ABSTRACT: In his exalted state, the risen Christ no longer suffers pain or distress; immortal and impassible, he dwells in heaven with perfected affections, no longer burdened by the sorrows he felt as he walked among us. Nevertheless, as a faithful high priest, he still feels deep compassion for his tempted and suffering people. This glorified compassion, far from detracting from the good news of Christ’s high priesthood, gives great hope to those who need his compassion most. For though Christ is not distressed by his people’s distresses, he is moved by them, and the compassion he offers is a powerful sympathy, supplying all the grace his people lack in all their times of need, until they finally dwell perfected with him.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Mark Jones (PhD, Leiden), minister at Faith Vancouver Presbyterian Church, to explain and apply the exalted compassion of Christ.

During Christ’s life on earth, from the womb to the tomb, he lived what theologians call a “life of humiliation.” There are many aspects to his humiliation, his suffering chief among them. Keeping in mind that we are talking about a person who is the Lord of glory (James 2:1), the beautiful and glorious one (Isaiah 4:2), the radiance of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:3), full of grace and truth (John 1:14), it is remarkable that he was also at one time “a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people” (Psalm 22:6). Our Lord was “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

His sorrows and griefs were ordained by his Father for a time to equip him to be a complete Savior — a faithful high priest. As Stephen Charnock once wrote, “He was a man of sorrows, that he might be a man of compassions.”1 The author of Hebrews makes this plain to us:

He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:17–18)

Christ’s sufferings, temptations, trials, and other sorrows during his life of humiliation enable him now to be a “merciful and faithful high priest” toward his brothers (Hebrews 2:11). And indeed, he is now in heaven what he was on earth: compassionate, merciful, and sympathetic. In his classic essay The Emotional Life of our Lord, B.B. Warfield makes the claim that the “emotion which we should naturally expect to find most frequently attributed to that Jesus whose whole life was a mission of mercy, and whose ministry was so marked by deeds of beneficence . . . is no doubt ‘compassion.’ In point of fact, this is the emotion which is most frequently attributed to him.”2 The compassion of Christ toward his bride is integral to his faithful calling as a high priest.

But an important question arises from this consideration of our Lord as a compassionate high priest — namely, How do his human compassions differ in his state of exaltation compared to when he lived on earth and showed mercy and compassion as a fellow sufferer? Is Christ pained at our pains in his state of glory, or is he now, according to his human nature, impassible — that is, no longer able to suffer? If he no longer suffers, is this good news for us in terms of his compassion toward us?

Our Lord’s Sympathy in Heaven

In one of the greatest works of pastoral Christology ever written in the English language, The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth, Thomas Goodwin addresses the human nature of Christ in relation to his sympathy and compassion toward sinners, in both his state of humiliation and his state of exaltation.

Christ’s affections, according to his manhood, are personal properties of his person in both his state of humiliation and his state of exaltation, though with some important differences. The differences and similarities between Christ’s affections in both states are due largely to Christ’s resurrected body being a “spiritual” body: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). By “spiritual,” Paul does not mean the body is now immaterial, but rather that the body arrives at its goal of being fully animated and perfected by the Holy Spirit.

“There is now no weakness to characterize Christ as there once was in his state of humiliation.”

Jesus did not lose or shed his humanity upon his ascension into heaven, but rather his resurrected body is now “powerful” (i.e., Spirit-animated): “[He] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). Paul does not mean to say that only his flesh is powerful, but that his human nature, consisting of both body and soul, is powerful; there is now no weakness to characterize Christ as there once was in his state of humiliation. Christ’s affections are “spiritual” because they belong to his spiritual body. Charnock notes that his resurrection body was made immortal, “and had new qualities conferred upon it, whereby it had acquired an incorruptible life.”3 His body is a “glorious body” (Philippians 3:21).

The affection of loving, faithful compassion — of being able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15) — is not merely metaphorical. In reference to God, especially in the Old Testament, the affection of sympathy is indeed metaphorical, based on anthropomorphic speech, because God in his essence cannot sympathize with humans since he is not a human. God cannot suffer in order to sympathize with our suffering. However, since Jesus is still truly human, his compassion and sympathy are truly human. We cannot therefore explain them as only metaphorical in his state of glory. What then can we say of the compassion of the glorified Christ toward sinners on earth?

The sympathy Christ shows toward us is not merely based on a past remembrance he has of his own temptations and sufferings, though it does include that. Rather, his affection is a present affection that leads to an ongoing compassion to those who need it. It is true and real; in fact, after asking how far and deep this affection reaches toward us, Goodwin says, “I think no man in this life can fathom.”4 His desire to help us does not, however, cause him any harm or suffering.

To understand this affection in glory more fully, Goodwin sets forth, using his scholastic apparatus (in a pastoral work), the matter negatively, positively, and privatively.

Impassible and Immortal

Negatively speaking, as noted above, the sympathy Christ now possesses toward his bride on earth is not completely synonymous with the compassion he had while living and suffering among us. In Hebrews 5:7, we read of Jesus “in the days of his flesh,” when he prayed with “loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). The “days of his flesh” refers not so much to the fact that he lived as human, but to “the frail quality of subjection to mortality”5 — that is, to the days before his glorification. Since he no longer can be said to be living “in the days of his flesh,” there is no need for loud cries or tears.

Also commenting on Hebrews 5:7, John Owen observes that Christ “is no more in a state of weakness and temptation; the days of his flesh are past and gone.”6 While he still possesses a “compassionate sense upon his holy soul of the . . . distresses” that we undergo on earth, he is free of temptations now.7 And while many still mock and ridicule his name, “He is far above, out of the reach of all his enemies. . . . There is none of them but he can crush at his pleasure.”8 This was not always so, of course; in his “days of flesh” he was subject to the cruel physical brutality of his enemies (Matthew 27:30–31). But now he is both impassible and immortal.

Glorified Affections

Positively speaking, the affections in his glorified humanity work not only in his soul but also in his body. The affections of Christ are truly human, but they arise from a body-soul composite, not just from one or the other. According to Goodwin, Christ’s body is “so framed to the soul that both itself and all the operations of all the powers in it are immediately and entirely at the arbitrary imperium and dominion of the soul.”9 That is to say, the infirmities that Christ possessed on earth during his humiliation, including hunger, weakness, and sadness, do not affect his soul now in glory because his body has been raised in power. He cannot suffer like he did in the wilderness temptation because he is not in the wilderness and does not have a body that is subject to wilderness pain!

Perfected Compassion

Owen likewise affirms that all the perfections that Christ’s humanity is capable of, in both body and soul, belong to Christ in glory. Retaining the same body that was formed in the womb of the virgin, Christ’s human nature remains truly human and therefore finite. His body now is the most glorious body that can be conceived, for the fullness of the Spirit dwells in him, and the glories of the deity, by virtue of the hypostatic union, shine forth. Owen says of Christ’s glorified humanity that it is “filled with all the divine graces and perfections whereof a limited, creature nature is capable. It is not deified.”10 Love is the highest perfection a creature can receive from God, and so Christ’s love, exhibited in many ways, including that of compassion, is heightened, not lessened, by his entrance into glory.

Goodwin explains that Christ’s affections (e.g., compassion, sympathy) move his “bowels and affect his bodily heart” both in his states of humiliation and exaltation.11 Yet there is an important difference: his affections in heaven “do not afflict and perturb him in the least, nor become a burden and a load unto his Spirit, so as to make him sorrowful or heavy.”12

In heaven, we will not suffer. We will be impassible. Christ, who has already undergone his glorification, cannot suffer now. While he is still sympathetic toward us, his glorification “corrects and amends the imperfection of [his affections].”13 “Perfected affections” now belong to Christ. When we are glorified, we too shall have perfected affections. Nothing indecent or unbefitting of a state of glory will accompany our affections in heaven. Sadness is an affection, sometimes entirely appropriate to this world. But sadness will not be appropriate in heaven because there will be no reason for sadness (Revelation 21:4).

Man of Succors

Adam, in his state of innocence, was endowed with natural affections. He loved, desired, and rejoiced, for example. Because he was created in holiness and righteousness, his natural affections did not have the taint of sin, but his reason allowed him to channel his desires to their appropriate end — until, of course, he sinned. Until that point, Adam did not possess the affection of grief because there was no reason for him to grieve. But he had the affection of joy because God was his end.

As a Savior of his people, Christ’s affections must be channeled to their appropriate end. He delights to be a Savior to his people, and so his affections of compassion in glory “quicken and provoke him to our help and succour.”14 Jesus was once a “man of sorrows,” but now he is no longer that. Instead, he is a “man of succors” (a man of reliefs) to his people.

On earth, the church goes through many trials and tribulations. We are people of sorrows because we are following in the footsteps of our Savior. He suffered in various ways while on earth, and so do we. We cannot escape this reality until we go to be with him in glory. Christ understands this about our condition in this world because he once lived in this world of sin and misery. Therefore, as a merciful high priest, he necessarily possesses affections suitable to our condition while he is in heaven.

If heaven were suited only for Christ’s personal happiness, then there would be no need for Christ to possess the affections of sympathy and mercy. But as Goodwin observes, Christ’s relationship to his people is a part of his glory. Therefore, these types of affections are required to be in him if he is to be a good husband to his bride. Moreover, far from being a weakness, Christ’s affections of pity and mercy are his strength. “It is his glory to be truly and really, even as a man, sensible of all our miseries, yea, it were his imperfection if he were not.”15

Enlarged and Undivided

The beauty and glory of good Christology emerges precisely at this point. Though Christ has shed affections that were once a burden to him and are thus not compatible or suitable to his state in heaven, there are nonetheless other affections that possess a “greater capaciousness, vastness” that more than make up for his lack of the former affections. In fact, Goodwin argues that just as Christ’s knowledge was “enlarged” in heaven, “so his human affections of love and pity are enlarged in solidity, strength, and reality. . . . Christ’s affections of love are as large as his knowledge or his power.”16 It was to our advantage that Christ ascended into the heavenly places.

Another way to look at this would be to argue that, since Christ is freed from oppressive affections, it gives greater scope to his effective affections — being free from grief allows you to be more compassionate. So, for example, when you yourself are desperately hungry, other people’s problems don’t receive your best attention because you have your own worries. When Christ was being attacked in the wilderness by the devil, he was not in towns and villages healing diseases.

Fullness of Joy Now and Later

Privatively speaking, if in the heart of Christ he is no longer suffering, how can we explain his joy being full when he knows full well that those he loves on earth are suffering and being tempted? Surely Christ will have a greater fullness of joy in his heart when we are fully glorified and in his presence?

There are two ways of looking at Christ’s fullness of joy in heaven as he shows compassion to us on earth. Christ has what Goodwin calls a “double capacity of glory, or a double fulness of joy.”17 One belongs to his person as God-man, “as in himself alone”; the other is “additional, and arising from the completed happiness and glory of his whole church.”18 Until all his people are fully glorified, Jesus “remains under some kind of imperfection.” In the same way, when we depart from this world to be with the Lord, we are away from our body and await the reunion of soul and body. This is a type of imperfection in us until we receive our resurrected body. From this, Goodwin reasons, “Although Christ in his own person be complete in happiness, yet in relation to his members he is imperfect, and so accordingly hath affections suited unto this his relation, which is no derogation from him at all.”19

Christ desires that we should see his glory (John 17:24), and until that prayer is answered there is some desire and expectation that is unfulfilled. When we all receive the answer to Christ’s prayer, he will receive a greater glory in relation to his bride. Because, however, he knows when this will all happen, and the certainty of it happening is infallibly known to him, he does not possess any anxiety or distress concerning its accomplishment. So, again, his perfected affections in heaven are a result of his perfected knowledge of all things that will be accomplished according to their intended ends.

His Proper Abode

Heaven is the only suitable place for the Lord in his resurrected glory. A perfected, glorified body requires a perfected, glorified place to dwell. As Charnock memorably wrote, “The most perfect body . . . should be taken up into the most perfect place.”20 True, in his life of humiliation, he had a body suitable to the condition in which he lived and the work required of him; but as Charnock says,

When he had put off his grave-clothes, and was stripped of that old furniture, and enriched with new and heavenly qualities, heaven was the most proper place for his residence. Again, had the earth been a proper place for him, it was not fit the Divinity should stoop to reside in the proper place of the humanity, but the humanity be fetched up to the proper place of the Deity, where the Deity doth manifest itself in the glory of its nature. The lesser should wait upon the greater, and the younger serve the elder.21

“That he no longer suffers is our hope that one day we will join with him.”

The greatest part of Christ’s exaltation is the manifestation of his divine nature; the veiling of his divinity had to be temporary while he accomplished our redemption as a man of sorrows. Now, in heaven, the glory of his divinity shines forth in a way that would have destroyed us had it not been veiled before his death (Exodus 33:20). Heaven is the only suitable place at this point for Christ’s glory to be revealed in its splendor and majesty. Therefore, it is nonsensical to think, with the glorification of Christ in glory, that he should suffer or feel perturbed in his being. His good news — his resurrection life — is our good news. That he no longer suffers is our hope that one day we will join with him and possess those affections that have been perfected as we are fully conformed to the image of our Savior.

‘Uses’ of Christ’s Exalted Compassion

Where does this lead Goodwin, one might ask? In his “uses” section after writing so profoundly on the heart of Christ in heaven toward sinners on earth, he makes the following contention about believers: “Your very sins move him to pity more than to anger.” Now, this statement might sound nice as a tweet or a Facebook post, but written in the context of what has gone before, the statement has a weight that crushes the Christian with God’s overflowing mercy, love, and compassion toward us in Christ Jesus. Goodwin adds,

The object of pity is one in misery whom we love; and the greater the misery is, the more is the pity when the party is beloved. Now of all miseries, sin is the greatest; and whilst yourselves look at it as such, Christ will look upon it as such only also in you. And he, loving your persons, and hating only the sin, his hatred shall all fall, and that only upon the sin, to free you of it by its ruin and destruction, but his bowels shall be the more drawn out to you; and this as much when you lie under sin as under any other affliction.22

The impassibility of Christ’s human nature in glory is good news for us insofar as he can fully succor us without any hindrance or pain in himself to distract him from the full care of his flock. We have his absolute, undivided attention.

Another example of the value of good Christology in relation to a believer’s personal frailties comes from Charnock. Commenting on Hebrews 4:15, he argues that because of the incarnation “an experimental compassion” was gained which the divine nature was not capable of because of divine impassibility.23 As our sympathetic high priest, Christ “reflects” back on his experiences in the world, and so the “greatest pity must reside in him” because the “greatest misery was endured by him.” Christ is unable to forget above what he experienced below.24 Charnock does not intend to say that Christ’s human nature suffers in any way. Instead, he is speaking about Christ’s knowledge and memory of his sufferings as the means by which he is able to be sympathetic to his people in a way that would otherwise be impossible if he did not assume a human nature.

“Our Savior is more compassionate to us now than we can ever be to ourselves.”

Such is Christ’s compassion toward us that “our pity to ourselves,” says Charnock, “cannot enter into comparison with his pity to us.”25 His compassion toward his bride is a powerful compassion whereby he can give us grace in our time of need because he truly knew what it was to be in need.

Good Christology is not a matter only for theologians and pastors, but also for all of God’s children. In meditating upon the glories of Christ in heaven, we not only have hope for what we will one day experience, but we also can rejoice in the knowledge that our Savior is more compassionate to us now than we can ever be to ourselves; we can rejoice that his compassion to us is not mere sentiment, but a powerful compassion whereby he can supply us with his grace in our times of need, just as the Father supplied Christ with the Spirit in his time of need.

Have you ever assumed that you’re enjoying spiritual progress or making the most of life simply because you know you should be? I have. The logic ran like this:

Christians redeem the time.
I am a Christian.
Therefore, I must be redeeming the time.

We walk by faith, not sight — but that does not mean wandering in fiction. Perhaps this application will resonate. You may wonder many days, Why is my Christian life so pedestrian? So underwhelming? So stagnant? Instead of letting this dryness expose us, we remind ourselves that we are Christians, after all, and if anyone is enjoying the benefits of the Christian life, we must be. We should be, by the flick of faith’s wand, becomes, we actually are. I know that Jesus came to give me life to the full, I am his disciple, and therefore, by faith, I really am supping on the full plate. I believe; therefore I am.

But we might not be. In reality, we may really be walking unworthily of our calling, domesticated in our witness, living but half-awake. We really can be wasting time, living backward to our calling, playing footsie with the world. We shouldn’t be content and happy living well beyond a cannon-shot away from the front lines where fullness of joy dwells, where the Savior dwells.

In other words, the yawning might indicate that you and I really can live a slouching, blunted, anemic, sleepy, weak, unconvinced Christian life — not in all things, perhaps, but often in one main thing: mission. Too many of us live civilian lives in this Great War and, therefore, remain only half-happy, half-alive, half-thrilled. And instead of realizing it (and repenting of it), we can believe this must be it for now. But small joys and puny purpose should find us out. Our spirits groan, and our indwelling and grieved Friend whispers, implores, There is so much more. And there is.

So, I’d like to rouse us from our Western Shires with a song, as the dwarves’ music did for Bilbo when “something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick” (The Hobbit, 16). This hymn will make you want to wear a sword instead of a walking stick, to explore mountains perilous and great. It reminds us that the story is still being written, that souls still need saving, that we face a task unfinished — one that our Lord calls us to complete.

Facing a Task Unfinished

“Facing a Task Unfinished” was written in the early twentieth century by Frank Houghton, an admirer of Hudson Taylor and a missionary himself to China. The song boasts a rich history as part of the battle cry for missions to the Pacific Rim, according to Keith and Kristyn Getty, who have repopularized the hymn.

As more is done by prayer than prose, I would like us to ask the Lord of the harvest to make and send us as laborers, using Houghton’s lyrics as a guide. But be careful as you join in these four prayers, for when we shut our closet doors, we never know what adventures he will sweep us off to. O trustworthy Lord, awaken in us a daring faith — one we shall have no cause to regret in this life or the life to come. Hear us for your great glory and for our everlasting delight.

Rebuke Our Slothful Ease

Facing a task unfinishedThat drives us to our knees,A need that, undiminished,Rebukes our slothful ease,We who rejoice to know theeRenew before thy throneThe solemn pledge we owe theeTo go and make thee known.

Father, we start with confession. The commission your dear Son charged us with — the commission he himself sends us on and promises his presence for — how little do we concern ourselves that it is left unfinished? How little does it send us across sea, or street, or down to our knees? This world needs Christians shining in the darkness; how often have we pulled baskets over ourselves? The need is undiminished; how little can we say the same of ourselves? If anything in this world calls for energy, for tenacity, for wakefulness, for risk, is it not your mission? And yet how often do we answer your imperial claims with slothful ease? So much consumption, so little commission.

By our confession as Christians, by our baptism, by our membership in the visible church, we have solemnly pledged to participate in your mission. Give us grace to proclaim your excellencies. Souls are dying. What are we still here for if not to make you known?

May We Heed Their Crying

Where other lords beside theeHold their unhindered sway,Where forces that defied theeDefy thee still today,With none to heed their cryingFor life and love and light,Unnumbered souls are dyingAnd pass into the night.

Father, other lords vie with you. Their servants are zealous for wickedness; their evangelists cross land and sea to make sons of hell. The god of this earth seeks dominion, and while his demons trembled on earth before your Son, his forces have not yet retreated. And the chief place of their dominion is over the souls of men, blinding men from your Son’s glory and dragging them down to hell with themselves.

“Too many of us live civilian lives in this Great War and, therefore, remain half-happy, half-alive, half-thrilled.”

Look out upon the dying masses, Father. Have compassion on these unnumbered souls unable to discern their left hand from their right. And work your compassion in us. They live next door; they work with us; we eat at the same restaurants and play the same games. Give us wisdom to hunt souls, to labor while it’s day, to be uncomfortably bright witnesses to your beloved Son. And send the required number of us into those lands drowning in false religion to draw in a people from every language, tribe, and nation for your name’s sake.

To Thee We Yield Our Powers

We bear the torch that flamingFell from the hands of thoseWho gave their lives proclaimingThat Jesus died and rose;Ours is the same commission,The same glad message ours;Fired by the same ambition,To thee we yield our powers.

Father, let us know what it is to bear this flaming torch. Love compels us, your glory spurs us, duty points us, and the cloud of witnesses cheers us to bring the gospel to the lost. Where would we be without former generations who resolved to give their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose and reigns? May we not be a generation of vile ingratitude that receives knowledge of eternal life from the bloody labors of others but is unwilling to pass such knowledge along ourselves.

Give us that same ambition. Whatever powers we have, hone them; whatever gifts we have, wield them. Turn the world upside down yet again. May we not shrink from any cross, lest in so doing, we refuse every crown.

From Cowardice Defend Us

O Father, who sustained them,O Spirit, who inspired,Savior, whose love constrained themTo toil with zeal untired,From cowardice defend us,From lethargy awake!Forth on thine errands send usTo labor for thy sake.

O great and triune God, as you have sustained them, sustain us; as you moved them, move us; as your love constrained them, rouse us with zeal untired. Light the beacon. Many of us are wood three times doused; flame the altar.

Two great lions stand in the street and block the way. The first is cowardice — an unwillingness to bear a costly witness. O Lord, help us to see the immeasurable gain on the other side of temporal loss. Let us see all that is at stake in our negligence and fear.

And Lord, stir us from the second lion, lethargy. Let us learn from the ant or from the foolish virgins or the cursed fig tree. Don’t let us drool upon our pillows undisturbed. Awaken the militant church dissatisfied with playing defense. Awaken the church whose witness is unmistakable, whose power is undeniable, whose advance the gates of hell cannot withstand. Awaken the church that so out-rejoices and out-loves the world that onlookers see it and must give you glory. Here we are, Lord; we will go. Send us forth on your errands to labor for your sake — but only as you go with us.

Church, we have a task unfinished that towers over your best life now. We will more fully taste the joy of our salvation as we go extend our hope to others.

Soon after becoming a Christian, I started wondering if I really was a Christian. The first doubt struck unexpectedly, like lightning from a cloudless sky. Am I real? I seemed to love Jesus. I seemed to trust him. I seemed to bear the marks of a changed life. But, the thought crept in, so too did Judas.

Though the long night of wrestling slowly passed, I emerged from it like Jacob, limping into the daylight. Assurance has been, perhaps, the main question, the chief struggle of my Christian life over the years, sending me searching for what Paul and the author of Hebrews call “full assurance” (Colossians 2:2; Hebrews 10:22).

The topic of assurance is complex, to put it mildly. Genuine Christians doubt their salvation for many different reasons, and God nourishes assurance through several different means. So the needed word for one doubter often differs from the needed word for another. Nevertheless, for those who find themselves floundering, as I did, perhaps unsure what’s even happening to them, a basic guide to assurance may prove useful.

Possibility of Assurance

By assurance, I simply mean, to borrow a definition from D.A. Carson, “a Christian believer’s confidence that he or she is in right standing with God, and that this will issue in ultimate salvation.” Assured Christians can say, with Spirit-wrought conviction, not only “Christ died for sinners” but “Christ died for me.” Though sin may assault them, and Satan may accuse them, they know themselves forgiven, beloved, and bound for heaven. And the first word to offer about such assurance is simply this: it’s possible.

Your faith may feel small, and your hold on Christ shaky. Even still, it is possible for you to feel down deep that he will never cast you out (John 6:37). It is possible for you to cry “Abba!” with the implicit trust of God’s children (Romans 8:15–16). It is possible for you to “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). It is possible for you to have “confidence for the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17) — indeed, to “know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

God’s desire for his people’s assurance, even for the most fragile of them, burns brightly through the Scriptures. He has knit assurance into his very name, whether old covenant (Exodus 34:6–7) or new (Matthew 1:21). He has spoken assurance in promise upon promise from a mouth that “never lies” (Titus 1:2). And as he once wrote assurance with a rainbow (Genesis 9:13–17), and flashed assurance through the stars (Genesis 15:5–6), so now he has sealed assurance with the greatest sign of all: the body and blood of his dear Son. Week by week, we eat the bread and drink the cup of his steadfast love in Christ (Matthew 26:26–29).

If God’s new covenant is sure (and it is), if his promises are true (and they are), and if his character cannot change (and it can’t), then full assurance is possible for everyone in Christ, no matter how strong our present fears.

Enemies of Assurance

If, then, Scripture testifies so powerfully to the possibility of assurance, why does anyone ever lack assurance — and why do some seem to struggle with it ongoingly? Because Christian assurance is not only possible, but opposed. Of the enemies that assail us, three are chief: Satan, sin, and our broken psychology.

Satan

We might expect “the accuser of our brothers, . . . who accuses them day and night before our God” to war against the Christian’s peace (Revelation 12:10). And so he does.

In his classic on assurance, Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards reminds readers that the devil assaulted even the assurance of Jesus (172). “If you are the Son of God, command these stones. . . . If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” (Matthew 4:3, 6). The Father had just said, “This is my beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17), but the devil loves to trade his own if for God’s is.

“The devil knows that well-assured Christians threaten the domain of darkness more than any other.”

Many a true Christian has, in turn, heard that dreadful if: “If you are a Christian, why do you sin so much? Why is your faith so small? Why is your heart so cold?” And though Satan’s charges cannot condemn those whom God has justified (Romans 8:33), they certainly can ruin our comfort.

The devil knows that well-assured Christians threaten the domain of darkness more than any other. And so, he protects his property with one of his most-used weapons: doubt.

Sin

Alongside Satan, Scripture presents sin as one of the foremost enemies of assurance. Now, of course, assurance in this life always coexists with sin. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Nevertheless, habitual sin, unrepentant sin, or particularly grievous sin darkens our assurance as surely as drawn curtains darken a room — and it should.

“By this we know that we have come to know him,” the apostle John writes, “if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:5). And therefore, when a pattern of commandment-keeping gives way to commandment-breaking, and a pattern of repentance to stubbornness, and a pattern of confession to secrecy, we cannot “know that we have come to know him” with the same confidence as before. We may be secure in Jesus’s grasp, as Peter was even when he denied his Lord, but our sense of that security is rightly weak until we “have turned again” (Luke 22:31–32), and again have heard his pardoning voice (John 21:15–19).

Psychology

Finally, our own psychology plays an influential, but often overlooked, role in assurance. (By psychology, I refer generally to matters of temperament, patterns of thought, and self-reflection.) Assurance is not only a spiritual phenomenon, but a psychological one: its strength depends on a rightly calibrated conscience, mature self-awareness, and the ability to distinguish gold from fool’s gold in the mines of the soul. John warns us that the time may come when “our heart condemns us” unfairly (1 John 3:19) — and the hearts of some, due to a more broken psychology, condemn more often.

Sinclair Ferguson writes,

An individual may have strong faith, much grace, and rich evidence of fruitful service yet lack full assurance because of natural temperament. We are, after all, physico-psychical unities. A melancholic disposition de facto creates obstacles to the enjoyment of assurance — partly because it creates obstacles to the enjoyment of everything. (The Whole Christ, 219)

Or to paraphrase the Puritan Thomas Brooks (1608–1680), if the eyes of the soul wear dark-tinted glasses, then even the sun may seem black.

Means of Assurance

Such are the enemies to a settled, joyful Christian assurance. But great as they are, “he who is in you is greater” (1 John 4:4). God will not allow Satan, sin, and fallen psychology to thwart the possibility of assurance. And so, he offers, through the ministry of his Spirit, means by which we can overcome their assault and “draw near [to God] with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22). And in his providence, his three great means counter our three great enemies: promises defeat Satan’s accusations, Christlikeness overcomes sin’s darkness, and the Spirit’s witness silences our broken psychology.

Promises

To counter the accusations of the devil, God gives “his precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4), and especially those promises that pledge his patience, kindness, and favor toward us in Christ.

J.I. Packer (1926–2020), in one of his books, notes the inconspicuous but crucial for connecting Romans 5:5 and 5:6. In the former verse, Paul offers a picture of warm-hearted assurance: “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We might assume such a heart-pouring happens unaccountably, perhaps even mystically. Not so. In the next verse, Paul’s little for draws us to the Spirit’s fountain: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). In other words, God’s love enters the hearts of those whose minds are fixed on Calvary.

“Assurance is, first and chiefly, the fruit of beholding Christ and the promises he holds out to us.”

Paul takes the same road later in Romans 8, where he sets the “charge against God’s elect” next to the death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of Christ (Romans 8:33–34) — implying that, in the court of the soul, the devil’s accusations die only when we rest our case on the person, work, and promises of our everlasting Advocate.

Assurance is, first and chiefly, the fruit of beholding Christ and the promises he holds out to us with nail-pierced hands. So, as Brooks says, “Let thy eye and heart, first, most, and last, be fixed upon Christ, then will assurance bed and board with thee” (The Quest for Full Assurance, 127).

Christlikeness

Then, without taking our eye and heart from Christ, the Spirit also nurtures our obedience. As he unveils the glory of Christ, he transforms us “into the same image from degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). He makes us a little garden of grace, where the fruits of Christlikeness take root and grow (Galatians 5:22–23). He also puts a helmet on our head and a sword in our hands to do battle with the un-Christlike “deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13).

As we walk by his power — looking to Christ, becoming like Christ, and confessing our failures along the way — the Spirit assures us that, indeed, “the old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christlikeness may grow slowly; it usually does. We also may struggle in different seasons to discern genuine spiritual fruit amid the thorns of our indwelling sin. But the same Spirit who grows his grace inside us can train us also to recognize it. As Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) writes, the Spirit “writes first all graces in us, and then teaches us to read his handwriting” (Quest for Full Assurance, 137).

Embracing obedience as a means of assurance does not require obsessive introspection — in fact, obsessive introspection usually does more to stifle grace than grow it. In general, grace grows best when no one’s watching, including you. And so, like Paul, we forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, keeping our eyes on the Gracious one all the while (Philippians 3:13–14). And then, occasionally, an inward look at our hearts and an outward glance at our lives (perhaps with a pastor or trusted brother or sister) can show us what the Spirit has done.

Witness of the Spirit

The third enemy to Christian assurance, our own broken psychology, likewise finds its match in the ministry of the Spirit, and particularly in what Paul calls the Spirit’s “witness”:

You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. (Romans 8:15–16)

Much debate surrounds Paul’s words about the Spirit’s witness. But this much we can say with confidence: Assurance does not ultimately depend on your background, personality, conscience, or common temptations. Rather, assurance depends on the gracious witness of the Spirit, who not only shows us Christ, and not only makes us holy, but who also silences all objections and testifies, “Here is a child of God.” And so, as J.C. Ryle writes, assurance “is a positive gift of the Holy Ghost, bestowed without reference to men’s bodily frames or constitutions” (Holiness, 128).

The Holy Spirit “knows our frame” (Psalm 103:14) — the human frame in general, and our frame in particular. And whatever our psychological makeup, he knows how to communicate his own witness in ways we can hear. He may do so in one dramatic moment, as we read a specific promise or hear the gospel preached. Or he may do so gradually, even almost insensibly, through daily meditation and obedience pursued over years. But no matter how strong the walls, the Spirit can break into the city of our doubts and, where insecurity reigned before, enthrone assurance in its place. So why not ask him?

Preciousness of Assurance

The pursuit of assurance may last long. We may find, moreover, that doubt can return after a long season of confidence, for assurance once enjoyed does not mean assurance always enjoyed. Our peace can rise and fall, requiring a fresh pursuit of assurance through the means God has provided. But however long we have to travel this road, and however often, remember: the preciousness of assurance outweighs all the world.

Who tastes more of heaven on earth than those who walk, freely and happily, through that holy city of assurance, marveling at the heights of Romans 8:31–39? To know with Spirit-given confidence, and not just a frail wish, that the Almighty God is for us, that he gave up his Son to save us, that the blood of Jesus covers us and his intercession upholds us, that neither devils nor conscience can condemn us, and that his love will never leave us — to know all this is to walk, right now, on streets of gold.

Assurance, Ryle writes, enables a man to “always feel that he has something solid beneath his feet and something firm under his hands — a sure friend by the way, and a sure home at the end” (Holiness, 139). Yes, a sure friend, Jesus, and a sure home, heaven: such is the precious gift of assurance — a gift, let it be remembered, that God delights to give.