Personal Confidence Is No Sure Sign

Here is the fourth and final inconclusive sign of religious affections.

4. Just because you yourself are really confident that your religious affections are genuine is no sure sign.

There is a place for assurance of faith in the life of a believer. You may not be feeling a lot of that assurance right now, but it is possible. 1 John 5:13 says that it is possible to know that you have eternal life.

However, just because you think you do is no sure sign. You may have fooled others; you may be fooling yourself.

The Pharisees never doubted for a moment that they were saints, that they were the best of saints, and that there were great differences between them and others. They weren’t going hope to their wives expressing uncertainty about their spiritual condition.

Those serving the Lord in Matthew 7:21-23 seem utterly surprised. “Lord, Lord, did we not?” They don’t seem to have thought for a moment that something was wrong. For that matter, even those who killed Jesus did so confident that they were serving God’s will. But they were severely wrong. Edwards observes,

(W)hat blindness and deceit, what self-flattery, self-exaltation, and self-confidence reign in the heart of a hypocrite; we need not at all wonder that their high opinion of themselves, and confidence of their happy circumstances be as high and as a strong as a mountain. (p.100)

A hypocrite is unlikely to know his own blindness or hardness of heart. That is the point of being blind: you can’t see it. That is the point of a hard heart: you can’t feel it. And the devil does not assault the hope of a hypocrite as he does the hope of the saint. The devil is not an enemy to the hypocrite. Why would he bother one of his own?

Some professors have great confidence in their state even in the midst of serious sins. Sin doesn’t shake their assurance. That’s when they use religious arguments to justify their sin, and cry “salvation by faith alone,” forgetting that genuine faith results in works. You cannot convince them that the cistern they’re drinking from is empty. Even if you hold a mirror right in front of their nose they won’t believe their face is dirty.

And they really hate it when other people question. They count it a sin to doubt their state. So they are untouchable. They vaguely remember some distant experience or some past prayer, and their hope is rested entirely on that.

But you realize, that doubt is not only good, but necessary at the appropriate times for a true Christian? Edwards points out the benefit of uneasiness when he wrote,

When their love decays and the exercises of it fail or become weak, fear should arise; for then they need it to restrain them from sin, and to excited them to care for the good of their souls; and go to stir them up to watchfulness and diligence in religion. (p.108)

God doesn’t want you to have assurance if you are in sin and out of love with Him. It is vain for you to pour over past experiences in order to get peace and assurance if you are currently in the wrong. That is contrary to the way God has made it to be.

Yet some never doubt and have the greatest confidence. But that is no sure sign that their affections are genuine or spiritual.

So just because you had or have some religious affections, or are involved in religious activity, just because other people think you’re legit, or just because you have the greatest self-trust — in and of themselves these things don’t prove anything.

Our next task is to consider the distinguishing marks of genuine religious affections, but the point of studying no sure signs is to keep you from resting on inconclusive or insufficient evidence. Please don’t rest your case on unreliable testimony. Instead,

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.