You will never, never, never, never in this life have any mark of grace as much as you desire to have it. The moment you have enough of any mark of grace in your own eyes, you've just turned into a Pharisee. But you see, God keeps the poor and the needy people.
They cannot deny that He's worked something of these marks in their lives, but they grieve that they don't have more of all of them. Jeremiah 17, 9 tells us that our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. The devil is also our accuser, so it can be challenging to look inward as we seek to have assurance that we truly are Christians. But inward reflection is part of our assurance, so how do we do that biblically? This is the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and we're spending a few days exploring how a Christian can have assurance and practically what that looks like day to day.
Doubting your salvation can be debilitating, and if you've not experienced that, talk with someone who has guilt, restless nights. That's why it's important, as Paul says, to make our calling and election sure, and why we invited Joel Beekie to record this series for us on the assurance of faith. Yesterday, Joel Beekie looked to the promises of God. Today, he will help us navigate looking inward for evidences of God's grace.
Here's Dr. Beekie. Well, in this lecture, we want to look at the evidences of grace within us, and we turn then to 1 John 2, verses 1 through 5. My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not, and if any men sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby do we know that we know him.
So John's now making a transition from these rich promises of verses 1 and 2 to this in verse 3. Hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
So he that says, I believe in the promises of God, I know him, but whose life doesn't show that we obey his commandments, he's a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him if we keep his word.
So the objective promises must bear subjective fruit in our lives. That's what we're going to look at now. Let's pray. Gracious God, we pray for great wisdom as we seek to describe this delicate subject of subjective evidences of grace. Help us, we pray, in Jesus' name.
Amen. Well, maybe you thought at the end of the last lecture, this is the end of the course, there's no more to say. Because if we have the promises of God, we have everything, there's nothing else to worry about. The promises are the be all and the end all of the doctrine of assurance is what many preachers preach today. Just go to the promises, if you have them, you have everything, don't ever look at yourself. You see, some people say, look at yourself all the time and examine yourself, and no, no, said the Puritans. Other people say, don't ever look at yourself. No, no, said the Puritans.
Remember what they said. You have to examine yourself, but for every look inside yourself, you take ten looks to Christ. But that doesn't negate the look inside yourself, because here's the problem. Millions and millions and millions and millions of non-Christians all around the world today open the Bible and say, all the promises of God are for me, and none of the curses, none of the threatenings are for me. Even though Jesus is not number one in my life, even though by their fruits you cannot know me as a Christian.
You see, that's a problem. And John Calvin addresses that at length in his writing and says, we must look at ourselves because there must be fruits that must be evident from trusting alone in the promises of God. But self-examination is tricky. If we examine ourselves, said Calvin, only by ourselves, that is apart from the Bible, apart from Jesus, and apart from the helping light and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will always be prone to error. In fact, Calvin went further and he said, such self-examination will only lead us to sure damnation. However, Calvin goes on to say, by their fruits you shall know them, and so we must examine ourselves, but we must do so, praying for the Holy Spirit to guide us. We must do so with the Bible open, looking at the marks of grace.
We must do so in all honesty, prayerfully, before God, in dependency upon the Lord Jesus Christ. So John, the first epistle of John, sets us the example here in 12 different marks of grace throughout this book. He shows us how we may know that we know, and he keeps using that language. He's talking about inward evidences of grace.
So, 18.2 of the Westminster Confession, which first says we get our assurance from the promise of God, then adds this statement, and from the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made. So that teaches us that the Puritans, like the Apostle John, were teaching that the Christ outside of us must by the grace of the Spirit and the power of the Word become Christ within us, that we must have fellowship with the Father and with the Son by the Spirit. And when Christ is within us, that cannot help but bear fruit.
It's impossible that that would not bear fruit. Now, the Puritans put this in language that was common in their educational system called syllogisms. For us, it seems complicated, but it's actually not. It's quite simple. And what they spoke of was the reflective act of faith in a syllogism.
So here's what you do. It's almost like you take your heart from inside of yourself, and you put it outside of yourself, and you look at it with the help of the Holy Spirit, and you reflect upon what the Holy Spirit has done in you. And you have a major syllogism, a minor syllogism, and a conclusion. So they call that a reflective act of faith rather than a direct act of faith. A direct act of faith is when you go directly to the promises and claim them as your own, or you directly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Reflective act of faith is when you ponder what the Spirit has done in your soul, and you reflect upon it.
So how does it work? Major premise. According to Scripture, only those who possess saving faith will receive the Spirit's testimony that their lives manifest fruits of sanctification and good works. Minor premise. I cannot deny, after praying, after asking for the Holy Spirit's help, after searching the Word, I cannot deny that by the grace of God, I have received the Spirit's testimony that I manifest some fruits of sanctification and good works. Conclusion.
I'm a partaker of saving faith. Now the Puritans call this the practical syllogism. Those are fruits outside of you.
By their fruits you shall know them. So the practical syllogism just affirms that orthodoxy, the way you think, sound thinking, will produce orthopraxy, that is, right living. Right believing must produce right living. Paul says that repeatedly, and so do the Puritans. And that's why, in all of Paul's epistles, you see the doctrine first, Ephesians chapters 1 through 3, and then chapters 4 through 6, now believing all these things, this is how we must walk, this is the fruit we must bear in our marriages, in our family, in our church, and so on. So what the Puritans did is they took the list of the marks of grace, like 2 Peter 1, 5 through 10, 1 John, the entire book, Beatitudes, Galatians 5, 21, 22.
Right there, if you combine those four groups, you've got about 30 marks of grace. They would take these marks and you would examine yourself by them, asking the Spirit's help, and come to a conclusion. That's the practical syllogism. They also came to embrace what was later called a mystical syllogism. And don't think mystical is a bad word here, it's not when it's tied to the Bible.
It is when it's not tied to the Bible. But what they meant by the mystical syllogism is things that people can see, things that are going on in your soul. Practical syllogism are the things, by their fruits you shall know them, we can look at each other and see the fruits. Mystical syllogism are things that are happening within.
But it's the same idea. Major premise, according to scripture, only those who possess saving faith will still experience the Spirit's confirmation of inward grace and godliness that self will decrease and Christ will increase. That's one sample of an inward syllogism. Minor premise, I cannot deny that by the grace of God I experience the Spirit's testimony confirming inward grace and godliness such that I decrease and Christ increases. So when I look back in my life five years ago, I think more of Christ now than I did then.
When I look back in my life five years ago, I think less of myself now than I did then. This is really the heartbeat of sanctification. John the Baptist's testimony, he must increase, I must decrease, from John 3.30. So the mystical syllogism employs a variety of evidences as well. Anthony Burgess wrote, sometimes it's the inward fear of God which is a sign, sometimes an awareness of the poverty of my own spiritual life, sometimes a hungering and thirsting after righteousness from within, sometimes my inward repentance, sometimes my inward love, sometimes my inward patience.
If a godly man find these signs in himself, he may be assured of his salvation even though he does not see much fruit in his life in many areas that he would like to. Now, the Puritans were aware that there were some dangers with these syllogisms. There was a danger for one thing of a kind of free will overtone in the reflex act of faith. So they took pains to confine it within the doctrines of grace by further analyzing the syllogism.
And this is the kind of thing they did. Number one, Burgess stated that assurance obtained by using the syllogism was itself the work of the Spirit of God. So you don't trust in your own reflection, you don't trust in your own trusting. You trust that the work of the Spirit is being reflected in you by the light of the Spirit as you examine yourself. So you never, never, never go to examine yourself without asking for the Spirit's help as you do so. All believers are forbidden to trust in their own trusting or the conclusions they draw from it apart from the Spirit.
So that's fundamental. You have to go to the Holy Spirit. After all, the Holy Spirit is the one who has worked all of salvation within you. You would never hunger and thirst after righteousness without Him.
He will show you when you sincerely go to Him if you really have changed from within or in your works from without in a saving way. Second, Burgess said the syllogism must always flow out of the living word Jesus Christ. And it must always be based on the written word for its framework. So the reflex act of faith arises from the believer seeing in himself Christ's distinguishing graces as they are revealed in the word of God. And he references, of course, the Epistle of John and all those 12 or 13 marks of grace.
Third, Burgess said the syllogism and reflex act of faith always only have a secondary status. The promises are always number one. And consequently, when these safeguards are in place and you examine yourself properly, believers will be able to recognize their strengths by the grace of God and their weaknesses due to their own corrupt nature and drive themselves afresh to Christ that they may be, as William Perkins says, all in all out of themselves in Christ. So, practically speaking, how does this work? Well, let's say I wake up one morning and I go to John's epistles.
I want to grow in assurance through the evidences. And I say to myself, well, 1 John 2, hereby we know that we know him if we obey his commandments. And I look at my heart, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me and I go, oh, yesterday I disobeyed that one and I stumbled there and I just can't see much obedience in me right now.
Well, the Puritan would say, go to another mark. Oh, do you love the brethren? Hereby we know we pass from death to life, John says, because we love the brethren. Oh, that one I cannot deny. I have a special love for the people of God. Oh, Perkins and Burgess would say, then you don't need to worry because if you have one mark of grace, you have them all because God does the complete work.
You're just not being able to see some of them that morning. And so they compared it to a necklace. Perkins said, if you can tug at one little bead on the necklace, all the others will move. And so if you can tug on one mark of grace, you know you have all the others, even though it may be very small and you can't see them at the present day, maybe tomorrow you'll see a few more. Don't worry about that. If you can find one, you can cling to that. So this was very important then, evidences of grace. Now what happens if you have a really bad day and you wake up in the morning and you go through the whole epistle, John, you can't find any of the 12 in you?
Oh, boy. Now what do you do? Oh, Burgess says, don't despair yet. Fly then to the promises of God and cling to them. But what if the promises of God don't seem sweet?
What do you do then? What if you can't find any comfort for them either? Well, you ask God to help you and you ask Him for forgiveness that you can't see His work in you and you try again tomorrow. Or if you habitually can't see any marks of grace and you can't rest in the promises of God, maybe you aren't saved after all.
That's possible. But before you conclude that, Perkins says, let me give you the basic mark of grace of all. So if you go through John, Galatians 5, Beatitudes, 2 Peter 1, and you can't find any help from all 30 marks of grace in those four situations, you need to ask yourself just one simple question. And Perkins says, every believer can say yes to this, no matter how weak or how strong your faith. If you've been saved yesterday, you can say yes to this. If you're saved 90 years ago, you can say yes to this.
You really ought to be able to say yes to this if you're a Christian. Do you desire to know Jesus better? If you love Him, you want to know Him better. If you love someone, you want to know them better. You see, so that's the mark, the foundational mark in the Puritan mind. Not so much what you possess, but what do you long for? Where's your heart? And so when you resort to God's promises and to the Spirit's witnessing work with the marks of grace, the witnessing work of the Spirit normally should help strengthen your conviction that you're a child of God.
It shouldn't normally be a problem. Okay, so let me do it for me with you right now. So I look at my life and I say, do I know what it means to hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness? Well, if I do, I'm a child of God because unbelievers never hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness, right?
That's your major premise, minor premise. I'm telling you, as surely as I stand here today, I absolutely could never deny that I know what it means to hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness. The Holy Spirit has taught me, stripped me of all my own righteousness.
I am 100% sure of that. I cannot save myself one iota and I do hunger. I want more and more and more of that righteousness. I want Christ's righteousness to be my whole life. I come far short, but I can't deny that I hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness. So this kind of self-examination encourages me because the conclusion is I'm a child of God. So when I cling to the promises, it's out of that hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness, this all works together, you see.
So I don't know if this works in all your backgrounds, but in my Dutch one it does. We have this expression, meat and potatoes are your basics for the day. So the meat and potatoes of assurance is the promises of God supplemented by the inward evidences of grace.
The promises are probably the meat, you know, the main thing, and the evidences are the potatoes and the vegetables accompanying it. So the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which we're going to see next lecture, that's more like the dessert and we'll talk about that as well. But the conclusion here is this, that the inward evidences of grace, both within you and as they bear fruit without you, outside of you, mystical, practical syllogism, they should strengthen your assurance and not weaken it. Now that leads me to this conclusion.
Well, nine or ten conclusions, really quick. Number one, be careful how you define the marks of grace. Don't add to the scriptures. Go by the Epistles of John, especially 1 John. Go by Galatians 5, fruit of the Spirit, Beatitudes, 2 Peter 1, 5-10. There you've got about 30 of them. If you can't find it there, you probably can't find it.
There's plenty there. Second, test your graces only by the true standard, the word of God. Third, never use the signs in a way that hinders you from receiving Christ for your own soul.
Rest on Christ alone. Four, do not make signs of salvation into grounds and causes of salvation. There are helps for your assurance, but they're not a ground of salvation itself. That's only in Christ. Five, do not examine yourself for signs of grace when your soul is full of darkness, doubts, and temptations. Then you should just flee to the promises of Christ. Six, do not think that no sign will be sufficient unless you first persevere all the way to the end of your life.
Then you won't have assurance until the very end. Seven, when you examine yourself, pray to God for His Spirit to enlighten your eyes. Eight, never think that a person may not take hold of Christ until he has this certainty of signs of grace within himself. You are always welcome with Christ. Nine, do not begin with all kinds of marks, but begin with the foundational mark, which is faith itself.
And then you can branch out from there. So the basic mark is faith itself. Is my trust alone in Christ? Do I long to know Him better?
Is He my life? What's the object of my faith? And then from there you go out to other marks, like love for the brethren, keeping God's commandments, and so on. And then finally, number ten, do not resist God's Spirit with unbelief when He comes to assure you with evidences of your salvation. So when the Spirit comes to you as you're asking for help, and you say, yes, I cannot deny that I hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness, but I don't do it enough, so I must not be a child of God.
No, no, that's the devil. You see, you will never, never, never, never in this life have any mark of grace as much as you desire to have it. The moment you have enough of any mark of grace in your own eyes, you've just turned into a Pharisee. The Pharisees had enough.
I thank you. I'm not like the poor publican back there, Lord. He had enough of his religion. But you see, God keeps the poor and the needy people. They cannot deny that He's worked something of these marks in their lives, but they grieve that they don't have more of all of them. So don't let the devil trick you that way. The real question you see, therefore, is not do I have all these marks of grace in full measure, but do I know something of them in truth, even if it's as small as a little root?
Do I hunger and thirst after Christ's righteousness? That's the doctrine of the inward evidences of saving grace found in 1 John and in so many other places in the Bible. So next up is a testimony of the Holy Spirit. Ten concluding thoughts from Joel Beakey to help us navigate examining the inward evidences of saving grace. If you missed any of them, simply search for Renewing Your Mind wherever you listen to podcasts and re-listen to this episode. You're listening to the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W Bingham. This series from Dr Beakey is not only for those Christians who struggle with assurance.
Over eleven messages, he seeks to not only comfort struggling Christians, but also to encourage the assured and caution those who take their assurance for granted. And you can own the entire series on DVD when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800 435 4343. We'll get the DVD in the mail for you. Perhaps donate it to your church library if you prefer to stream, as you'll also receive lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide. Use the link in the podcast show notes to donate or visit renewingyourmind.org.
But be quick as this offer ends tomorrow. We've seen the promises of God. We've been helped to examine the internal evidences. And tomorrow, Joel Beakey will consider the testimony of the Holy Spirit. So join us Thursday here on Renewing Your Mind. .
