New Christians often struggle with assurance. Maybe that’s you, or someone you know. I have the privilege of serving in college ministry at my church, so I get a front row seat to the nascent faith of freshly converted saints. And often, I see children in Christ wondering whether they were adopted at all. And there’s a reason for that.
In short, Christian assurance takes time.
That’s not to say that conversion takes time. No, the Spirit’s supernatural work of regeneration is instantaneous – see Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40), or the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:25-40). When God changes us from lost sinners into redeemed believers, that takes no time at all. You don’t grow a new heart; you’re given one in a moment (Ezek 36:26).
But once you’re converted, assurance of your salvation does grow stronger over the course of time. You can tell that something has changed – now, you love reading your Bible, and you hate your sin – but you’re unsure of your motives for that change. Is it because of my own willpower? Is this just a superficial clean-up? Or has Christ done a marvelous miracle that has supernaturally produced this change in my very nature? And as you wonder, your assurance wavers. Then, one day you find yourself further down the road of your Christian life looking back with utter confidence and peace, no longer pierced by those same nagging questions. You’ve developed a mature sense of your assurance, but it took some time.
In pastoral ministry, I’ve watched new Christians struggle with assurance, and often because they’ve been told to rest their hopes on their decisions. “If you prayed this prayer,” “if you raised your hand,” “if you really meant it,” they are told, “then you’re a Christian and nobody can tell you otherwise.” In an attempt to bring comfort to these dear saints, these counselors unwittingly anchor assurance to the shifting sands of a momentary choice. And now, when that Christian looks for comfort about their salvation, they look back to a decision that they can’t be sure was real. So they re-dedicate, they re-baptize, and they re-commit their lives to Christ in hopes of finding some firmer ground in the next decision, only to continue with the same questions they’ve always had.
And that’s because assurance takes time.
Why does genuine assurance take time, then, and how do we go about getting it? What kind of counsel should we give new believers when they wonder about their spiritual state? Paul gives us two answers in Romans 5:1-5:
Assurance Rests in the Work of Christ for Us
The key word for Paul in this text is “hope” (v. 2, 4, 5). And you’ve probably heard before that the way the Bible uses this particular word is not like our concept of hope, which is a kind of uncertain, wishful thinking. This hope, according to Paul is a confident expectation, a certain grasp on a glorious future. In particular, it is a “hope in the glory of God,” that one day we will be resurrected and reunited with Christ to share forever his eternal glory.
So, when Paul says, “we rejoice in hope,” he is saying that we take delight in the confident expectation that we are heaven-bound. In other words, hope is assurance.
What, then, is the source of that hope, that sure, settled conviction about our eternity with Christ? The first source, according to Paul, is the peace that Jesus has made between us and God. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is not felt peace, but objective, external peace. The peace we have with God is the opposite of the war that previously existed between us and God. Jesus’ death on the cross, which purchased our justification, changed God from being at war with us to being at peace with us, such that we would have “access by faith into this grace in which we stand.”
God made war on Christ to make peace with you.
Theologians call this the “objective grounds” of our assurance. This is the immovable, fixed reality that all assurance must first be built upon. Without the gospel truth of our justification in Christ and his peace-making with God, there is no salvation to speak of, but only holy warfare against us.
Whenever someone becomes a believer, it is because they have by faith rested in this objective truth, that Christ died for our sins in order to bring us to God (1 Pet 3:18). Their assurance, however, is not in their faith, but in the object of their faith, in the death of Christ on their behalf.
The degree to which one clings to the cross, then, is the degree to which they will they experience assurance in it. That restful grip grows more firm the more one knows Christ. It takes time to deepen our love for, understanding of, and trust in the finished work of Christ on Calvary. The bigger the cross, the stronger our assurance. And that takes time.
Assurance Grows from the Work of Christ in Us
Paul goes on to say that there is a second, subjective aspect of assurance that grows with time, and that is the work of Christ in us confirming our union with him.
The apostle writes, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (v. 4). Why would a Christian be pleased with pain? Because, Paul says, we know that Christ uses that pressure in our lives to demonstrate that as we endure in clinging to Christ through the trial, that endurance results in a kind of proof of the genuineness of faith, what the ESV translates as “character.” The NASB translates this word “proven character,” which captures the sense of Paul’s argument. When you endure in faithfulness to Christ in the midst of suffering, that endurance proves that Christ is at work in you to conform your character to his own, which in turn, Paul says, “produces hope.”
And we know that the proven character that emerges from suffering is a work of God because Paul tells us in the next verse, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The Holy Spirit works in us to show us the glorious love of God so that when we suffer, we only grow more like Christ, rather than retreating from him. Undoubtedly, that is a supernatural work, and one that confirms that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.
Or, consider how Peter describes this same assurance-growing suffering in 1 Peter 1:6-7: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Tested genuineness is what gives the believer greater assurance. When the heat turns up, we can see what we’re made of, and for this we rejoice.
If, then, this subjective aspect of assurance grows through the process of encountering trials, enduring in belief, seeing Christ grow us, and reflecting on that growth, it stands to reason that assurance takes time. If a new believer’s faith hasn’t been tested, then it hasn’t been proven. Christ wounds us to show us we are his. What a precious gift that assurance is, even if it requires some patience.
So, when I counsel young college students who are new to the faith, and they are wondering how to tell whether they are saved, I ask them two questions: 1) Are you resting in the work of Christ for you? 2) Are you growing from Christ’s work in you? If you frame the question of assurance the way that Paul does in Romans 5, it helps them to see that this project of assurance will likely take time. They may need to walk a few miles on the narrow road before they can be sure they are on it. And as they do, they will cling to the cross, grow in love with Christ, and rejoice to see him confirming his work for and in them.
Friends, do not try to rush assurance. The Lord is not in a hurry. Point them to the cross, comfort them through hardships, and then rejoice with them as they see Christ alive in them. The long view of life will be sweeter than the uncertainty of today.