Just Preaching Jesus Doesn’t Produce Assurance

Imagine two  scenarios: In the first, there is a pastor who preaches Jesus. His sermons focus around Christ and his work on the cross. They focus on what he did to save us and redeem us. This preacher looks for Jesus in every text, even the Old Testament ones. The primary application to every one of his sermons is “Trust in Christ” or some derivation of that particular point. He does not normally exhort men to be obedient. He thinks this will lead them to trust in themselves instead of Christ.  He does not preach against gossip or lying. He sticks to what Jesus has done and assumes that this is enough.

The second man also preaches Jesus. But he believes preaching Christ does not mean preaching only what Jesus has done upon the cross, but how we should live because of what Jesus has done. He does not believe calling his flock to live obediently will necessarily lead to legalism.  So he preaches the crucifixion as the only hope of mankind. But also preaches against gossip, lying, sexual immorality, pride, wrath, laziness and a host of other sins. He reminds his people that Christ has conquered these sins and that because they trust in him they are to be a new kind of people who are killing sin in their lives by the power of the Spirit.

Under which man’s preaching is a Christian more likely to gain assurance? Under which man’s preaching is a man who does not have true faith, most likely to recognize his need for evangelical repentance? We automatically assume the first. The man who points us to Jesus is the man most likely to provide assurance and the motivation for true repentance. However, I want to argue that this is not the case.

A Christian, who really wants to follow Christ, will be hounded by doubts under the first man’s preaching. He constantly be asking himself, “Do I really trust in Christ? Do I have true faith? Am I really saved?  Yes, there is the inward testimony of the Spirit. But what if I don’t really have Him? Under the first man’s preaching there is no objective way to assess one’s salvation.

This is also why a man who is part of a  church, but not truly converted can sit under the first man’s ministry for years and never know he is not a Christian. Why? He believes he is a Christian. He believes he trusts in Christ. And there is no objective way to prove otherwise. He can sit there week after week and say, “Yes, I really do trust in Christ.”

Under the second type of preaching both of these men go the opposite direction. The true believer, the one with evangelical faith, begins to put off sins like pride and lust and gossip. He messes up and repents and then gets back in the fight. But he is not fighting in his own strength. He is fighting with the Spirit. He knows he will not be perfect, but because objective ways of evaluating growth are put before him, he can see where he is at.  He can look back and see the Spirit’s work in his life. This together with Christ’s work, the sacraments, the witness of his fellow believers, and the internal testimony of the Spirit give him assurance that he is saved.

What about the false believer, the one who thinks he belongs but really does not have true faith? How will he respond under the second man’s preaching? Let’s say the man is a liar. When the second preacher says, “Men whose lives are characterized by lying do not have true faith,” the line will be clearly drawn in the sand. This false convert has three choices:

He may go out and try to improve his life, but devoid of the Spirit he will fail.

He may realize he does not have true faith and cry out to Christ to forgive his sins and give him strength to overcome them.

Or he may realize he does not have true faith and leave the church.

But the one thing he cannot do is pretend like he can trust in Christ and yet keep lying. The second preacher has made it clear that these two things are incompatible.

Every time the shalls and shall nots are preached correctly they bring proper motivation to the Christian’s obedience and give him a chance for assurance. They also pull out of hiding hypocrites and put them in front of a mirror so they can see who they really are. Assurance does not come from simply pointing to the objective work of  Jesus, but it also comes from seeing the subjective work of Jesus in our lives. The evangelical preacher puts both of these before his congregation.<>рассылка на доски объявленийпроверить по запросам