ANNOUNCER: What would you say is the definition of assurance of salvation?Calvinists, Arminians, and Free Grace people have different definitions? We’ll explore that today on Grace In Focus. Grace In Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is FaithAlone.org. We have a magazine called Grace In Focus. It is full-length, full-size, great articles, great color. You will enjoy this magazine and we want you to have it for free. All we need is your snail mail address. And the only exception to free is that if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States, you need to pay the postage. And you can get signed up for it today at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Bob Vacendak. 

BOB W: Now Bob, we’re talking about your dissertation on assurance being of the essence of saving faith. We’ve come to the section dealing with the definition of assurance within three Protestant groups. What do Calvinists say? How do they define assurance? How do Arminians define assurance? And how do focused Free Grace people define assurance? So where did you start off when you were discussing the definition of assurance? 

BOB V: Well, when I started off, I talked about the idea of promise. One of the Scriptures that I went to was 1 John 2:25, “This is the promise He has promised us—eternal life.” 

BOB W: Now that’s a kind of a cryptic statement, but it’s very powerful because the false teachers, they were trying to take away the assurance of the readers. That’s what 1 John 2:24 and 25 is saying, right? “This is the promise He has promised.” I love that repetition of promise—everlasting life. 

BOB V: Yes. And of course, we hold that the apostle John was the one who wrote 1, 2, 3 John and the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. So when John is saying, “This is the promise He has promised us,” undoubtedly he’s alluding back to his Gospel, pointing to numerous promises of Jesus that are crystal clear about assurance and eternal life. So we have that there at the beginning of this chapter. 

And also we point out that people generally fall into two different categories. Even the Arminians and Calvinists can be lumped into this one category, which in my dissertation, I call partial assurance. 

BOB W: Now that sounds like being partially pregnant or something. What is partial assurance? 

BOB V: Well, neither Calvinists nor Arminians believe that a person can have absolute assurance, which is, by the way, the other view of assurance is the view Free Grace people hold. We believe that people can be absolutely sure of their eternal life, that they can have 100% certainty now. 

BOB W: But not only that they can, but at the moment of saving faith, they do have it, because if they don’t, then they’ve not yet believed the promise which He has promised us 1 John 2:25. 

BOB V: Exactly. A person who has never had 100% certainty that they’ll be with God forever, has not yet either understood God’s promise or has not believed it. 

BOB W: Okay. Now you raise another issue when you talk about 100% certainty, because in my view, and I’ve used that language too, because in postmodern thought, there’s certainty, and then there’s absolute certainty. And so in postmodern thought, there’s kind of this spectrum of belief on a scale of, let’s say, plus 10 to plus one, and they would say, where are you on this spectrum? Certainty might be nine, but absolute certainty would be 10 or something. Wouldn’t you agree that certainty is certainty? Once you’re certain, there’s nothing beyond that. There’s no hyper-certainty. 

BOB V: That’s correct. You know, it’s only philosophers or theologians. You go to the average guy on the street, he knows what you’re talking about, but only philosophers or academics couldn’t say something like, are you at nine or a 10 on certainty?  And the guy on the street, what are you talking about?

BOB W: So basically, it’s like, do you believe two plus two is four? Well, I either believe that, or I don’t believe that. The same thing is true when it comes to assurance of everlasting life, but that’s not what Calvinists and Arminians say. You say, essentially, they hold the same view. Partial assurance is less than certainty, but it’s more than absolute doubt. It’s somewhere in limbo, like, I hope I’m going to go to heaven when I die, and I hope I’ll be raptured and then be in the kingdom to come. But it’s not, I’m sure of that. 

BOB V: In fact, what you brought up two plus two is four, and one of the people that I wrote about, which was R.C. Sproul, he said that, oh, we’re not talking about mathematical certainty here. That’s a direct quote of his. 

ANNOUNCER: The Grace Evangelical Society’s recently published Old Testament Commentary, Volume One is now available. Find it at faithalone.org/store. It’s where you can also find Bob Wilkin’s latest book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, as well as many other titles by Grace Evangelical Society authors. Please come by and have a look today. You’ll find the GES store at our website, faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s topic.

BOB V: And so what we’ve got here, it’s very interesting. Craig Keener, who’s Arminian, I’ve got a quote in this chapter where he says, something along these lines, that even though Calvinists and Arminians will disagree about different issues, they have one thing in common, and that is, no one can be absolutely sure until they die. 

R.C. Sproul, one time, was giving a presentation and he said, if I end up in the lake of fire, just those words right there just blew my doors off. If I end up in the lake of fire, I’m going to be a weeper and not a gnasher. And I’m like, oh my goodness. And here’s a guy, he was kind of like a pope to the Calvinists in America. He had thousands of people coming to hear him every year and read his books and all of that. And yet here’s a man, and an intelligent, very intelligent man. And yet he’s not sure that he’s going to be with Jesus forever. 

BOB W: But within Calvinism, people like those who believe you can be certain are an extremely small percentage, probably less than 1%. So most Calvinists agree with Arminians that we can’t be sure where we’re going until we die. We can have what they call assurance and then they talk about full assurance. But what’s funny is full assurance is not certainty. Whole assurance is just the highest level you can have.

BOB V: Yeah, that’s because you’ve lived say 40 years and you’ve been trying to serve God, trying to honor him. And that’s kind of their gauge, even in Westminster, you know, the fruit of the spirit, one of the three legs of assurance, right? And so you’ve got the fruit of the spirit. You’ve got, the third one was—

BOB W: The inner witness? Some people thought the fruit of the spirit is the inner witness. So those are the same thing. But some of the divines would say, no, there’s the works the Spirit does in us. And then there’s this feeling we have. 

BOB V: And so, you know, they would say, okay, we got God’s word. But then we have to have the fruit of the spirit. But see, they’re on an endless quest to answer an unanswerable question. 

BOB W: And by the way, that’s what Engelsma called it. Engelsma said they’re on this eternal quest. And he said it’s a gospel of doubt. That’s what I love. In fact, I have a book called The Gospel of Doubt, which is basically what lordship salvation is. And I got that from Engelsma. And what’s interesting is Joel Beeke, who wrote his dissertation on the Westminster Confession of Faith, Section 18 on Assurance, he titles his dissertation and his book, The Quest for Full Assurance. So there’s assurance. And then there’s the quest for full assurance. But even full assurance is less than certainty. So it’s really a shell game. 

And I should mention that we’re going to talk about Free Grace people here. Free Grace people are divided as well. Mike Lii has come up with two categories, focused Free Grace and flexible Free Grace. Flexible Free Grace people say you don’t have to believe that the salvation you get is secure. You can believe you get a revocable salvation and you’re still safe. So they disagree that assurance is of the essence of saving faith. Now they would say that they themselves are sure of their salvation, but that’s something they came to after they were born again. And I’ve read among flexible Free Grace people where they will talk about assurance and full assurance. Well, that’s exactly what, of course, Calvinists talk about is assurance and full assurance. And Beeke, you know, the quest for full assurance. 

So it seems to me when we talk about Free Grace, we need to realize there’s two groups. But in your dissertation, when you talk about Free Grace, you’re talking about what Mike Lii would call focused Free Grace. 

BOB V: Correct. 

BOB W: So what’s the focused Free Grace position on assurance? How would it define assurance? 

BOB V: It would define assurance as knowing that you have eternal life because you’ve put your faith in Christ for that eternal life. It’s 100%. It’s what I term absolute assurance.

BOB W: Yeah. So in other words, if a person says, I know Jesus died in the cross for my sins and rose again, I know in that sense he’s the Savior. I’m confident that I’m saved for now. I’m not certain I’m saved for now, but I think I’m saved for now, but I don’t know if I’m going to stay saved. That person is not believing John 3:16. 

BOB V: No, they’re not believing the promise. They’re not believing Christ’s promise.

BOB W: 1 John 2:25, “This is the promise He has promised us—everlasting life.” They don’t believe that yet. So you can have people who are very devout, wonderful, quote unquote, Christians who have not yet come to faith in Christ in the Biblical sense. And, you know, it used to be, I came to faith in 72 and you were few years after that weren’t you? 79. 79. You were at Purdue, I guess at the time. And you ended up going to Hyles-Anderson College and graduating from there and going into the ministry. 

But during that time, it was common for people to talk about having assurance. But for most people, it was not certainty. It was kind of like some degree of confidence. And I know when I came to faith, I was absolutely convinced that I was saved once and for all because the person that evangelized me used Ephesians 2:89. And he kept beating on that drum. And I was like, no, that can’t be true because of James 2. And he’d give some explanation and he’d quote Ephesians 2:89 again. And I’d say, well, what about Hebrews 6? He’d give some explanation, quote it. And finally, after five sessions, I finally got it. It’s not of works. 

BOB V: Right. And you know, I’d bob the same thing happened to me outside the factory where I worked at night, where I welded railroad cars. I was reading this book that a former Catholic priest had written, I grew up in Catholicism. And somewhere between the front and back cover one night behind that factory, I remember telling myself, I’ve believed a lie. What I had believed my whole life was a lie. And I was looking at verse after verse from the Gospel of John. And I said, eternal life is through faith in Christ. And I understood it. And I came back the next night and said, hey, guys, I got saved last night. 

BOB W: Wow. So the definition of assurance, according to most people, is some degree of hope or confidence that maybe I’ll make it. And according to the Bible, it’s a promise that He has promised us and it’s everlasting life and it’s certain to all who believe in Him for that promise. 

Well, thanks, Bob. And thank you all. And remember, keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: how is the assurance of salvation gained? Join us for that. And until then, let’s keep grace in focus.