The Evangelical Universalist Forum

I need some advice...

Practices Christian Living
#1

Hello. I have considered myself a Christian for a good 19 years or so but always struggled with weak faith and lack of assurance. About a year and a half ago I started reading books on universal reconciliation and it really got me hopeful. I am not yet convinced about universal reconciliation but I think hoping that the doctrine is true has really caused me to want to make sure my Christian faith is real.

I have a real struggle understanding the difference between a weak faith, or lack of assurance, with presumption, or a false faith.  I think the Bible teaches both.  How does one ascertain which they have?  I think there is much in the Psalms about God hiding His face from His people.  I never believed faith and assurance were the same thing, and this encouraged me.  But I've wrestled with the question as to whether I am being encouraged in a false faith.  My church's (PCA Presbyterian) confession (Westminster) teaches this:

*CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation.

I. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favour of God, and estate of salvation (which hope of theirs shall perish): yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love Him in sincerity, endeavouring to walk in all good conscience before Him, may, in this life, be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.
II. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.

III. This infallible assurance does 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: 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 thereunto. 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.

IV. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which wounds the conscience and grieves the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God’s withdrawing the light of His countenance, and suffering even such as fear Him to walk in darkness and to have no light: yet are they never so utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may, in due time, be revived; and by the which, in the mean time, they are supported from utter despair.
*
I believe in this. I’m not sure I subscribe to my church’s teaching on eternal hell, but the passage above has given me a lot of comfort in my Christian life, or so-called Christian life. It’s a very different view of assurance than is taught by most modern evangelicals. Almost the opposite view in that modern evangelicals say that you’re not sure you’re saved, or you don’t know a date, you can’t be saved. This is almost saying that if you don’t doubt your salvation at least at one time or another you cannot be saved.

 I want my salvation to be the real kind, not false.  I keep praying that I would not be one of the bad soils in the parable of the sower.  The way I interpret that parable is that the stony ground and thorny hearers aren't really Christians at all.  I often see myself as the man in the parable of the talents who buries his talent because he thinks his Lord is a "hard man."  I don't want to be this way.  I want to bear fruit.  

 So a question I have had for a long time- which I've never been able to get an answer for- is does one have to absolutely know they are not a Christian- that is, do they have to be certain they are a fake "Christian"- before they can become a real Christian?  Or can they kind of "fake it until they make it"?  I mean, does a baby know it's being born?  I know repentance isn't perfect.  But the dilemma I find myself in is that if I truly am a Christian with weak faith, I'm not going to grow if I constantly think I'm not a Christian.  But if I'm not a Christian and I think I can "fake it until I make it" am I just making things worse?  So I go about most of the time trying to "fake it"... and sometimes I pray to God that I'm not a Christian and that He would save me.  It seems like there are two paths I could take: either I say I have weak faith and try to grow or I say I don't really have faith and ask Christ to really save me for the first time.  I'm afraid of taking the wrong path.
#2

Bump.

#3

A Christian is, to put it simply, a follower of Christ. You are doing what you know to follow Him and get to know Him, you’re a Christian. Concerning weak/strong faith, let God judge that and trust in Him. One of the challenges with Calvinism, I think, would be trying to tell if you are part of the elect/saved or not. In like manner, I think one of the challenges of Arminianism is not having a complete assurance of salvation until one is dead and in heaven, because one always has the potential of rejecting God. I’ve found UR to be very liberating because I’ve come to believe that “God saves everyone, even me!” Studying the pro-UR passages filled me with faith in God to save all.

#4

Yes indeed :slight_smile:

#5

To Sherman’s excellent reply, I will add: if we aren’t willing to positively value God’s justice, even if that’s against our sins, and even so far as that goes against us, then at bottom we’re asking or expecting or wanting God to be unjust (even if only in our favor).

That’s admittedly a challenging prospect, but we ought to be striving for it. The alternative will be a secret reservation that we would really prefer God to be finally unjust – and if that’s ‘only’ in our favor, then that’s even worse, that’s cheating.

And a secret reservation for ultimate injustice, is nothing other or less or more than a sin. It’s a rebellion against Justice Himself.

The thing is, so long as we regard God’s justice as being even possibly hopeless in saving a person from sin, we’re always going to be at least strongly tempted to wish that God would be “unjust” for us or for the people we care about.

But if we can get to that point, then we don’t have to worry about being a fake Christian. For one thing, we’ll have removed a major stumbling block in our lives which only results in injustice! For another, we can trust God to put us right, and accept what He does to us even when that’s inconvenient. “Even if He slays me, I still will trust Him.” If we’re somehow a fake Christian anyway, the best thing we can do is resolve ourselves so far against it that we resolve against ourselves in God’s favor, to accept God’s judgment: “the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning” as Isaiah puts it toward the end of the brief chapter 4, which cleans us from our murders, if we accept it.

George MacDonald had some strong things to say about that, too.

#6

To which I will add that I REGULARLY run into non-universalists who don’t only harbor a secret expectation or preference or mere desire that God will be unjust in their favor (and so save them from… whatever, hell, punishment, God Himself, but certainly not from their injustice!)

They explicitly and vocally expect it. They hope for God’s injustice in their favor, maybe in some other people’s favor, too. God’s justice is for those other sinners over there. God’s injustice (on their theory) is for themselves, whether as sinners or as finally righteous (i.e. just) persons.

If I can trust my own memory I can honestly say I never had that problem. But I have heard it all my life, from Christians of all stations, Protestant and Catholic, and I can at least say I think I have always been troubled by it.

And I still hear it today. I’ve heard it in the past week, at least twice.

(I hear it from Christian universalists, too, but much more rarely, for whatever reason. :wink: )

#7

“The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” C.S. Lewis

Damn straight :slight_smile:

#8

If only Lewis had consistently remembered that… :wink:

#9

I think possibly you should delve into the doctrine of repentance Brian1975.

The reason why I say that is that it is a core doctrine that it seems to me we hardly ever hear today and only know it well if we studied theology.

Don’t drive yourself crazy over it. Just investigate it.

Because John Wesley taught me that repentance is mysterious. It is the gift of God and some people get it before baptism and some people receive it after baptism.

Since it is a gift of God, He handles the timing of it but you can always pray to God and ask Him to reveal any question you have or you can start to seek out answers by doing bible topical searches.

There are a lot of tools online to help you research bible questions and when you do that you are developing the mind of Christ more fully.

The more you have the mind of Christ the more you can show the truth to people who don’t have him.