Protestant churches today are not what they used to be. And I think that it is partially because of our neglect of the great old hymns. They are simple, yet beautiful and full of meaning. These hymns were foundational to the great faith of Christians in the past. But much of today’s “contemporary Christian music” is little more than catchy, repetitious phrases of “loving Jesus,” etc. There’s nothing wrong with loving Jesus, but the question is, does this kind of music glorify God with its worldly, hypnotic and driving beat and its shallow content? There is not much substance to many of these contemporary songs, while the old hymns were filled with biblical doctrine. They didn’t just give you a good feeling, they taught deep scriptural principles.
The
following link contains a very good article dealing with contemporary Christian
music. The author rightly states, “Music
is to worship God and not to get high on the beat.” See here:
https://www.thescribesportion.com/todays-christian-music/
One of my
personal favorites of the great hymns is Blessed
Assurance. Having been raised
Catholic, I don’t ever remember this song being sung in the Catholic Church and
I doubt if it ever will be. The Catholic
Church, in general, tends to stay away from the topic of assurance of
salvation. But you see, this old popular
hymn is about biblical assurance. Now, there is a balance to this doctrine of assurance of salvation because it has unsound
teachings on either side of it.
On the one
hand, there is Calvinism, which often expresses what some would consider too
much assurance, and on the other hand, there are some religions (including Catholicism),
which tend to express too little
assurance. The biblical teaching is
somewhere in the middle.
But, to
their credit, Catholics don’t believe in the hardcore Calvinistic “once saved,
always saved” doctrine. And neither do
many Protestants, including myself. I
have a series of articles on this particular topic pointing out some of its
errors, which can be seen here:
https://theresurrectionstillspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/08/some-thoughts-on-once-saved-always.html
https://theresurrectionstillspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/some-thoughts-on-once-saved-always.html
https://theresurrectionstillspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/10/some-thoughts-on-once-saved-always.html
On the other
hand, for biblical salvation, we don’t have to strain and sweat and work
ourselves to death in hopes that we will gain enough “points” (good works) to
make it into Heaven. Catholics will say
that they don’t do this, but Catholic teachings lean heavily toward such a
works-based salvation and therefore, a lack of biblical assurance.
And why
would I say that a lack of assurance follows a “salvation of works”? The truth is that it is inevitable that a
person who is trusting in his works to gain Heaven will, at some point in his
life, wonder if he really has enough
works. This question continually haunts
the individual who bases his salvation on his good deeds. It seems that, at some point, he begins to
realize that God requires PERFECTION (Matthew 5:48; James 2:10)! And none of us are perfect, so it is impossible to achieve Heaven through our
good works, rituals or sacraments (Romans 4:4-5; Titus 3:5). The Bible tells us that our only hope is to
trust in the Person of Jesus Christ and His work of suffering on the
cross. You can’t substitute anything
else for it, and you can’t add anything
to the cross to “help” merit salvation. There
are plenty articles on this blog that deal with the relationship between salvation
and works, if anyone wants to do a simple topic search.
But
concerning assurance, the Council of Trent, in its Sixth Session, Canon XVI states:
“If any one saith, that he
will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift
of perseverance unto the end, unless he have learned this by special
revelation; let him be anathema.” See here:
http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch6.htm
Now, we
would agree that a person today cannot have infallible
certainty (only God has that). As for as
absolute certainty, that could be
debated, depending on your definition of “absolute.” But according to Scripture, we certainly can have a sufficient certainty:
“These things have I
written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know
that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of
God.” (1
John 5:13 – Emphasis added)
The Amplified Bible is more emphatic and
says:
“… so that you will
know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that you [already] have eternal
life.”
But the
Catholic Church calls this type of assurance “the sin of presumption.” The largest lay Catholic organization in the
country, Catholic Answers, says this
about presumption. They tell us that according
to the Baltimore Catechism:
“Q. 1183. What is
presumption?
A. Presumption is a rash expectation of salvation without making
proper use of the necessary means to obtain it.”
See here:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-sin-of-presumption
And again, Catholic Answers tells us that this is how
the old Catholic
Encyclopedia defines the sin of presumption:
“It may be defined as the condition of a soul that, because of a
badly regulated reliance on God’s mercy and power, hopes for salvation without
doing anything to deserve it, or for pardon of his sins without repenting of
them.”
See here:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-the-sin-of-presumption
But I have a problem with both of these quotes. The Baltimore
Catechism quote speaks of the “necessary means” of salvation. Well, to the Catholic, this includes faith
(rightly so), but it also includes works, like baptism and other
rituals/sacraments. But this is not
biblical, as I stated earlier.
The old Catholic
Encyclopedia quote speaks of doing something to deserve salvation. We
Protestants believe in the repentance mentioned in this quote, but there is nothing we can do to deserve what Jesus did for us. This is because “… while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
Biblical assurance is not presumption.
We simply must “hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast
unto the end (Hebrews 3:12-14).
Furthermore,
according to Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott:
“The reason
for the uncertainty of the state of grace lies in this that without a special
revelation nobody can with certainty of faith know whether or not he has fulfilled
all the conditions which are necessary for the achieving of justification. The
impossibility of the certainty of faith, however, by no means excludes a high
moral certainty supported by the testimony of conscience.” (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 262) See here:
https://cornellcatholic.org/documents/2020/12/fundamentalsofcatholicdogma.pdf
So according
to this theologian, without a direct, supernatural revelation from God, no one
can know with certainty whether or not “… he has fulfilled all the conditions” required
for salvation. This, my friend, is
enslavement. This is the haunting
uncertainty of a works-based salvation that I just mentioned above. But not to fear! Let it be known that there is only ONE
biblical condition for salvation – to believe (trust) in the Lord Jesus Christ
and in His work on the cross (Acts 16:30-31). This doesn’t mean that the person shouldn’t
be baptized, or that he won’t do any other good works – but it does mean that
he will not be trusting in these works
for his salvation.
This is the reason why we can indeed have
assurance that we are saved and will go to Heaven: It is dependent on HIS work,
not ours.
Yes, it is
possible that someone who is saved can fall away (again, see the links above on
“once saved, always saved). But staying saved is about where you keep your trust - it is simply
maintaining your trust and faith in
Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:3).
This type of
faith is a true and living faith, i.e., one which
will produce good works and a deep love for God. It is not a dead faith, nor is it a blind
faith. It is a simple faith that honors
God. It is the type of faith that God,
Himself, has chosen to get His people into Heaven!
With this
type of faith, the playing field is level.
Every human has equal opportunity.
It doesn’t depend on our strength, our wisdom, size, gender, physical
state, finances or skill in life. We are
all equal at the cross. Anyone and
everyone can attain this free gift – if he wants
it and is willing to surrender to God and to let God change his heart.
With this type of faith, you can indeed have that blessed assurance
of which the great old hymn speaks.
