The Measure of a Man

One of the most powerful things in the life of a believer is the ASSURANCE of their Eternal Destiny. The question of what happens after we die has been on the hearts and minds of humanity, seemingly since the dawn of time! What we call religion has stepped in to systematize different versions of 'truth' to explain this crucial question.

One of the issues with the different religious systems is that they all follow the same template. A deity, (or multiple deities in a polytheistic religion), determines access to a peaceful afterlife. Humanity has a gap between itself and that deity. The religious system comes in and creates a pathway to bridge that gap from our current state to acceptance by the given deity and spending eternity with them, (or being reincarnated to the highest level, becoming a god yourself, reaching a state of Nirvana, or whatever the ultimate goal of the afterlife is in each religion).

• In Islam, you must uphold the five pillars

• In Hinduism, you must break the cycle of Karma by good works and meditation

• Buddhist must let go of the 'self' through rigorous discipline

• Scientologist must buy a ton of books and never miss a Tom Cruise movie, (Ok, to be honest, I don't know much about Scientology. It seems insane to me.)

• In Catholicism, you have to perform the sacraments and possibly be prayed out of 'purgatory'

The list goes on and on and while there are semantical differences; ultimately, they are all a system of WORKS. Every single major religion is works-based. The solution to bridging the gap between you and whatever afterlife you are trying to achieve is contingent on your abilities!

This destroys Assurance! You cannot know for sure what your eternal destiny is until you get there. Did you give enough to the poor? Did you reach a deep enough state of meditation? Were there too many sins in your life? Did you accidentally miss Mission Impossible 7 while it was in theaters? (Last Scientology joke... probably.)

Christianity is the ONE religion that breaks the template! It may seem on the surface that Christianity is just another common religion. To be fair, the set up is similar: There is a gap between humankind and God because of our Sin and to achieve the goal of the afterlife, Heaven, we must find a way to bridge that gap. The solution is where Christianity travels down its own extremely unique path!

While every other religion has the works of man as the solution, Christianity admits that humans could NEVER work their way to heaven. Our attempt to bridge the gap between God and us falls incalculably short, landing us in eternity apart from God and all that is good - Hell.

You probably know the next part of the story. Because creation is incapable of working its way to God, God came down to creation. Jesus was born 100% God and 100% man. He alone was uniquely qualified and capable of paying the price for the sins of the world, the very sin that caused a schism between God and us. The death of the only perfect person on the Cross of Calvary made way for all to come to God. The KEY difference is that we do not come to God through our works but by faith alone.

"Sola Fide" was the cry of the Reformation. Faith Alone! By merely believing in Jesus as the Savior who died and rose to save us, we could be confident that, "...all who believe will not perish, but have everlasting life," (John 3:16b).

The distinction between Christianity and every other religion is HUGE! Every system will have its adherents judged someday by a distant, non-relational god based on whether or not the person's works warranted their version of 'heaven.' In Christianity, believers will stand before a loving, personal God and be granted heaven not based on what we have DONE but on who it is we KNOW. Jesus is the only determining factor between Heaven and Hell for the Christian!

Christianity is the only system that offers true Assurance. The other religions cause followers to look to themselves for security, while Christians look not to ourselves, but a rugged cross and an empty tomb! The beauty is that we admit we can not be good enough! God knew that and had a plan to remedy it: He sent the only one who could be perfect to take our place.

Now that we have an overview-level understanding of Assurance, it is time to talk about the imminent threat Reformed Theology poses to this glorious truth. Reformed thinking follows the TULIP of Calvinism. The "P" stands for Perseverance of the Saints. Perseverance is seen as a gift that God gives 'true' believers so that they can carry on in good works until the end of their lives. If a believer falls away from the faith, they are not persevering and therefore were never really 'elected' to be saved in the first place.

Can you see what this does to Assurance? It puts the pressure for our security back on us - robbing Christianity of one of it's MOST unique aspects! Because of this, Reformed theologians must take on the daunting task of answering, "how good is good enough?" Calvinists readily admit that we CANNOT live a perfect life, but at the same time, they measure works to determine the elect.

Wayne Gruden, a Calvinist, says that if you are doing good works, you can have, "some assurance," and f you do even MORE good works, you can have, "some MORE assurance." John Piper admits that he can not say for sure whether or not he is one of the elect until his life ends, (up until death, there is always a chance someone may fall away from the faith). These are not answers! Furthermore, there are not levels to Assurance! By definition, Assurance means COMPLETE confidence. You can not divide something that is complete.

The saddest part is Perseverance, (as understood by Calvinists), is only a necessary belief because of the already misunderstood, misinterpreted belief in what Total Depravity means. Because Calvinists take it as an inability to respond to the gospel, they have to explain why some have believed and some have not - which gets us Unconditional Election. Then, because only some are elect, the reformed version of Jesus is forced to die for just those few elect, offering Limited Atonement. Of course, whoever Jesus died for WILL believe because of the Irresistible Grace he forces upon them.

This Deterministic system now requires some metric. If Jesus only died for some, and those he died for will be saved, AND they played no role in their belief, then how do we know who is 'elect'? The answer is Perseverance. Since it is Jesus who saves you through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit and it is Jesus who does ANY good works in you, your good works are evidence of whether or not Jesus is really a part of you.

I have sat and prayed with young, Reformed men and women believers who were shackled by fear and doubt because they were looking to themselves for Assurance. Their sin was acknowledged, confessed, and they were actively working to overcome. They could not understand why they kept sinning day by day if Jesus had 'chosen' them and was living inside of them. This is a broken system keeping people locked in broken patterns that the Loving Assurance of our God desires to heal.

I pray that those of you who are Calvinist will take an honest look at where this doctrine is found in scripture, IN CONTEXT. ("He who started a good work in you will bring it to completion..." in Philippians is NOT about salvation - it is actually about the monetary gifts they are giving to support Paul's ministry.) I will deal specifically with more problem passages in another post. For now, those who are undecided, allow scripture to speak for itself. View these human-made religious systems and fancy acronyms through the lens of the Bible, NOT the other way around.

I believe that Jesus died for ALL people as the Bible says over and over again. I believe his death was sufficient to give the believer complete Assurance. I believe that Assurance is key to living out the lives we were created to live.

If you don't know the destination, you will always struggle with the directions.