Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Hebrews 10:19-22 | Date: September 18, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Superior Sacrifice Of Christ

Beginning with verse 1. Chapter 10 and verse 1. Now notice that first word there, “for,” so he’s pulling on chapter 9; he’s bringing it together with some more explanation. Or, since the law has but a shadow of good things to come—that is, the law was given, the law covenant was given, it provided for the sacrificial system, it was prospective in its outlook, it looked forward to and anticipated only in prospective terms what was finally accomplished in the Lord Jesus and his work. That’s the argument of chapter nine. Now, since the law has but a shadow of good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said—and here he quotes Psalm 40—”Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'” When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, “This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord” (this is Jeremiah chapter 31), “I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds,” and then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” For where there is forgiveness of these, there’s no longer any offering for sin.

And now he comes to his conclusion. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, what a marvelous passage of Scripture this is, and what a wonderful and warm theme we have before us today as we consider this doctrine of the assurance of salvation. We pray that you’ll direct our understanding, give us a clear understanding and appreciation of it, and by that, we pray that you would encourage the hearts of your people. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

The Question Of Assurance Of Salvation

All right, in our rather lengthy series on the doctrine of salvation, we’ve seen that our salvation finds its originating cause in the electing and eternal love of God in Christ. God chose a people for himself whom he would save. He gave those people to his Son. He sent his Son then on a saving mission. He sent him to take the place of those people and to act on their behalf in every way that is necessary to salvation. And so Jesus, in his incarnation, his death, his resurrection, and then his ascension to the throne of heaven, has accomplished now all that is necessary for salvation. He took the place of sinners, he bore our sin, took the curse himself, bore the penalty of it, propitiated God; God is satisfied with us because His wrath has fallen on our substitute. He has accomplished our salvation, and now, having taken the throne, He has asked for and received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, and He has poured His Spirit upon the earth to bring His people now, one by one, individually, into fellowship with Him.

And so the Spirit comes, we have seen. He gives us faith by which we are drawn to Christ, and in union with Christ now by the Spirit and through faith, we have in Jesus, in union with him, all that God requires of us. In union with him, we have righteousness, we have sonship, we have sanctification, we have redemption; all of these are ours because and only because we are joined to Jesus Christ who is the accomplished Savior. And we’ve seen then something of the fact that the salvation that we have in Christ is a completely full salvation with every need provided for us graciously and freely in Christ.

Our question now this morning then is: How can I know that all of these things pertain to me? It’s one thing to say, “I understand them.” It’s another thing to say that they’re true. But it’s still another to say, “It all pertains to me.” It’s the question of assurance of salvation. So we’re not asking here the question that we’ve seen recently, and that is, “Are believers safe in Jesus?” We saw that they are safe in Jesus. The question here is a little more narrow. The question here is: Am I one of those believers, and how can I know that I’m one of those who is safe in Jesus forever?

The question then is a very personal one. Am I saved, and can I be sure of it? How can I have assurance? How can I be confident that I’m in fact in a right standing with God, accepted by him, and that I’ll for eternity enjoy his blessed presence? The question is massively important, or scarcely a more important one for us. And the answer of it shapes really the entire perspective of the Christian life in every way. Will we live confidently? Will we live in fear? Will we live in doubts? Will we have hesitations and uncertainty before God?

And to answer the question, it really does require that the Christian think. I’m sorry, but it requires that we think. And I say that because what we’re looking for here is not just some vague feeling. We want to have some certainty of understanding, some reason to believe that I am one of these, that you are one of these that Christ has saved. And our question this time and next time as well, and perhaps the time after that, will be to answer that. That’ll be our purpose: How can we know that we belong to Jesus?

Actually, as we’ll see in the developing of this series—this part of the series—that there has been in the history of the church, there have been various approaches to the question where Christian interpreters and movements, even Reformed movements, have emphasized this or the other aspect of salvation, and I think they’re all correct. I also think, and I’ve come to see this as so very important, I’ve also come to see that all of these various approaches—like assurance in the gospel, assurance with the witness of the Spirit, assurance with the evidence of a transformed life, these kinds of things—various groups have emphasized one or the other of these things, and I think they are all right and they’re all necessary, but they are all important to keep in perspective at the same time. If we emphasize one at the expense of the other, I think we’ll miss too much and we’ll miss some real ground for assurance.

The Ground Of Assurance

And so today, with the first part of the assurance of salvation, I want to emphasize what I think has to be first, and that is the ground of assurance. That’s what we’ll be looking at. First of all, there’s to be acquainted with the terminology that we have in the New Testament regarding assurance of salvation. Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, the Bible uses that word, “assurance.” In fact, we just read it here in chapter 10 and verse 22: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” If you want to look back at chapter 6 and verse 11, you’ll see the same kind of expression: “full assurance of hope,” a certainty of the prospect that we have. In 1 John chapter 5, the Apostle John famously speaks of it in terms of, “I’ve written this, that you may know that you have eternal life.” That’s assurance.

But as I was thinking through this, I thought that the New Testament is just filled with expressions that are tantamount to the same thing. Think through them, if you will, quickly with me. Last time we were in Romans chapter 8, and there we saw the Apostle Paul just exalting and elated with confidence in God regarding the final outcome of his salvation. That’s assurance. Exalting in God and elated with the prospect of what God has given me and that prospect that we will reach. In Romans chapter 5, Paul speaks of it as in terms of peace with God. We’ve experienced that. And that’s Paul’s argument in Romans chapter 5, that coming to God by faith in Jesus, and having in Jesus a full salvation, and having in him a Savior that has done all that is necessary, we’ve experienced it now. We’ve come to peace with God. Not just in a judicial sense, but in an experienced sense. God’s wrath against us is over, the enmity is gone.

In chapter 5 of Romans, verse 2, Paul speaks of rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. That’s another expression of assurance. Paul is elated with the prospect that he has of sharing with Christ in his inheritance as he says it in Romans chapter 8. In fact, the whole New Testament language of hope—you see that word now and then through the New Testament—that language of hope, it… and I’m afraid sometimes we don’t appreciate those connotations of the word “hope” in the New Testament. We think of it in terms of “wish,” like, “I hope to inherit a million dollars someday.” That’s just not the connotations of hope. Hope in the New Testament is that of anticipation, expectation. This is what I’m looking forward to doing. And that language of hope in the New Testament is just everywhere, where we anticipate the glory that we will inherit with Christ in the end.

In Galatians, Paul speaks of assurance in terms of enjoying our freedom in Christ. We’re free from the law. We’re free from condemnation. We have no longer to be afraid in those kinds of terms. We saw it last time in Philippians chapter 1, with an utter confidence that God, who began a good work in us, will continue it forever. That’s reflective of assurance. I think in Philippians we find the same thing where Paul’s big theme there is rejoicing in the Lord. That’s reflective of assurance. Exalting in what we have in Jesus and the full salvation that we enjoy because of him. In Colossians, assurance is simply bound up with the recognition that Christ is enough. I have in Jesus all that God requires of me. And because of that, I’m left with an utter certainty and assurance before God.

In the Gospel of John, we find assurance reflected in the present experience of eternal life. This eternal life which comes in the end is something we already possess, and we’ve seen that—that the eschaton, the time of the end, the blessings promised for the end have been brought forward into the experience of the believer. In terms of eternal life, it’s something we experience now. We find assurance in the New Testament reflected in the expressions regarding our freedom in Christ, our no condemnation in Christ, the blessed hope that we have in Christ. Paul will speak of the crown laid up for us in heaven. That’s reflective of assurance. In Thessalonians, Paul speaks of our confidence before God, before Christ at his appearing, which is just a fascinating concept. Here, Christ’s return in his glory, and Paul says, “We will not shrink away. We’ll have confidence before him when he comes.” Assurance before God.

Implicit in all of the passages in the New Testament—rejoicing, rejoicing in the Lord, safe in Christ forever, God’s elective decree, Christ’s priestly work, being sealed by the Spirit—all of these things are to fuel a sense of assurance in us, and in fact, by the time we get through it all, thinking it through like that, we get the distinct impression that assurance of salvation ought to be the normal experience of every Christian. And I think that’s just a surface reading of the New Testament that tells us that.

So we sing songs like “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine,” or “I Know Whom I Have Believed.” That’s straight out of Timothy; that’s Paul’s words. “I know whom I have believed, I’m persuaded that he’s able to keep that which I’ve committed to him against that day.” Or in some of the more contemporary songs that we’ve sung, “Bold I Approach the Eternal Throne”—well, this is Watts, or Wesley—all of that is reflective of assurance before God.

All right, as I say, what I want to drive this morning is the question which has to be first: the ground of our assurance. How can I know? What is the ground of my assurance? What can I base this on? And we just have to say it this way. Simply put, the ground of our assurance is Christ and God’s promise of acceptance in him. Ground of our assurance—if you don’t get anything else this morning, if you fall asleep, lose me—please get this. The ground of our assurance is Christ and God’s promise of acceptance in him. So Jesus says to us, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Or in John chapter six, “All that the Father gives me will come to me. Him that comes to me I’ll never cast out.” Or in Romans chapter 10, the assurance, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

As you know, I was converted as a young child, and I remember one time just entertaining the question. I can’t say it was serious doubts, except that it bothered me. “How can I know? How can I know that this is me?” And I remember asking my dad about it. In Romans chapter 10, verse 13 was the passage he took me to. “What does this say here?” he said. “Read it to me.” “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” “Does it say might be saved?” “No.” “It says shall be saved, doesn’t it? Will you believe that?” “Yeah.” It was that simple. Now there’s more to the question than that, but that was so helpful to my young mind, and I think that is the bottom line: that the ground of our assurance is Christ and God’s promise of acceptance in him. The gospel offers us a Christ; it offers us in him an all-sufficient Savior who has done for us all that we’ve seen and more over these past many months, and God promises us, “If you come to me through him, I’ll accept you and I’ll have you.” And assurance then is grounded in simply a trust in Christ and in God’s promise of acceptance in him.

To put that another way—and this is something the Reformers emphasized quite a bit, and particularly Martin Luther—assurance then is of the essence of saving faith. Assurance is of the essence of saving faith. In other words, to trust in Christ is itself an expression of assurance. So God promises us in the gospel that Christ is an all-sufficient Savior, that He’ll take us because of Christ and all the great work that He has done. So we look to Christ for salvation, assured of God’s promise of acceptance in Him. We entrust ourselves to Christ, and that trust implicitly is an assurance, for why would we go to him in trust if we were not assured that he will take us? Luther reasoned it like this: if faith is trust, then resting in God’s promise… if faith is trust, a resting in God’s promise, then assurance is just bound up with it. How else could I entrust myself to Christ if I didn’t believe also and if I were not also assured that God will accept me? And I think we find that, actually if you want to look across the page in Hebrews chapter 11, we find that in verse 1, the famous verse: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We haven’t had, we have not received yet the fullness of salvation that’s been promised to us. But faith is the assurance of that.

The Superiority Of Jesus’ Sacrifice

Now all of that to put us in the orbit of Hebrews chapter 10 and the conclusion that he draws at the end. And I want to walk through this chapter quickly to see then the force of the conclusion that he draws from it. In the context here, you remember in the letter to the Hebrews, this pastor, evidently, whoever he is, writes to his congregation of Jewish believers. They are Jewish believers in Jesus, they have professed faith in Christ, they’ve come to this new way of worship, and they’ve left behind them the old covenant way of worship. On the Old Covenant, they’ve got the far back, they got the tabernacle. More recently for these particular people, there’s the temple and its system of worship. And you’ve got with that the bright colors, and you’ve got the elaborate ceremonies, and you’ve got the sacrifices, and you’ve got the strong smell of the sacrifices, and you’ve got the brilliant colors in the curtains, and you’ve got the music, and you’ve got all of that. And now here they are meeting in this small house or wherever it is with their small congregation, and they’re supposed to believe this is better.

And some of them are tempted to go back. And they’re having doubts. And this pastor writes then, with that argument in mind, to keep them faithful and to answer their doubts. And the whole theme—and he directs us through this through the entire letter of Hebrews—he directs them to think in terms of the gospel. The gospel that they’ve embraced. And his argument is simply, simply put, the superiority of Jesus. In fact, you could put as the theme of Hebrews, “Jesus is better.” Whatever you had in the old covenant way of worship, you have better in Jesus. Jesus himself is superior; he’s God himself, God incarnate, come in the flesh to offer himself as a sacrifice for sins. We have better promises, we have a better covenant. With better promises, instead of a covenant that says “do this or die,” we have a covenant that says he forgives us of all of our sins. We have a superior priest. We have a superior prophet. We have superior promises. We’ve got everything better in Jesus. And that, in a nutshell, is the argument of Hebrews.

When we get to chapters 9 and 10, he focuses now on the superiority of Jesus’ sacrifice. The superior sacrifice of Christ as that to which the old sacrifices could only point and anticipate. And he gives us here a series of contrasts. And I think you’ll probably remember them. Number one, the sacrifice that Christ offered was himself. This is chapter nine. The sacrifice that Christ offered was not bulls and goats; it was himself. This is the incarnate Son who has come in the flesh to take the place of sinners. It is a superior sacrifice. He himself was the sacrifice that was offered. Two, the old tabernacle in which sacrifices were offered was just a copy. The real temple was in heaven. Sustained contrast of that in chapters nine and ten, elsewhere in Hebrews as well, but particularly in chapters nine and ten—that the old tabernacle is just a copy of a heavenly reality. The presence of God, that’s the real temple. And Christ then has offered his sacrifice and it was accepted there, not just in a copy where the old sacrifices were offered, but it was accepted in heaven itself in the presence of God in the real temple.

So, the superior sacrifice: Christ offered himself and it was accepted in heaven, the real temple. And then the third point that he stresses throughout these chapters is his sacrifice then was offered only once. His sacrifice was offered only once. I want you to see how all of this comes in chapter 10. Let’s go back to verse 1. “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having been once cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices, there’s a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

Now in verses 5 and following we have the section on Psalm 40, which I’m going to have to leave for another time. Verse 11: “Every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.” That’s Psalm 110. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put up my laws in their hearts and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’ For where there is forgiveness of these, there’s no longer any offering for sin.”

Now let’s walk back through this just briefly. In verses 1 to 3, we have this: he pictures this Old Testament worshiper who’s thinking. He’s not just going through the motions; he’s going through the motions that are prescribed, but he’s thinking. And what’s in view here is the annual Day of Atonement. And he comes, and the sacrifice is offered, and the sacrifice is offered again next year, and the sacrifice is offered next year, and it’s offered again next year, and it’s offered again next year, and next year, and it’s been like that for centuries, and it keeps on going. And the worshiper’s thinking, “Does this really work? Does this take away sins? If it does, why does it have to be repeated? Why do I have to do another? And why do I come back again next year?” And he’s thinking, “If I have to… I know God prescribes this, but if I have to keep offering it, and the offering keeps having to be offered again next year and the next year, does it really do anything?” And that’s why he says in verse 3, “In these sacrifices, there’s a reminder of sins every year.” Every year you have to go back, see the sacrifice. Why? Well, because there are sins. You see the sacrifice, you’re reminded, “That’s why I need it, there are sins.”

I like to contrast this with the Lord’s Table. In the Lord’s Table we don’t re-offer the sacrifice; we have a memorial of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, and in the Lord’s Table there’s not a reminder of sins, there’s a reminder of redemption. And this is his contrast: in that old system, they offer year after year after year, and each time there’s sin, there’s, “Oh yeah, there’s sin, there’s sin, we gotta offer sacrifice; yeah, there’s sin, we gotta offer sacrifice,” over and again each year. And then verse four, he gives the explanation of why all of that was inadequate: “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Yeah, that’s it. We see this wonderful symbolism in terms of the offerer and sins being transferred to the victim and the substitute being sacrificed in place of the others and God being propitiated and all of that, but is the blood of bulls and goats really enough to cover human sin? Well, no, it can’t. There’s a disconnect. And so this, of course, is part of the anticipatory function of the Old Covenant worship. It was setting up the structures; it was establishing the structures in which redemption could be accomplished. But not like that. This pictures it, but it’s not that. It’s just not enough.

And so, verse 11, he emphasizes again the never-ending activity of the Old Covenant priest. He does it daily, he does it daily, the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. He does it today, he does it tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day. Every year we have the annual Day of Atonement. We do it next year, next year, over and again and over and again. He stands daily and there’s no place to sit down in the tabernacle because the priest’s work is never done. And then, verse 12: “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” His work was finished. Actually a dual significance here of the sitting down. One, he’s sitting down because his work is done. But he’s also sitting down on the throne, as per Psalm 110: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” He’s enthroned, that kind of sitting down. He’s taken the throne of heaven. But he’s done with his work, so he is seated.

And verses 12 to 14 here speak then of the efficacy of Christ’s work. It’s once and done; it’s finished. He’s waiting from that time for his enemies to be made his footstool, “for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” So here we have something drawn again from chapter 9: the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over the sacrifice of bulls and goats, other animals. They’re offered—that’s nothing—but they point forward to the reality of what was offered in Christ. He offered himself in sacrifice for sins. Here is one who is more than adequate to take the place of sinners and to bear their punishment in their place. And that once-for-all sacrifice is good for all time.

And then, verses 15 and following, he links it to the new covenant of Jeremiah chapter 31. Verse 17, in particular, emphasizes the forgiveness aspect of that covenant. Verse 16: “I’ll transform them from the inside out. I’ll write my law on their hearts.” But verse 17, the judicial aspect: “I’ll remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Forgiveness, effected now by the superior sacrifice of Jesus. All of those other sacrifices looked forward and anticipated and symbolized a forgiveness of sins, which is now perfectly accomplished in the one sacrifice of Jesus. Where there’s forgiveness of sins, there’s no longer any offering for sins. Verse 17: “I’ll remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.” Wonderful expression of forgiveness. It’s a metaphor, of course—the omniscient, eternally omniscient God saying, “I’m gonna forget that.” And it’s not a groundless forgetting. But he disregards the sin because the sin, in fact, has been dealt with in the person of our substitute and in the blood of Jesus; he has secured this new covenant blessing for us.

And so verse 18, he draws the conclusion: it’s finished. Nothing else is needed. “Where there is forgiveness of these, there’s no longer any offering for sin.” We don’t need another one. It’s been offered for good. So the old covenant was only provisionary. It was prospective. It was anticipatory. It was, in the words of verse one, a shadow of good things to come. But the true form of those realities is Jesus. Christ accomplished then—this is his whole argument—Christ has accomplished what those sacrifices only symbolized. Now all of that is just basic gospel truth, isn’t it? You know all that. And he’s driving us to think in those terms. Think in terms of the gospel that you’ve embraced.

Since We Have Confidence, Let Us Act On It

And now verse 19: “Therefore.” He’s gonna pull a conclusion out of all of that. You know this gospel, you know that Christ is the sacrifice, you know that he stood in your place, he’s borne your sin, and that God has accepted him in heaven. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God,” and here’s the exhortation, “let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

I want you to see how he reasons here. We’ve got the inferential “therefore” in verse 19. He’s drawing a conclusion now from his whole argument of chapters nine and 10. “Therefore, since we have confidence.” Now where did that come from? Since we have confidence. It’s a given now. He’s talked about the finished work of Christ, the superiority of the work of Christ, its acceptance in heaven, its reality of all what the others only symbolize, so he just draws a given. “Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.” Notice the symbolism: that curtain in the temple separating us out of the holy of holies—we can’t get in. That curtain is the body of Jesus, metaphorically. It is through the torn body of Jesus that we enter into the holy place and into the presence of God.

And then verse 22: “Let us,” since we have this confidence, and since we have this great high priest, “let us draw near with a true heart and in full assurance of faith.” You see the reasoning? Since we have this confidence, since we have this ground of approach to God, let us act on it. Let us approach God with a heart full of assurance, confidently before him. Don’t think that confidence before God is necessarily presumption. It is not. The ground of our assurance is what Christ has done. Because we have him, let us draw near with a heart full of assurance. And then verse 22 at the end: “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.” Don’t you love that? You ever fret over past sins? You ever fret over current sins? “How could I be a Christian if I think like that?” And he applies it to that. And he says, “We have an adequate substitute in Jesus.” And so we now may approach God with such confidence with our conscience even sprinkled clean, because all of that sin has been answered for in Jesus. And so the conscience-calming effects of the gospel. Here’s the whole point. This is where it brings us. Christ is an adequate Savior. It was symbolized. Now we have the reality. We have this great, superior sacrifice accepted in heaven on our behalf. Well, let’s act on it, and let us approach God with full assurance of faith and without a smiting conscience.

So his overall argument: since we have confidence, let us act on it. Approach God reverently? Yes, of course, of course, of course. Never flippantly. But we must not, if we are in Christ, we must not feel reticence and hesitant, doubtful as we approach God. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.” There’s the ground of our assurance.

Now let me draw a few observations from this regarding our doctrine of assurance. Number one is what I’ve already said: assurance is grounded in gospel truth. Put it another way, as I said earlier: assurance is grounded in Christ and God’s promise of acceptance in him. Assurance is grounded in gospel truth, not our feelings, not our behavior. “I’ve been a good boy this week. God must be pleased.” My assurance is not grounded in my behavior. My assurance is not grounded in some vague feeling that I may have. My assurance is grounded in gospel truth. I have in Jesus a sufficient Savior. God has promised to accept me because of him, and because God has promised me, I come. In other words, our assurance, just like our faith in the first place, is not grounded in anything about us. It’s grounded in Jesus entirely.

And number two—this is closely associated with that. Number one, assurance is grounded in gospel truth. Number two, and this is very practically important: assurance is an exercise of faith. Assurance is an exercise of faith. In verses 19 to 22 here, it’s a given that we have confidence, but it’s also a confidence that we are exhorted to adopt. “Let us draw near.” Since we have this confidence, act on it. Since we have this confidence, draw near with a true heart and in full assurance of faith. Trust, relying on the gospel truth that we have embraced. Assurance is a resting in Christ as he’s presented in the gospel and a trusting that God will do what he said he would do and accept us because of Jesus. It’s an exercise of faith. Again, I want you to see that in these verses, 19 and following. Since we have this confidence, verse 22 then, let us act on it and approach God with a full assurance of faith. Act on the gospel that you have embraced.

Now, other factors must play in in the doctrine of assurance. We’ll see those in the coming weeks. And in fact, I also want to say that not all doubts are sinful. I’ve known some professing Christians that I think ought to doubt a little more. But at some point, it seems to me, at some point, if we are continuously plagued with doubts, it might be—it might be just an unwillingness to take God at his word, that he will accept us in Jesus. I’ve seen this many times throughout my ministry. You have some sensitive Christian who’s very sincerely wanting to pursue Christ with a pure heart. “Pastor, I don’t know how I can be saved. I have these blasphemous thoughts that occur to me. I’m struggling with assurance because of these awful thoughts that come to my mind or something I’ve said or done.” And you gotta be careful because you don’t want to take those things lightly. Take them very seriously and deal with them. But when I keep coming back and I keep coming back, “These terrible thoughts I have, how can I be a Christian?” At some point I want to say, “Well, what did you expect? Glorification early?” At what point are you going to say, “God has promised to take me in Jesus with all of my sin, and in Jesus I have someone who’s answered for it all”? Act on the assurance I have in Jesus, one who’s answered for it. I can go to God with a true heart and full assurance, with a conscience sprinkled clean, because the same question’s been dealt with entirely.

And at some point, at some point, I think some Christians need to repent of their doubts and take God at His word that He saves sinners. We must not wallow in doubts, but trust God to accept us as he said he would. I’ve told you, I think, recently about Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who was a Roman Catholic theologian at the time of the Reformation. He was a very important player on the other side of the fence. He was the personal theologian for Pope Clement during that time—a major figure in the Counter-Reformation. I think I mentioned to you that he made the statement that the greatest of all Protestant heresies—the greatest of all Protestant heresies is… and you’d think their doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, that was big; their doctrine of justification, that was big. The greatest of all Protestant heresies, he said, was their doctrine of assurance. If you believe, as he believed, that your salvation is grounded in some measure in what you do… and he’s right. If you think that your salvation is yet to be determined at the end of your life and God will measure it up and see if you’ve done well enough and there’s enough ground of saying you’ve been pronounced well, well then assurance would be presumption. But if, as the Protestant Reformers insisted, we have in Jesus an all-sufficient Savior who’s answered for all of our sins, offered sacrifice once for all, we are accepted because of him, not because of us—well, then assurance is a given. And it ought to be a normal Christian experience. In fact, many have described it this way, and I think it is right: assurance of salvation is the birthright of every Christian. We go to Jesus, we go to God and say, “I’m coming not because of anything about me. I’m coming just as I am without any plea, but that Jesus’ blood was shed for me and that you’ve told me you’d have me if I come through him. That’s all I have.”

That’s Hebrews 10—Hebrews 10 verses 19 and following. “Therefore, because we have all of this, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” John Bunyan is one of my favorites in the history of the church. You’ve read his Pilgrim’s Progress, I hope. I’ve said before you can’t be a Christian without reading that. I don’t quite mean that, but I almost do. He’s written another book called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. It’s a small, small book. Some of you probably read it. And it’s his spiritual autobiography. He tells of how he came to Christ, saved. There’s actually been some discussion about Pilgrim’s Progress—when was Bunyan converted? Was he converted at the wicket gate when he walked through, which seems to be the conversion point? Or was he converted later on that hill where the burden falls off his back and rolls down into an empty tomb? Two conversion points, what’s going on?

And I think the answer is pretty clearly found in Bunyan’s own experience. He came to Christ, he was converted, and yet he’s troubled by these plaguing doubts. “He has these awful thoughts, they’re blasphemous, and there’s these things that I’ve done, and how can God ever accept me because I’m such a sinner?” And he struggled with that for a good bit of time. And I remember the first time I read that Grace Abounding, I was just struck by it—how awfully bothered he was by this with no confidence at all before God. And it was finally when he realized—and it was through some things that he had overheard regarding the gospel—he came to the realization that it’s Christ. And he came with this expression: “My righteousness is in heaven.” What God requires of me is not here; it’s there. “My righteousness is in heaven.” And that’s when the burden fell off his back and rolled into an empty tomb.

Now we don’t go around saying “my righteousness is in heaven,” although we do really well to do that. But we sing, “When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin.” My righteousness is in heaven, and that is the ground of our confidence. Now there’s much more to say about assurance and we will see it regarding the witness of the Spirit, personal transformation, evidence of personal living, things like that. But we must see, first of all, this is the ground of assurance: Christ and God’s promise of acceptance in him. Assurance is simply an implicate of the gospel itself. And it might be that just on an emotional level, we need to catch up. There’s a freedom that we are meant to enjoy. Christ in our place. Christ, all-sufficient, justification by grace, through faith in Jesus, the all-sufficient Savior, that despite all of my sin, God will have me because of him. And in that we rejoice. Amen.