Presumption and assurance, courage and recklessness are sets of fraternal twins.  In many ways they look and act alike.  But they are very different.  Recklessness looks like courage on the surface.  But courage sets aside caution only for costly conviction, while recklessness heedlessly jettisons prudence just for bragging rights.  We all admire the off-duty firefighter who rushes into danger to save a child from a burning house.  But the bungee jumper accomplishes nothing more than an adrenaline rush.

Likewise, presumption and assurance bear remarkable resemblance.  They are both confident.  Both speak and act out of solid certainty.   But there are significant distinctions.  Assurance rests in the object of its faith, while presumption faiths its own faith.  Assurance is vigilant and wary of threats, within and without.  While presumption thinks itself bullet-proof, invincible, and unbreakable.  Like the simpleton of the Proverb 14:15, presumption’s self-confidence allows it to “believe everything, [while] the prudent gives thought to his steps.”

Assurance and presumption are not the same thing.  The Bible calls us to have assurance of our faith.  But it also warns us to be vigilant and wary of threats, without and within.  Jesus destroyed the works of the devil and conquered sin and death.  Indeed, we can rejoice in the admonitions of the Apostle John to us.

I am writing to you, little children,
    because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
I am writing to you, fathers,
    because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
    because you have overcome the evil one. -1 John 2:12-13

And yet we also read, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Presumption throws off all sober-minded, watchfulness, confident that it is enough to simply declare our faith in a decision card and then live life however it comes. 

Assurance, however, comforts the doubtful, fearful saint, but warns us to be sober-minded and watchful.  Though we cannot fall from our Heavenly Father’s grip, we can still get tripped up and wounded by the enemy of our soul as he tempts us to love our sinfulness and sin more than our Savior.  And so, assurance and caution are not logically incompatible.

In discussing free will, the Westminster Confession notes.

When God converts a sinner and translates Him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.

-Westminster Confession of Faith 9.4, “Of Free Will”

In 1 John, the beloved Apostle, is writing to the churches of Asia Minor to comfort them with a sermon on assurance.  Anti-Christs, deceivers, and false teachers were denying the importance of the Apostolic witness, the nature of the person and work of Christ, the reality of a transformed life, and importance of loving one another in the church.  They taught “another gospel” of being spiritual but not religious, of knowing God but loving the ways of the world. 

So, John writes to gently point his little children back to the person and work of Christ, to the sanctifying, transformative work of the gospel in their lives, and their love for one another as metrics for authentic faith and fellowship.  He gives them a bold declaration of assurance and a variety of simple, practical tests to gauge their assurance.  But he also warns them what is not compatible with assurance.   

In his short letter on assurance, filled with reassurances of God’s love and exhortations to love one another, the Apostle warns the saints only once what they are not to love, writing “[d]o not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Join us as we examine 1 John 2:15-17 and consider John’s warning not to love the world and how that warning impacts our assurance.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.