the traducian view of the transmission of the sinful nature from one generation to the next; but, he also affirmed the basis for this curse that is imputed to each new generation and transmitted to the next generation by the soul's being derived spiritually from one's parents is the federal headship of Adam over the whole human race.  (Genesis 3:17-19; Romans 5:12-21; Psalm 51:4-5; Psalm 58:3; Exodus 20:5; Jeremiah 32:18).

But if the Bible says that we can know we are saved, then we can know that we are saved.  That is the point of view of Scripturalism.  The way the Bible is using the word "know" is in regards to knowing the information in the system of logical and propositional revelation in the Bible, believing it, and then obeying it.  Dr. Clark says that assurance is the result of belief and obedience as the two prerequisites to attaining it.  Of course, regeneration precedes faith and obedience; and, according to Dr. Clark, the will does not participate in regeneration, which is monergistic, but the will does cooperate with believing and obeying.  Dr. Clark asserts that sanctification is synergistic but this is not the same synergism that Arminians propose with their doctrines of libertarian free will, conditional election, and prevenient grace.  Rather, Dr. Clark means that even our cooperation is produced by the decrees and providence of God.  (Philippians 2:12-13; Proverbs 21:1).

Dr. Clark further disagreed with William Cunningham's approval of assurance as coextensive with faith as a "state of mind" that includes "a necessary constituent element" of assurance or trust:

Other proofs might be adduced that the Reformers, when judged of as they should be, by a deliberate and conjunct view of all they have said upon the subject, did not carry their doctrine of assurance to such extremes as we might be warranted in ascribing to them because of some of their more formal statements, intended to tell upon their controversies with Romanists regarding this matter. And more than this, the real difference between the Reformers and the Romanists upon the subject of assurance, when calmly and deliberately investigated, was not quite so important as the combatants on either side imagined, and did not -really respect the precise questions which persons imperfectly acquainted with the works on both sides might naturally enough regard it as involving. 


With respect to the nature of saving faith the principal ground of controversy was this, that the Romanists held that it had its seat in the intellect, and was properly and fundamentally assent (assensus); while the Reformers in general maintained that it had its seat in the will, and was properly and essentially trust (fiducia). The great majority of eminent Protestant divines have adhered to the views of the Reformers upon this point, though some have taken the opposite side, and have held faith, properly so called, to be the mere assent of the understanding to truth propounded by God in His word; while they represent trust and other graces as the fruits or consequences, and not as constituent parts and elements, of faith. This controversy cannot be held to be of very great importance, so long as the advocates of the position, that faith is in itself the simple belief of the truth, admit that true faith necessarily and invariably produces trust and other graces, - an admission which is cheerfully made by all the Protestant defenders of this view, and which its Popish advocates, though refusing in words, are obliged to make in substance in another form. There is an appearance of greater simplicity and metaphysical accuracy in representing faith as in itself a mere assent to truth, and trust and other graces as its necessary consequences. But the right question is, What is the meaning attached in Scripture to the faith which justifies and saves? Upon this question we agree with the Reformers in thinking, that in Scripture usage faith is applied, in its highest and most important sense, only to a state of mind of which trust in Christ as a Saviour is a necessary constituent element.


William Cunningham (0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00). The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation (Kindle Locations 2123-2140). Monergism. Kindle Edition. 

[Cunningham's book can be downloaded for free at Monergism.com by clicking here].

Clark disagreed with Cunningham's analysis and opted for faith as knowledge plus assent.  The idea that assurance is a necessary consequence of saving faith also seems to be Clark's view, though he insists on justification which has as its purpose a resulting sanctification.  That sanctification necessarily and consequently results in a change in one's habitual thinking and acting.  The purpose of justification is a resulting sanctification, which in turn produces assurance in the face of one's struggles against sin.  When pushed, however, that we can never be sure if we have enough obedience and knowledge to attain this assurance from the propositions of the infallible Scriptures and how our self examination matches up to that standard, Clark concedes that he agrees with Luther after all.

Perhaps someone will say that it is wrong to seek for a method of achieving assurance. It is a gift of God, we cannot earn it; there is nothing for us to do except to hope that God favors us. Well, it is true that assurance, like faith, is a gift of God, but though regeneration and faith can have no preparation on our part, assurance or at least sanctification requires certain actions by us. Perhaps method is not the proper term, but John tells us that “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” The usual exegesis of “these things” that John wrote is that faith, love, and obedience, while they do not automatically produce assurance, are nonetheless requirements for being a candidate, so to speak, to receive it. Actually love is one form of obedience, since it is commanded, and hence belief and overt obedience are the two prerequisites.

There is, however, a difficulty. It is the same one Luther struggled with before he discovered the doctrine of justification. In Romanism he was supposed to earn his salvation by good works, penance, flagellation, and various monkish practices. But, being very sincere, he was troubled because he could never be sure that he had done enough. A similar difficulty arises here. If we wish to distinguish a valid assurance from a false assurance, how can we know that we have a sufficient theological knowledge and a sufficient degree of obedience to have met the requirements? Do we love deeply enough? Have we satisfied John’s criteria? Is there any devotional writer who has forthrightly faced this problem? It is hard to believe that none of them has thought of it. If as previously stated, Louis Berkhof’s temporary faith can last a lifetime, how can the true be identified in contrast with the false?

Gordon H. Clark (2013-03-04T05:00:00+00:00). What Is The Christian Life? (Kindle Locations 754-768). The Trinity Foundation. Kindle Edition.

So it is absolutely wrong for Sean Gerety to agree with William Cunningham's P1 and P2 syllogism while ignoring the complete argument by Dr. Clark.   Here is the relevant quote from Cunningham:

The Reformers, in order to show that the assurance which might be attained without either a special revelation or the testimony of the church was full and perfect, were led to identify it with our belief in the doctrines of God’s word, and to represent it as necessarily included or implied in the act or exercise of justifying and saving faith; nay, even sometimes to give it as the very definition of saving faith, that it is a belief that our own sins have been forgiven, and that we have been brought into a state of grace. This seemed to be an obvious and ready method of giving to the belief of our personal safety for eternity the very highest degree of certainty, and hence many of the Reformers were tempted to adopt it.

This view was certainly exaggerated and erroneous. It is very evident that no man can be legitimately assured of his own salvation simply by understanding and believing what is contained or implied in the actual statements of Scripture. Some additional element of a different kind must be brought in, in order to warrant such an assurance; something in the state or condition of the man himself must be in some way ascertained and known in order to this result. It may not, indeed, always require any lengthened or elaborate process of self-examination to ascertain what is needful to be known about men themselves, in order to their being assured that they have been brought into a state of grace. The circumstances that preceded and accompanied their conversion may have been such as to leave them in no doubt about their having passed from darkness to light. Their present consciousness may testify at once and explicitly to the existence in them of those things which the Bible informs us accompany salvation. But still it is true, that another element than anything contained in Scripture must be brought in as a part of the foundation of their assurance. And when they are called upon to state and vindicate to themselves or to others the grounds of their assurance, they must of necessity proceed in substance in the line of the familiar syllogism, “Whosoever believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved; I believe, and therefore,” etc.

There is no possibility of avoiding in substance some such process as this; and while the major proposition is proved by Scripture, the minor can be established only by some use of materials derived from consciousness and self-examination. There are no positions connected with religion which can be so certain as those which are directly and immediately taught in Scripture, and which are usually said to be believed with the certainty of faith or of divine faith. The introduction of an element, as necessary to the conclusion, derived from a different source, viz. from the knowledge of what we ourselves are, must be admitted in fairness to complicate the evidence, and to affect the kind if not the degree of the certainty or assurance that may result from it. It is unwarrantable to give as the definition of saving faith, the belief that my sins are forgiven; for it is not true that my sins are forgiven until I believe, and it holds true universally, that God requires us to believe nothing which is not true before we believe it, and which may not be propounded to us to be believed, accompanied at the same time with satisfactory evidence of its truth; and if so, the belief that our sins are forgiven, and that we have been brought into a state of grace, must be posterior in the order of nature,

William Cunningham (0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00). The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation (Kindle Locations 2058-2082). Monergism. Kindle Edition.

Clark agreed with the distinction between P1 and P2.  But his answer to the problem was sanctification.  Sanctification is based on the knowledge of Scripture (John 17:17).   If there is a total disconnect between an intellectual apprehension, understanding of the information in Scripture and one's personal knowledge of himself--as Sean Gerety proposes--then it is impossible to know if one is sanctified or not.  It would further be pointless to examine one's self prior to communion because one cannot know anything whatsoever about one's self.  Worse, as Dr. Clark finally admits above, even conceding that belief and obedience are necessary prerequisites for assurance, how would one know if one has known enough of the information in the Bible to attain saving faith or obeyed enough of the commands in the Bible to attain to an acceptable level in the process of sanctification?  Sanctification lasts a lifetime.  (Philippians 3:13-16).  So if we take Sean Gerety's skeptical point of view, the entire epistemological system espoused by Dr. Gordon H. Clark's Scripturalism collapses.  The necessary consequence is therefore agnosticism.

Even Dr. Clark admitted that his view has a problem.  How do you know if you have believed enough or obeyed enough to have assurance?  In the end, Clark had to admit that both Luther and Calvin were right in regards to justification.  Justification by faith alone is the root and ground of assurance, though it is not inseparably connected with or coextensive with assurance.  While the purpose of justification is to produce sanctification and assurance, this assurance would be absolutely impossible without the doctrine of justification by faith alone.  Though faith and assurance are not inseparably connected, they are intimately related and assurance could not be possible whatsoever without justification by faith alone and by the doctrine of saving faith, which Dr. Clark defined as notitia (knowledge) plus assensus (belief).  (See:  Gordon H. Clark, "Saving Faith," December 1979, Trinity Review).

When the rubber meets the road, then, assurance is a necessary consequence of saving faith somewhere in the system.  This is where Gerety gets it wrong.  He thinks that particular points are in isolation from other points and in his blog posts Gerety fails to place his remarks within the context of the system of theology in Scripture and summarized by the Westminster Standards.

Dr. Clark contended that the Westminster Confession was slightly off when it says that the elect believer can have an "infallible assurance" of salvation because a subjective assurance is not infallible.  Only Scripture is an infallible revelation from God, not one's subjective apprehension of it.  Also, assurance needs no extra-biblical revelation from God as the papists and the Catabaptists contended.

There is, however, an additional problem that Dr. Clark never addresses.  If there is no additional special revelation, how would regeneration produce faith in the Bible?  According to Dr. Clark, in the end the only way a person can know the Bible is the Word of God and not the Koran is by regeneration:

All of this, naturally, depends on the acceptance of Biblical revelation. The secularists will have none of it. How can you prove, they ask, that the Bible is a divine revelation? Well, of course, a Dogmatist does not try to prove it. The question ignores the preceding argument concerning skepticism, first principles, and suicide. There is, however, another question that secularists can ask and do. It is not an impertinent question. It raises an important issue, the answer to which helps to clarify the dogmatic position. The question is: Granted that one must choose a first indemonstrable principle, how does one decide between two incompatible principles? . . .

. . . The religious form of this philosophical question, the form that occurs in many a volume on religious types, the question hardly anyone fails to ask, is, "Since several religions and several documents claim to be divinely revealed, how does one choose the Bible rather than the Koran?" This question properly understood and seriously put is not impertinent, as the first one was. Sometimes the difference is not understood, in which case it is taken as an objection to Dogmatism. But it is not an objection. Nor should it be directed against Dogmatism alone. Every non-skeptical position, as was made clear earlier, must have a first principle. Rationalists are well aware of this; Empiricists usually ignore or deny it and claim presuppositionless objectivity. But it applies to them with equal force. They too must answer why they assign so basic a position to sensation. Hence there is a perfectly legitimate question, applicable to all types of philosophy, concerning the choice of a first principle.

Dogmatic Christianity has its answer, a clear-cut answer, to this impressive question.  . . .

Gordon H. Clark (2013-08-12T04:00:00+00:00). Three Types of Religious Philosophy (Kindle Locations 1922-1938). Kindle Edition.

Even the Lutheran evidentialist John Warwick Montgomery questions Dr. Clark's Dogmatism with this silly question:

Rejecting this as “fuddled reasoning,” Professor Montgomery, among other things, asks, “How would the presuppositionalist distinguish the Bible he claims to start with a priori from Playboy magazine?”

Gordon H. Clark (2013-08-12T04:00:00+00:00). Three Types of Religious Philosophy (Kindle Locations 2004-2005). Kindle Edition.


And what is Dr. Clark's answer?  I will not quote the rest of his response.  You can read the book yourself by purchasing it at the Trinity Foundation in either paperback or e-book format.  Here is his clincher or zinger:

What now is the question to be answered? It is not, Shall we choose? Or, is it permissible to choose? We must choose; since we are alive we have chosen – either a dogmatic principle or empirical insanity. The question therefore, urged by atheist, evangelical Christian, and evangelistic Moslem, is, Why does anyone choose the Bible rather than the Koran? The answer to this question will also explain how a Christian can present the Gospel to a non-Christian without depending on any logically common proposition in their two systems.

Since all possible knowledge must be contained within the system and deduced from its principles, the dogmatic answer must be found in the Bible itself. The answer is that faith is the gift of God. As Psalm 65:4 says, God chooses a man and causes him to accept Christian Dogmatism. Conversely, the Apostle John informs us that the Pharisees could not believe because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.  [John 12:39-40; John 10:26].

The initiation of spiritual life, called regeneration, is the immediate work of the Holy Spirit. It is not produced by Abrahamic blood, nor by natural desire, nor by any act of human will. In particular, it is not produced by arguments based on secular and empirical presuppositions. Even if there were a common truth in secularism and Christianity, arguments based on it would not produce faith. What empirical evangelicals think is most necessary, is most useless.

Gordon H. Clark (2013-08-12T04:00:00+00:00). Three Types of Religious Philosophy (Kindle Locations 2130-2140). Kindle Edition.

Clark goes on to say that there is no common ground with the unbeliever.  Reason or logic standing alone is rationalism and rationalism, according to Dr. Clark, always leads to skepticism.  Gerety's error, then is rationalism, and rejecting Clark's Dogmatism as the source for defining the doctrine of assurance.  That is because faith itself is impossible without regeneration:

Even the preaching of the Gospel does not produce faith. However, the preaching of the Gospel does one thing that a fallacious argument from a non-existent common ground cannot do: It provides the propositions that must be believed.

But the belief comes from God: God causes a man to believe; faith is a divine gift. In evangelistic work there can be no appeal to secular, non-Christian material. There is an appeal – it is the appeal of prayer to the Holy Spirit to cause the sinner to accept the truths of the Gospel. Any other appeal is useless.

If now a person wants the basic answer to the question, Why does one man have faith and another not, or, Why does one man accept the Koran and another the Bible, this is it. God causes the one to believe. But if a person asks some other question or raises an objection, he will have to read the argument over again.

Gordon H. Clark (2013-08-12T04:00:00+00:00). Three Types of Religious Philosophy (Kindle Locations 2140-2146). Kindle Edition.

The difficulty here is not that I disagree with Clark's conclusion.  The difficulty is that regeneration is something different from the information in the Bible.  It is not something caused by knowledge.  Assent to the information in the Bible can only be caused by a subjective change in the mind of the person and this change, like sanctification and assurance, is caused by God in the mind or soul of the elect person.  (Titus 3:5; John 3:3-8).  So following the logic of Sean Gerety, if it is impossible to know one is saved, then he is in disagreement with the doctrine of regeneration and with the doctrine of justifying faith.  He is also in disagreement with the doctrine of sanctification and with the doctrine of assurance.  The system of doctrine in the Bible must be accepted as the whole counsel of God.  (Acts 20:27).  Regeneration would appear to be a form of special revelation directly given to the individually elect person, namely that the mind of the elect person is given regeneration and the illumination of the Scriptures so that he or she is enabled to believe that information, be justified, sanctified and obtain a consequent assurance of salvation.

6.      The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men. (2 Tim. 3:15–17, Gal. 1:8–9, 2 Thess. 2:2) Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: (John 6:45, 1 Cor 2:9–12) . . .

Chapter 1, Of the Holy Scriptures.

The Westminster confession of faith. (1996). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

And finally, against Gerety's implied view that every elect person must always struggle long and hard to obtain assurance of salvation, the Westminster Larger Catechism puts that to rest:

Question 80

Can true believers be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and that they shall persevere therein unto salvation?

Such as truly believe in Christ, and endeavour to walk in all good conscience before him, (1 John 2:3) may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of God’ s promises, and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, (1 Cor. 2:12, 1 John 3:14,18–19,21,24, 1 John 4:13,16, Heb. 6:11–12) and bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God, (Rom. 8:16) be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and shall persevere therein unto salvation. (1 John 5:13)


The Westminster larger catechism: with scripture proofs. (1996). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Notice that there are conditional results of saving faith prerequisite to attaining an "infallible" assurance.   Election itself is unconditional and is the result of God's eternal and unchanging decrees.  But in the temporal order of the falling out of the decrees according to God's providence, there are conditions that are met by God's irresistible graces in the mind and soul of the elect.  Is it impossible for God to grant an infallible assurance?  If so, then maybe it is impossible for God to regenerate the elect as well?  The infallible assurance is based on the infallible promises of God and the self examination of the elect person as to how his or her thoughts, words and deeds line up with the revealed propositions and commands in the Holy Scriptures.  This question and answer follows immediately after Question 79 dealing with the possibility that elect persons can fall into sin yet are not lost.  Even perseverance does not depend upon the will of the elect because it is God who causes them to persevere.  (See WCF 17:2).

Not everyone has this infallible assurance but that is not to say that everyone must struggle with assurance from their initial conversion.   (See WLC 81).  As stated above, Dr. Clark disagreed with the WCF and WLC on the issue of an infallible assurance.  But since WCF 80 and the 18th chapter of the WCF adequately explain this assurance as being conditioned on saving faith and self examination, it follows that Dr. Clark's concerns are inconsistent with his views on regeneration and illumination as stated in WCF 1:6.  Rejecting extraordinary revelation as the basis for assurance does not entail rejecting infallible assurance since both regeneration and illumination cannot be information in the Bible either.  It is interesting that Dr. Clark only refers to WCF chapter 18 and never mentions question 80 in the WLC. This is the problem Clark never addressed; so as I see it, Dr. Clark was inconsistent in rejecting infallible assurance while accepting regeneration and illumination. And, worse, some of Clark's followers have gone way beyond what Clark intended and have instead opted for an implicit agnosticism which Clark himself rejected on the basis of Dogmatism and regeneration.  So concludes my rambling response to Sean Gerety.

Charlie J. Ray, M. Div.

As proof that Sean Gerety accepts assurance as an emotion or feeling of confidence and not a logical deduction made from Scripture in regards to how your life lines up with the commands of obedience in the Bible, you can read this irrational piece:  Assurance and Knowledge.