ANNOUNCER: Can you know with full assurance that you belong to the Lord, that you are eternally saved? Let’s talk about it today here on Grace in Focus. So glad you’ve joined us today, friend. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. You can find us online at faithalone.org. Lots of information, lots of things to learn about us there. Including our subscription-free magazine also called Grace in Focus. It is free as long as you live in the 48 contiguous United States. Otherwise, you only have to pay the postage. And after that, you can receive it free anywhere. A beautiful magazine, great articles, full links. You will enjoy it. We want you to have it. Sign up today at faithalone.org. 

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

SAM: All right, everybody, we’re in part five now. This is probably the last episode we’ll do on this mini series we’ve done talking about a YouTube video called Free Grace vs. Lordship from Smart Christians channel. Encourage you to listen to the previous episodes to get the full context and go check out his video so you can see what he says. 

But the last thing I want to hit on here, we talked about it a little bit early on and he doesn’t mention it at all in his video. I think he’s done a good job of presenting a very rudimentary Free Grace position on specific verses, but he kind of misses one of the overall reasons why this is so important for people here and now. Really, he misses two things. He doesn’t mention rewards at all, but I don’t know if we’ll really have time to get into that here. But the big hole in what he’s talking about, if he really wants to give accurate interpretation of Free Grace is he doesn’t mention assurance. He completely foregoes talking about assurance and it’s importance on the believer. Not just the fact that you’re saved once and for all and it can never be taken away from you, but how does that change a believer’s life knowing that? 

BOB: Yeah, that’s a good point. So how does a person know, how do I know that I’m born again? The last show we talked about how he would say when he looked at someone else, how did he know if someone else was born again? But what about me myself? How do I know I’m born again? And then if I do, what impact does that have on me? 

The Free Grace position is somewhat divided on this issue. We call our position the focused Free Grace position in light of “keep grace in focus.” And then there’s another position which has been called the flexible Free Grace position. According to the focused Free Grace position, until a person has assurance that he has saved once and for all, until a person has assurance that he has everlasting life that can never be lost, simply by faith in Christ, until that point the person is not yet born again. 

The people in the flexible Free Grace camp would say, no, no, assurance of your eternal destiny is a blessing that can come to you but is part of sanctification. And they say what you need to believe to be born again is not that by faith in Jesus you have a eternal life, John 3:16 for example, but it’s faith that Jesus is the Son of God or faith that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, or it might be faith that Jesus was sent from God. But the idea is as long as you believe in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, or as long as you believe in His deity or as long as you believe He’s sent from God, then you’re born again, even if you don’t know you’re born again, you’re born again, even if you’ve never been sure of your eternal destiny. I would say no, that’s absolutely wrong. 

And the other question is a little bit different is. how do I know I’m sure? The focused free grace people like us, we would say the only way to know that I have everlasting life is because I continue to believe the promise. 

SAM: Right. If you stop believing, you don’t lose the life that you’ve gained, but you lose the assurance of that life and that can have negative consequences on a believer.

BOB: Absolutely. So let’s say I am convinced that John 3:16 is true and I know I’m saved forever, and then I go to seminary and I’m taught, let’s say Calvinism. Well, it doesn’t take long before a person can lose their assurance. They’re still born again, but they’ve lost it. If they go to a school that teaches you can lose your salvation, it’s quite possible that after a period of time, they’re going to lose their assurance. Why? Because they stop believing what the Scriptures say. 

SAM: Well, and that’s where I want to go with this, the logical progression of the kind of theology that he is teaching, he says, you know, you’re saved by grace through faith and it’s not works. I’ll give it to him. He doesn’t really believe that, if he believes you have to continue working afterwards to prove it, but okay, regeneration, the moment you’re born again, that’s by grace through faith, not related to works. So in this sense, we agree on that, but he backloads, we don’t backload. That’s where the conflict there arises.

But then, okay, the next question is, you already answered, how do we have assurance that we’re saved and it’s by continuing to believe that promise. As long as you believe, why would I start to question whether I’m going to go to heaven or not or be on the new earth? But for him, it’s a very different line of reasoning, because if I say I believe in Jesus and because I believe in Jesus, I’m going to continue in faith and good works till the end of my life, my assurance is now based on myself. And these people will say, no, it’s based on God, when you’re sealed by the Holy Spirit, that means you can never fall away. You never will. Okay, that sounds great on paper, but let’s have an example of a person. Let’s say you’ve got a person grew up not Christian, someone evangelized them. They use John 3:16, he believes in Christ or everlasting life, and then someone tells him, okay, now that you’re a Christian, you’re going to live a good life. You’re going to be righteous. You’re going to pray. You’re going to take care of people. You’re going to give money to poor people. You’re going to do all these things. And then he’s like, okay, sure. And then like a year later, he’s not doing those things anymore. Maybe he’s gambling or drinking or letting a habit take control of his life. He’s going to start to question, man, I really thought I believed John 3:16, but I guess I never really believed, I was never saved. 

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SAM: The other question there is, how much? How much sin do I have to commit before I’ve proven that I was never saved to begin with? It’s a human subjective standard determining what level of sin or righteousness you have to maintain either to gain final salvation or to prove you were saved to begin with. 

BOB: Yeah, and Sam, have you ever heard the expression full assurance? Okay, people like this Smart Christian will talk about having assurance, and then they will talk about full assurance. Now, I realize he doesn’t talk about either one on this particular video, but I bet if we looked at all of his videos, he’d have videos on assurance and full assurance. 

Well, coming back to flexible free grace, I was talking about earlier, they have two different ways to have assurance. The first way is by works. And so they say when you first come to faith in Christ, maybe you believe He died and rose again, if you haven’t yet believed the promise of eternal life, which for them is a sanctification issue, how do you have assurance? They say, well, you look to your works, they call that assurance. They say later on, you can come to believe the promise of eternal life. They call that full assurance. What we say is that assurance is certainty and it can’t get any fuller than certainty. Assurance is another name for belief. If I believe I have eternal life, I’m assured I have eternal life. It can’t get any fuller than that. 

And so what I would say is, look, don’t look to your works at all. Some people would say, like I bet this Smart Christian might say, well, look to your works. And he would probably say also look to your feelings. Do you feel like a Christian? Well, the problem is both feelings and works are highly subjective. And they can’t give us assurance. What gives us assurance is Jesus’ promise that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but has everlasting life. We used to sing this song, “Whosoever Surely Meanetg Me,” based on John 3:16. I love that song. Isn’t that true? That’s how I have assurance because who soever surely meaneth me? 

I’m concerned for this guy who is called the Smart Christian. He obviously doesn’t have assurance of his eternal destiny. Hopefully he believed in Christ and His promise of eternal life at some point in the past. But if not, he’s not even yet born again and yet he’s trying to teach people how they can follow Christ, how they can know they’re a believer, et cetera. 

SAM: Yeah. And he makes a statement in the video, like here’s what Free Grace says, and then he’s going to explain why it’s wrong. But he makes the sort of a statement where he says, these people will say, faith in the wrong thing is not sufficient for everlasting life, or he didn’t say everlasting life. But then he says, but they will say that faith without works is sufficient. And he presents this as like kind of a gotcha or like a look at how ridiculous this argument is. But that’s exactly right. He’s summed it up pretty perfectly in those two statements. Faith in the wrong thing is not sufficient. If you don’t believe in Christ for everlasting life, then you’re not a believer. That’s what it means to be a believer, is to believe. And it doesn’t mean believe just anything. It means to believe the promise that He made. And then faith without works is sufficient because he never said what works were required. There’s no condition placed on what He promised in the Gospel of John. 

BOB: Yeah. But the other thing is when he was discussing Ephesians 2:8-9, he said it’s not of works, without works. So at the moment I’m born again, no works play any part whatsoever in me having everlasting life. Isaiah 64:6, all of our righteousness are as filthy rags? Sure, we have righteous deeds, but they give us no merit with God. 

SAM: And that’s the problem with what he’s presenting is that the moment of belief, if I were evangelizing somebody, I share John 3:16 with them and they say, I get it. That makes sense. I believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life. I can’t know whether they’re a believer or not until they do something good. I need them to—

BOB: Under his system. 

SAM: Yes, I need them to immediately run and help an old lady across the road or go give all their money away or something. Otherwise, I’m not going to know that they’re saved because they believed it. But how do I know if they really believed it? If you came to faith, you believed in Christ for everlasting life, how can you ever know if it was genuine until you die? Because at any moment, you could be well, I’m continuing good works for now, but maybe I’ll fall away. But people never say that about themselves, but they’re quick to say it about other people. 

BOB: That’s so right. Look to Jesus and his promise in John 3:16 and you have certainly have assurance. Look to yourself and you’re guaranteed to not have assurance. 

So, thanks so much, y’all. I hope you enjoyed this discussion. If you get a chance, check out the Smart Christian channel discussion of Free Grace versus Lordship. 

In the meantime, keep grace in focus. 

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