December 8, 2025 Show with Dr. Jonathan L. Master on “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine: A Precious Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures Revived During the Reformation”

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this eighth day of December 2025.

And we are going to be discussing today a very important doctrine from the

Scriptures, a doctrine that separated the Reformation from Rome, a doctrine that separates false versions of Christianity or aberrant versions of it from the authentic article.

We are talking about blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Of course, that beautiful phrase from a beautiful hymn that reflects a true biblical truth.

And we are having a blessed opportunity to discuss that doctrine today with Dr.

Jonathan L. Master, president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

He's an author and editor of a number of books, contributor to a number of periodicals, including

Table Talk, a member of the Executive Council of the Gospel Reformation Network, a member of the

Board of Directors for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and host of their podcast,

Theology on the Go. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Jonathan Master. Chris. Thanks for having me on. It's good to be with you.

And tell our listeners something about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Greenville Seminary exists really for one purpose, which is to train men for pastoral ministry.

We seek to do that in a way that is rigorous, a way that challenges and disciples them spiritually, and that also is confessionally faithful.

We believe strongly in the teaching contained in the

Westminster Standards, and we seek to have that applied in all of our classes.

So Greenville has been around since 1987, and by God's grace, has been used to train a number of ministers.

And if you folks want to find more interviews after this live one is over, featuring

Jonathan Master. He's been interviewed a number of times on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, at least five.

But this is the first time, believe it or not, in eight years he's been on. In a while. Yeah. But folks, if you want also—oh, go to ironsharpensironradio .com

and type in Jonathan Master in the search engine, and you will get all of the episodes featuring

Jonathan Master on this program. And if you want more information on Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, go to gpts .edu.

And I know for a fact that you accept students who are lowly

Reformed Baptists like me, because one of my former pastors,

John Miller, is a graduate in there. He is. That's right. Yep. One of our graduates.

Very grateful to the Lord for him and for his ministry. But yeah, no, absolutely. Each year we always have a handful of Reformed Baptists who study with us, and we're glad to have them.

And you are also—it's always encouraging to hear that you're one of the few seminaries—well, it's not encouraging that you're one of the few, but it's encouraging that you're still proclaiming and teaching a young earth as far as creationism is concerned.

Yeah, we've always been very committed to the Bible's doctrine of creation, and that's something that all of our professors hold to.

Amen. Well, I saw you not long ago for a

Reformation conference or a Reformation lecture at the

Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and I was really blessed and edified and riveted to your message on assurance.

And I immediately said to myself, the next time Dr. Master returns to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, I've got to have him speak on assurance.

And can you tell us when, from your knowledge of history, the truth of this precious doctrine began to fade into obscurity to the point where, when

Rome was in full -blown power, they were adamantly opposing it as a heresy, presumptive—I'm trying to remember the phrase they use.

Well, they certainly said it was presumption, for sure. Yeah, it's a good question,

Chris. I don't know if we could trace an exact moment where it faded away. Obviously, it's something that the

New Testament clearly teaches, and we see a number of instances of individuals throughout the early church years who clearly had a firm conviction of their salvation before the

Lord, a firm sense of assurance. I think most likely, although you couldn't trace it to a particular event,

I think most likely that the rise of a very sacramental understanding of salvation, which you start to see in the 5th century—you know, you can find little bits of it before then, but certainly from that point forward in the

Roman church—that begins to erode a believer's doctrine of assurance.

And then you do see the rise of doctrines like purgatory a little bit later in the Middle Ages. And so I don't know that we could set an exact time stamp on it, but clearly by the time you reach the

Reformation in the late Middle Ages, there was a lack of assurance among those people.

And as you mentioned, in the Council of Trent, which was a council convened by the

Roman church essentially to answer the Reformation, they made it clear—and this is still

Roman Catholic doctrine today—that no one can know for certain that he is stave unless there's some kind of supernatural revelation given to him.

So no question that by the time you get to the late Middle Ages, that doctrine has receded and the

Reformers gloriously rediscover it in the scriptures and in the early church and then the

Roman church responds to that. Now, there is a difference in the

Reformation among the Reformers between the Lutheran branch and the

Reformed or Calvinistic branch. Were there differences on assurance in regard to the

Reformation? I think among those Protestant Reformers who taught very clearly the doctrine of justification by faith, they had a general agreement, but some of the detailed pastoral applications of the doctrine of assurance, because assurance is such a pastoral doctrine, some of those detailed pastoral applications don't come out until a little bit after the first generation of the

Reformation, and that's where you start to see some divergence. I don't know that you see a clear divergence early on.

I think the big breakthrough with respect to assurance is a rediscovery, a recovery, a reassertion of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

And perhaps you could give us, even though it seems on its surface that it would be easily understood what we're talking about,

I think because of the fact we have people of all stages in their Christian walk who listen to this program, and some who listen are not

Christians at all. Why don't you give us a working definition of assurance? Well, assurance is the conviction, the inward conviction that you are in Christ, that you are saved, that you are a child of God through faith.

And so assurance is that doctrine that speaks about that conviction that we have, that we are received by God in Jesus Christ.

And what would be some primary biblical texts that would lead a Christian who believes in the inerrancy of Scripture to embrace this teaching?

Well, it always has been connected with those great biblical texts about our justification by faith.

And so we could start there. We could start with the great texts that speak about the fact that, for instance, in Ephesians chapter 2, by grace are you saved through faith.

This is not of yourself. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Or in Romans chapter 6, there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Those kinds of texts become formative because it starts from an understanding of salvation.

When it comes to assurance itself, there are really three main strands of coming to an assured state.

The primary one is we look to the promises of Jesus Christ. So we look to promises like the ones that Jesus makes in John chapter 6, that all the

Father gives to me will come to me and the one who comes to me, I will not cast out and I will raise him up on the last day.

That's a promise that Christ makes. And so primarily when it comes to assurance, you say, have

I come to Jesus Christ? Am I trusting in him? And if the answer is yes, then you lean on those promises that Jesus Christ has made.

The Bible also speaks of a direct assurance. You see this, for instance, in Romans chapter 8.

His spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And that's a kind of direct witness of the

Holy Spirit to our spirit, but it leads to our assurance. And then you have passages such as 2

Peter 1, where Peter talks about growing in these various traits.

Add to your faith. He goes on the list. All these things were added to their faith. And he says, if these things are yours and are increasing, you can have this assurance that you're in Christ.

And then, of course, the whole book of 1 John really is addressing that. These things I've written that you might know for certain that you're children of God.

And John gives various tests there. So it starts with justification by faith alone. But then you are either looking to the promises of Christ or receiving the inward testimony of the

Spirit, or even looking at the way in which you've grown in your Christian life and are bearing fruit from the Holy Spirit.

And those things come together to give you an assured faith. Yes. And very often, when even the promise of eternal life to those who truly believe is mentioned in the

Scriptures, it's very often referred to as having been received in the past tense.

And therefore, if it's eternal life, how can it stop being eternal?

That's exactly right. And, of course, Jesus, and I mentioned John 6 already, but Jesus describes the fact that we not only receive eternal life, but he specifies,

I will raise him up on the last day. And so that future promise is connected with our reception by Christ now.

I believe that there are understandable and logical reasons why folks, whether they are

Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Arminian Protestants or something outside of the orbit of Reformed theology, they have a knee -jerk reaction against folks like us who say that we have assurance that we have received the gift of eternal life because they automatically of the heresy that does exist among evangelicals whereby someone is deemed to be saved just because they recited a prayer when they were six years old or raised their hand at a

Bible camp, and their life ever since then has never borne fruit.

There is evidence of an unrepentant, rebellious, godless life, and people think, well, these folks have been encouraged in their sin to live on pleasing the flesh, unrepentant, because they've been promised that they have eternal life, and they have been told, you can be sure you're going to heaven because of that profession that you made many years ago.

And I've heard it myself from people who have known friends of mine or family members or acquaintances that have fallen far away from the

Lord and were living in rebellion, and they'll say, well, we know that he or she will be in heaven because of the fact that they made a profession on such and such a day, etc.

How do we, as Reformed Christians, respond to those kinds of comments and accusations against us?

Well, I think those are concerns, and a lot of what was written after the Reformation about the doctrine of assurance also concerned this notion of false assurance, that there is such a thing as thinking that you are right with God and not being right with God, and I think a lot of that touches on what you described.

Yeah, I think what that comes down to is an unbiblical definition of what saving faith is.

So saving faith is that we are not justified by raising our hands. We are not justified by walking forward.

It could be the case that that is the moment when we also really believe, but those actions in and of themselves are not the same thing as justifying faith, and even if we say, and this is one of the things that James speaks about, even if we say we have faith, that doesn't necessarily mean that we do.

And so all those things that you mentioned, a profession of some kind, some loose profession, or a momentary hand raise, or something like that, or feeling out of part, or whatever it might be,

I think we have to say those in and of themselves are not the same as justifying faith.

And so I think, again, we need to go back to what does it mean to be justified by faith alone?

And all of those kind of, a lot of what you described comes out of revivalism, and those things are not clear signs of saving faith.

Again, it may be that the Lord uses those kinds of events, or those kinds of services, but in and of itself, that doesn't mean an individual is saved.

But when you get past that, there's a deeper question, and this is where the

Roman Catholic Church directly denied what the Reformers saw in the Scriptures, and what we see in the

Scriptures, which is they said it is impossible. In fact, the Council of Trent said, if anyone saith that he will for certain of an absolute and infallible certainty have that great gift of perseverance to the end, let him be anathema, let him be accursed.

So what Rome is saying is something deeper than that. They're not just attacking sort of revivalistic notions of saving faith.

They're actually saying, no, it is impossible, even for a justified, genuine

Christian, to know that he is in Christ, and to have that kind of assurance.

And so they're attacking the notion of justification by faith alone. What you're describing is a very real problem, which

I think many of the Reformers would also have criticized, which is a notion of faith that is merely about something that you did, a kind of reflex action that you performed at some moment in time, or some temporary experience that you had.

Now, yeah, I believe the Roman Catholic Church makes an exception for their false teaching about certain individuals that later, after their deaths, become canonized saints, where they believe these people have received a beatific vision, and they can have assurance, but no one else.

Yes, they do have a little caveat. They don't mention those kinds of people by name, but they do say, unless he has learned it by special revelation.

So they give a kind of carve -out that it may be possible that someone has had, as you say, some kind of beatific vision that would make it clear to them, but that's not something that would be part of ordinary

Christian experience. Yes, and I recalled, after I had begun to say it, that Rome's claim to claim assurance of your salvation is just called the sin of presumption.

That's all they call it. That's exactly right. Yeah, they just say it's presumptuous. And in contrast to that, the

Westminster Confession of Faith, for instance, talks about those who truly believe in the

Lord Jesus and love him in sincerity and endeavor to walk in good conscience for him, may be certainly assured.

So this is not a special class of, you know, super miracle -working saints.

These are Christians who truly love the Lord, truly believe in him, and are walking before him.

And they say that this can be something that's part of the—they say it's without extraordinary revelation in the right use of ordinary means.

So there they're talking about—they define ordinary means elsewhere as the word sacraments and prayers.

So with the right exercise of ordinary means, a sincere love for the Lord, a sincere desire to walk before him,

Christians can have this kind of assurance. So it's very different from what the Roman Catholic Church says, which is, yes, hypothetically, someone might have that, but we're talking here about super saints who will be later canonized and that sort of thing that you described.

And we have to go to our first commercial break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Dr.

Jonathan Master, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are struggling with having assurance. It may be because of sin in your life.

It may be because of a number of things—what you're being taught by your pastors or your fellow congregants in whatever church you may belong to.

But we understand that there will be certain issues that would compel you to remain anonymous.

But if it's a general question about the Bible's teaching on this subject, perhaps even historically how this subject has been handled, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jonathan Master right after these messages from our sponsors.

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We are now back with our guest today, Dr. Jonathan Master, who is

President of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and we are discussing

Blessed Assurance, one of the most precious doctrines of the

Bible and the Reformation. If you have a question, send it in to chrisorensen at gmail .com,

chrisorensen at gmail .com. One quick note, if you want to make a note on your calendar, tomorrow,

Tuesday, December 9th, we are blessed with a return visit by Reformed Baptist pastor and author

Rob Ventura to discuss his latest book, Equipped to Evangelize.

So you don't want to miss that if you want to mark it on your calendar. We have Tony in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Tony says,

Should we teach the doctrine of assurance to someone who has told us they have contemplated suicide?

It's a very good question because I remember having a conversation with a pastor over suicide, and I said,

I believe that there are some cases when somebody has committed suicide who is genuinely a regenerate person who is among the elect, but perhaps they're on medication for depression and something goes wrong with that.

Or you could come up with a whole host of reasons why something horrific and tragic like that occurs, but I could not rule out to him that there will be suicide victims in heaven.

And he was adamantly opposed to that concept, and he even said, even if it's true,

I'm never going to tell someone that. How do you respond to that?

Well, I think the doctrine of assurance, again, speaks to someone who is genuinely trusting in the

Lord Jesus Christ. So again, I think we need to get past some of the notions that we have of what it means to be a

Christian. Someone's not a Christian because they claim they're a Christian, but we need to return such a person to the genuine truths of justification by faith alone and the hope that they can have for the future.

I think what is hard to sort out in the email, and it's not the emailer's fault, but it's just one of those things where you kind of need a little bit more information.

When he says that someone has contemplated this, that could simply be that they've sunk very low, and these are thoughts that have crossed their mind, which to me is different from them advocating for it.

This is what I must do. This is what I need to do. I mean, those are very different kinds of things.

Look, we have every reason in pastoral ministry to press someone about the genuineness of their conversion.

If they simply give no evidence at all of relying on Christ, I think that the

New Testament does that. But at the same time, I don't think teaching a doctrine that is connected with justification by faith is inappropriate at all, even for those who are struggling in very significant ways.

Again, that's different from me saying to them, I know that you're a Christian.

I can give you assurance. Again, the assurance doesn't come from us. The assurance comes from the Word of God as they understand what it means to be justified.

Right. Would it be inappropriate, in your opinion, to tell someone who is contemplating suicide, and you're warning them not to do this, telling them now suicide is murder, it's self -murder, it's taking your life in your own hands, your life and death, and if you are contemplating murder, it's a good reason to give pause to any action like that because you have to wonder if you are truly saved.

And if you're not committing such an act, you will be in hell for eternity. And would that be an appropriate thing to say?

No, I think it's perfectly appropriate when anyone is struggling with a sin or really contemplating committing such a serious violation of God's law to say, you know, that does raise the question of the genuineness of your own conversion.

I mean, I think those are very legitimate pastoral conversations to have. And I think in that kind of case, because of the nature of it, you'd also want to point them in hope to the promises the gospel offers them in Jesus Christ.

So I don't think that's inappropriate. And again, I think that's why I think we want to be clear here and say by proclaiming the doctrine of assurance, that doesn't mean

I'm giving someone a blanket bill of health that you are in safe hands before the

Lord. I'm simply saying that such an assurance is possible based on the promises that we have in Jesus Christ.

Amen. We have Clarence in Holland, Michigan.

And Clarence says, Since we as mere mortal human beings are not omniscient, how could we claim to have perfect assurance about whether we are saved or lost?

Well, you're right, we're not omniscient, but we do have clarity from the word of God about how it is that man can be made right with God.

And so while I don't claim again, and no one should claim some kind of perfect omniscience about themselves or about anyone else, the reality is that the

Bible tells us that we can be diligent to confirm our calling and election, 2

Peter 3 .10, that John says he writes these things to those who believe that you may know for sure that you have eternal life, 1

John 5 .13. Romans 8 says, The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.

That is a direct witness of the Holy Spirit. So we're not saying that we have some perfect knowledge of ourselves or perfect knowledge of anyone else, certainly, but we're leaning here on what the word of God tells us about the ways in which that we can confirm whether we are in Christ.

And if the Bible tells us, if God himself tells us that these are things that we can experience, that we can know, then it's not about our own perfect self -knowledge.

It's certainly not about our own discernment of other people's hearts, but it really is about leaning on the promises that God has made in his word.

And I also say this, this is where I think the Westminster Confession of Faith is very helpful in its chapter on assurance.

Because it does anticipate the possibility that the

Lord might make it, that might shake our assurance.

In fact, paragraph four, True believers may have the assurance of their salvation in diverse ways, shaken, diminished, and intermittent.

And it says that that can happen because we fall into sin or we're negligent or we grieve the

Spirit or even God withdraws the light of his countenance. So again, this isn't to say that this is never shaken.

This is never in any way interrupted. It's just to say that it is possible for regular

Christians to be confident. And that possibility is because God has told us the way in which we're safe.

Yes, amen. And that's why we can also have not perfect assurance when it comes to the death of loved ones who profess to be

Christians. But we have been promised by Paul when he gave comfort to the church at Thessalonica that he didn't want them to be ignorant about those who had fallen asleep in Christ.

So obviously there is reasonable comfort and encouragement that we who are

Christians can have when a loved one who professes Christ, and although they sinned like we all do, they weren't wallowing in unrepentance until the day they died.

And their lives were marked with following Christ and repenting.

We can have a reasonable measure of assurance, great assurance, that we will meet them again one day.

Correct? Yes, that's exactly right. I think we can have every expectation of that, just as you see in the

Scriptures. And I think what you mentioned from 1 Thessalonians is so apt.

We can have that confidence because their lives gave every evidence, and certainly their profession gave every evidence of their being genuinely in Christ.

Now, that leads me to another question, because there is debate.

Initially, the debate seemed more centralized in a disagreement between dispensationalists and Reformed Christians over what has been nicknamed or known as Lordship Salvation, which

John MacArthur really brought to the fore when he wrote the

Gospel According to Jesus in the 80s. And there was radical disagreement by many dispensationalists, even though Dr.

MacArthur was a dispensationalist. I don't believe he is now, but he was. I consider him one of my great heroes of my faith and of my walk with Christ, even though I had disagreements with him.

But now there seems to be more and more folks within our own

Reformed camp, both Presbyterian and some Reformed Baptists, who are trying to accuse

Dr. MacArthur and his writings of not trusting in Christ for our assurance.

I don't think that they are being completely fair, but what are your thoughts on that debate that's going on?

Well, I probably don't know the contours of the recent debate that you mentioned. I mean,

I'm familiar with the Lordship Salvation controversy that Dr. MacArthur was involved in in the mid to late 80s, and longer than that,

I guess, into the 90s. But I don't know about the recent stuff that you brought up. I'm just not sure what people are saying.

Well, they're really going back to that book, primarily. Okay, okay, okay.

Well, no, I mean, I think it's been a little while since I've read the gospel according to Jesus, but I think largely what

I understood Dr. MacArthur to be doing, and I thought it was well done, was he was looking to what

Jesus himself said about the nature of salvation and really the nature of saving faith. And his point was to say, you can't simply call

Christ your savior without understanding that he's also the Lord.

And that's all a seamless garment. And if you simply want to take part of that and ignore the other part, you're not actually embracing

Christ in a saving way, because to embrace Christ savingly is to embrace the whole

Christ. The Christ who is the Lord and the Christ who is the one who can save.

And so, again, I mean, to me, far from being centered away from Christ, I always read him to be putting the spotlight firmly not only on the work of Christ, but on the person of the

Christ whom we worship and whom we trust in. Now, even if you remove

Dr. MacArthur and his books from the conversation, there are Reformed people or those that profess to be

Reformed who say that it's wrong for us to use our obedience or lack thereof in our behavior as any kind of a litmus test of salvation.

I'm not sure how that is completely possible. They seem to be stressing that we are not looking to Christ for our assurance and hope.

But I don't know of any Reformed people who are saying there is a need to look at one's life.

Like, for instance, if a pastor is counseling somebody and he doesn't see any fruit in the person's life, even though he makes a profession,

I don't know how else he could guide him whether or not he is speaking with an unregenerate person or a saved one.

But anyway, what's your thought on those kinds of comments? I think what you see among the

Reformers and even among those who contributed to the Westminster Confession and followed after in the

Presbyterian tradition and Baptist tradition is that they always said that as an individual, the primary means of assurance is looking to the promises of Christ, the objective promises of Jesus Christ.

And so when it comes to gaining and maintaining assurance, that always needs to be the first place we go, the primary means of gaining assurance.

However, they would have also said that is not the exclusive means.

And when you come at it from a pastoral perspective, I think you're absolutely right. There is every reason to examine ourselves, to examine other people based on the fruit that's born or in the case that you gave, the example that you gave, the fruit that's not born or at least apparently not born by the

Holy Spirit. We can't be insoluble judges of that, but I don't think it is inappropriate to look to those kinds of evidences and to, as it were, reason back to our assurance, nor do

I think it's inappropriate to, from a pastoral perspective, call into question someone's maybe false sense of assurance if you say, well, there's no fruit being born of that.

I think that's what we see in 1 John. And I think, again, I've mentioned already 2 Peter 1, but it points us in that same direction.

And so I don't think, I think we want to say two things at the same time. First, we want to say the primary means of assurance is always the promises of Christ, not my own good works.

I'm not saved by my good works. But at the same time, saving faith will lead to good works.

And so we should be unapologetic about looking to the fruit that's born by the Holy Spirit who we're saying lives in us.

Now, even within our

Reformed circles, is there not an element that we would say militates against true biblical assurance?

Among hyper -Calvinists, now, hyper -Calvinism, as you likely are aware, it's not a monolithic group because you have those among,

I'm not going to say all of them, of course, but those among the primitive Baptists who have a brand or a version of hyper -Calvinism that makes the gates of heaven a lot broader and wider than we would believe they are, than we would believe the

Bible teaches. And there are those that are hyper -Calvinists, such as many among the

Netherlands Reformed Church, who have a much more narrow gate to heaven.

And I have heard that there are even very large Netherlands Reformed congregations where you could have over a thousand people in the congregation, and perhaps only 20 of them will receive the

Lord's Supper. Is there the only ones that have received a gift of assurance that comes about in some kind of supernatural way that I don't even understand?

But have you heard of this? I have, and I've talked to individuals in those kind of congregations.

You see some of the same things in the Highlands of Scotland, or you used to see it in the Highlands of Scotland. And I don't know all the historical reasons why that has come about.

I think there's probably an emphasis on the good works that we were just speaking of, which

I think is a legitimate emphasis, but perhaps taken too far. And I think, too, what you see in many of those cases is that those verses

I read earlier from Romans 8, verses 16 and 17, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God, that I think many of those people have looked at that and said,

I want to make sure that I've experienced that, the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that inward testimony of the

Holy Spirit. And while I think that is something biblical to look for that, and I do think that God does that,

I think what we find in the New Testament is there are other means of gaining and growing an assurance beyond that.

And I think that in some cases, I can't speak to everyone in those kind of congregations, but in some of those cases, they're looking for one particular mark or one particular experience that will assure them.

And I think what the Bible speaks of is, that's included in what the Bible speaks of regarding assurance, but it's not the sum total of it.

And so what you end up having are a lot of people who really lack assurance of their faith.

And so that's, I think, a danger, a risk.

I think what we want to come back to, really the solution to that, is not just to preach the full

Bible doctrine of assurance, although that's part of it, but really to preach, again, with great emphasis, the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone.

Yes, and even my longtime friend, Dr. Joel Beakey, was once in the

Netherlands Reformed Church, and he left that denomination, and that being one of the reasons of their teaching an aberrant understanding of assurance.

And he wrote his doctoral dissertation on assurance. Yes. Which was popularized in a different version after the dissertation.

But in fact, if anybody is interested in getting a hold of Dr.

Beakey's book, I just had it in front of me, but it seems to have disappeared. I can help you with that,

Chris. It's The Quest for Full Assurance. Yes. And the modified version was published by Banner of Truth.

That's right. And so you can look for that, because it is an excellent book.

I remember reading even his original dissertation, which was published by an academic press.

But dear man, and a wonderful bulwark for the gospel.

We're going to our midway break right now. And once again, if you do have a question for Jonathan Master, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jonathan Master right after these messages from our sponsors. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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Before I return to my fascinating interview with Dr. Jonathan Master on assurance,

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Before we go to any more listener questions, I'd like you to give us some of the most powerful reasons why this is an important doctrine that although it is a great blessing and reason for joy for us as Christians to have assurance, it does transcend how we feel and the confidence we receive and the encouragement we receive and the comfort during times of downcast and depression and what have you.

Beyond that, why is this such an important doctrine that must be defended and proclaimed? Well, I think the first answer is that it's biblical, and it points to our salvation in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so that has to be preeminent in our reasoning for why we have to defend this, because it's in the

Bible, and it is connected to the fact that you're justified by grace alone through faith alone.

But to put it in a different light, you can only take uncertainty in relationships for so long.

Think about this with any kind of important relationship that you have. The more certain that you are of the nature of that relationship, the more confident you can be, the more you can serve with joy.

The apostle Paul talks about this in 2 Timothy 1. He talks about his suffering, and he says,

He's suffering, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I'm convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.

And so Paul could face suffering, and his suffering, of course, would be great and multifaceted, but he could face suffering without shame, with great courage, because he was convinced that the

Lord was able to guard what he had been entrusted, and that the

Lord was the one in whom he had believed. And so you can see that running right through the ministry of the apostles.

You can see it in the early church, Polycarp in 156 AD, when he is about to be martyred.

It says, 86 years I've served him, and he's never wronged me. You can see this among the reformers, and even some in the 16th century who were martyred for their faith, who went to their martyrdom with joy because they knew that they were in Christ.

And so any crisis that you face, any struggle that you face, can be faced with great courage, knowing that you are in right relationship with your creator.

And so I think that kind of difference that assurance makes is something that makes it worth defending, because it can just powerfully affect the

Christian life. Yes, and you would have to wonder how assurance could not be a true biblical doctrine.

If God would expect us to fear him more than man and face death, still proclaiming his name, if we are ever called to do that, we take it for granted the freedoms that we have here in the

United States now, but we don't know what's going to happen 50 or 100 years from now to this planet, to this country even.

And there are right now people in parts of Africa, in Nigeria, and so on, the

Middle East, who go to their deaths because they refuse to recant their faith.

How could God expect us to do that unless we were doing it with an assurance that we will be with him instantly after that occurs?

Well, I think it's a good point. I think those who have really shown us the way, those who have set an example throughout

Christian history, testified to their assurance of their acceptance before God.

And that was what gave them courage in the midst of such suffering.

And again, I want to just keep reiterating this point. I know we've made it several times, but assurance is not a standalone doctrine.

Assurance is based on the fact that the Bible teaches us how someone is made right with God, that it is by grace through faith, and it's because of that, because we're saved by grace through faith alone.

It's not based on our works, and it's not based on our status in human life, and it's not based on our birth, and any of those things.

Because of that, we can have assurance before God because he is the one who does the work.

Amen. And so the flip side of this, why it is dangerous to not believe in and teach and proclaim and defend assurance, is the flip side is that the doctrine of assurance flows from a

God -centered theology, a theology that views

God as sovereign and worthy of every ounce, every molecule of our gratefulness, our praise, our thanksgiving.

It all goes to God. We give God 100 % of the glory for our salvation and every other good thing.

And when you deny assurance, the focus goes back on man, and as if man is somehow earning eternal life, which is a damnable lie.

Well, I think this is why, I think you put your finger on it, I think this is why the early

Roman Catholic figures who were opposed to Protestantism, Cardinal Robert Bellamy would be a prime example of this, who said the greatest of all

Protestant heresies is assurance, and I think it's because of what you just put your finger on, which is the

Roman Church clearly said that if anyone denies that justice, our just standing before God, is not increased through good works, but that the works are merely the fruits and signs of justification, then he's to be accursed.

So again, it's a different understanding of how a man is made right with God, and if you have that different understanding, if your good works are somehow intermingled and increased somehow and preserve the justice received by God, then of course you can't have any kind of assurance.

And of course teaching assurance would go directly against that doctrine of salvation, but the

Reformers taught and the Bible teaches that we're justified by faith alone, and therefore we can have assurance, because as you said, it's

God who does the work. If we're the ones who do the work, we're the ones that bring our good works to the mix, then we really can never have confidence.

But if it's a work of God, then we can have confidence based on his promises.

Okay, we have Amethyst in Jupiter, Florida, who asks, you already mentioned a book by Dr.

Beattie on assurance. Do you have any other precious volumes of literature that we should read to help bolster our belief and comfort and encouragement from this doctrine?

Boy, that's a great question, and I wish I had a quick answer for a modern book.

Dr. Beattie's also written a small book on assurance that is not as technical and not as academic, and I forget the title of it offhand, but you could look that up.

I think my mind runs to earlier books, some of which are not as readily available.

But for instance, one of the books that helped me the most was a two -volume book by Anthony Burgess, but it's a little bit harder to find, and it's written in language that can be a little harder to access.

I'm going to try to sort of look on the fly here to see if I can get you the name of the shorter book

I mentioned earlier, just a minute ago. Knowing and Growing in Assurance of Faith is what it looks like, and that is…

Yeah, that's the book he co -authored. That's right, that's right. And so that might be a good starting place.

Again, the stuff that I think is extremely helpful is the old

Puritan stuff, but it can be a little harder to access.

But Knowing and Growing in Assurance of Faith by Dr. Diesel would be good. Yeah, that was co -authored by George Sarris.

And are there any great men from history, from the

Reformation to today, who stand out perhaps as being uniquely champions of this teaching?

Well, I mentioned this already, but in the time period around the

Puritan era, I think that Anthony Burgess is outstanding.

I think William Guthrie, The Christian's Great Interest, is wonderful.

The Bruised Read by Richard Sitz is not a book on assurance, but it's a book that gives comfort to those who are struggling with their faith.

And so those would be ones that I think are helpful. I think a modern book that, again, it doesn't deal with assurance per se, but it deals with a historic debate about assurance is

The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson. Again, that's not written primarily to reassure believers or give believers assurance, but it gives a kind of doctrinal overview of some of the issues in play when it comes to the doctrine of assurance.

So those are some recommendations. Okay, we have an anonymous listener.

The anonymous listener says, if you are trying to comfort someone that you know and love on their deathbed, and they are fearing death because they have no assurance, how would you best go about giving them counsel and comfort during those dark days and hours?

And I guess that would all depend on how well you know them and what their professed faith is, right? Right. That it absolutely would.

And so, you know, it might be someone who just struggles with their really tender conscience before the Lord, which can be a good thing, but it can also make it difficult in those kinds of hours.

I think that what I would ultimately do is to point them to the glories of Christ and the offer that Christ makes to those who come to him.

And I think what you would want to do with someone like that is to focus them on the sufficiency of Christ.

He is a sufficient Savior. He is a suitable mediator between God and sinful human beings such as ourselves.

And so what I would want them doing, not looking inward per se, because obviously they've looked inward and they've raised questions.

I would want them looking outward. I would want them looking at that primary means of assurance, which is the promises, the words of Jesus Christ.

So I think if I were spending time with them, I would want to review with them, rejoice with them over the glories of Christ and choose passages from the

Bible, which really highlight who Christ is and why he is an all sufficient

Savior and mediator. And then really regardless of where they are, if they're apart from Christ, then what you're praying for is that clarity about what

Christ offers will be made real to them by the Holy Spirit.

And if they are in Christ and you're just sort of struggling with assurance because maybe they have a really tender conscience or there are things that are just bothering them that they can't get past, you're showing them the source of their strength.

You're showing them the one they need to look to as they face death itself.

Yeah, I had the wonderful opportunity to be side -by -side with Dr.

Conrad Mbewe, a pastor of Kabwatha Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, about,

I believe, less than a year ago. He happened to be visiting the

United States, as he will be in March of next year, where he's speaking at my

Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon. I hope I remember to give you the details toward the end of the program.

But a mutual friend of ours, Gary Wolf, was dying of stomach cancer.

He was on his deathbed and he was afraid to die. And it was such a precious thing to witness the pastor's heart of Dr.

Mbewe just quietly asking

Gary questions about, Gary, are you putting your trust in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Yes. Yes. Do you believe He is

God the Son? Do you not? Truly God and truly man?

Yes. Do you believe that He was born of a virgin and lived a sinless, righteous life and was crucified to appease the wrath of the

Father and buried and rose again on the third day, ascended to the right hand of the

Father? Yes. And you're trusting in Him. So, yes, Gary, do not fear death.

You're going to be with Him. And he knew that Gary was not just giving him lip service.

He knew him well enough. And so did I, for that matter. And Gary died a week later.

And I hope that his last moments on earth were filled with a lot more comfort than he was previously after Conrad's shepherding.

And, of course, Conrad said more than that, to comfort him, to encourage him.

And even his being there, I'm sure, was a great comfort because they were very close friends. And so that's another thing that reminded me of.

Sometimes our Reformed brethren, we are known to rightly desire theological precision and accuracy.

But sometimes I have experienced and I've also been the victim, if you will, of mourning the loss of a loved one and having

Reformed brothers try to plant seeds of doubt whether that person was saved before they died.

Because they had a very naive faith or what have you.

They didn't really understand things the way we do. And this has happened more than once.

Isn't that something that Reformed people really need to repent of? Well, yeah.

I mean, if that's the case, what you described is going on, then absolutely. I'm sure you're right.

I've probably seen more on the other side of people. And I think you described this earlier in your show, people who cling to what appears to potentially be false confidence of someone who never really claimed to know

Christ at all, but maybe at some point had some experiences. And so I think it can work both ways.

But absolutely. And I think it's not for us to pass sentence, particularly at that time, although pastors and other elders are called to judge the genuineness, as best they can tell, of a profession of faith.

But yeah, I would agree with you. I mean, if someone's doing that or trying to intentionally cast out, that's really inappropriate.

But also, it's kind of against the spirit of what we know about salvation. Look, no one is right with God because they deserve it.

No one's right with God because they understand everything and articulate it perfectly all the time.

That's not our doctrine of justification. Our justification is by grace alone. And so we really want to proclaim that with clarity, particularly as people are thinking about it in the wake of someone's death.

Okay. And we have another anonymous listener who wants to know, how do we know we are of the elect?

This doctrine of election that you Reformed folks teach does trouble me.

And sometimes I fear that I am not one of the elect. How can you know? That's a very good question.

And I remember years ago, back in the 90s,

I believe, might have been the early 2000s, when I filled in.

This is before I was hosting Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And I may have been interviewing

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. And a man called, and it was a call -in show.

And I was filling in for the late Andy Anderson on WMCA Radio, where I worked for 15 years, 570

AM in New York. And the man seemed to think that election was something that you're not going to know until you open your eyes after death, whether you were chosen or not.

And it doesn't matter what faith you profess. It doesn't matter who you are trusting in.

It doesn't matter how much repentance you've demonstrated, how much you love

Christ. It's all like a gamble, almost like a lottery ticket, where you could be shocked when you open your eyes.

I'm sorry, you're not one of the numbers of people I picked, that kind of thing. How can we put people at ease and correct them?

Because that is definitely not anything that Reformed people teach. No, it's not.

And I think, you know, I would come back to the way Jesus puts it in John 6.

All that the Father gives to me will come to me. And so this isn't a disconnected procedure where there's election, and like you said, you don't really know that until you get to after death.

No, this is a seamless garment where those whom he predestined, he also called.

And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. And so there's an unbroken golden chain here of salvation that begins, yes, with predestination or election, as the way the

Bible describes it. But ultimately is born out in calling and justification.

Or again, as Jesus puts it, all whom the Father gives to me will come to me. So I think in a sense, asking the question about election may be asking the question in the wrong way.

It's not that those are unbiblical terms or that we can't talk about election or predestination or we can't say anything about them.

We can, but there's a sense in which by disengaging that from actual justification, by disengaging it from actual faith, you're doing something that the

Bible doesn't do. So the real question you want to ask yourself is, have I trusted in Christ?

Have I been justified by God for Christ? Those are the questions you ask.

And if you're able to get to the answer of those questions, which the

Bible gives you clarity about, then you could say you've answered the election question.

Because in the Scriptures, this is an unbroken chain of salvation.

Yes, and I think that is the key difference between we who have a doctrine of assurance flowing from a

Reformed theology, as opposed to our

Arminian friends. And I know that many people who are Arminian refuse to label themselves that way.

Many of our Independent Fundamentalist Baptist friends who are not

Calvinist, who hate Calvinism even, but who believe rightly that you cannot lose your salvation if you're born again.

But since it's so disconnected from election, unconditional election, their teaching of once saved, always saved can lead to the carnal

Christian idea that we've even talked about before. Someone giving false assurance that somebody's headed toward heaven just because of a past experience and not because of a current reality.

And even though we believe, yes, if you once were truly saved, you are saved and always will be saved.

And we do believe in eternal security, but we don't prefer those as adequate descriptions.

We prefer perseverance and preservation of the saints because it's more fully explained.

But if you want to pick up there. Well, no, I wouldn't want to modify anything you said.

I think you're right. I mean, it is true. If someone is genuinely saved, then they are always saved.

I mean, that is true. But I think usually what lies behind that kind of statement is probably what

I would see as a slightly sub -biblical understanding of what salvation is.

So, yes, in one sense, I could agree to that and I think the

Bible agrees with that. But usually it is a way of understanding salvation that is determined by raising a hand, walking in the aisle, praying a prayer, which is not what the

Bible says justifies this before God. And so I think that's where it can become a little bit confusing.

And that is why, again, I think the more biblical terminology, the more historically rooted terminology as well of perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints is a better description of what the

Bible teaches about the way in which God promises to preserve those who are his. Yes.

And it's a tragedy that many very popular preachers and teachers and pastors have captured the confidence and trust of countless millions of Christians, men who deny these things.

And that would even include men like the late Charles Stanley. When I worked for WMCA Radio, he,

I don't know if it was for the entire 15 years that I was there, but a good period of time, he was the number one program, his was the number one program on that station.

And he wrote in his book on eternal security that somebody immediately after their salvation can live like the devil unrepentantly for the rest of their lives.

And we should have confidence that that person is in heaven. I mean, that's insane and unbiblical.

Well, I agree. And it is because it gets confusing with the terminology, because in that whole scenario, the picture that's being painted is someone who's genuinely saved, but then immediately just turns their back on all the things of God.

And my pushback to that would be, well, then the

Bible would say that person wasn't genuinely saved. The Bible would say that that person genuinely didn't, wasn't converted, wasn't born again.

And so some of it comes down to even the way the scenarios are set up to begin with.

But the fact of the matter is, when the Bible describes conversion, it describes it in a very radical way.

And the new birth leads to fruit being born by the

Holy Spirit. God's seed, as John puts it, is planted in us. And that's going to have its effect.

Yes. And we have to go to our final break. And if anybody else wants to join us with a question, our email address is

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at the city and state and country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if it's a personal and private question. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love.

Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

I'm Simon O'Mahoney, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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That's RoyalDiadem .com. And we are now back with Jonathan Master, continuing our conversation on the doctrine of assurance.

And one of the most powerful verses that I think refutes the non -Reformed notion that a true regenerate person can lose their salvation is from 1

John 2 .19, they went out from us because they were not really of us.

If they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

Isn't that an excellent text to tell people who believe that? Well, it is.

It absolutely is, Chris. And I think the whole book of 1 John deals with almost all the questions we have regarding assurance.

And so that is certainly a great example of it, where John uses the fact that they left as proof that they never really were genuinely in Christ.

Amen. And let's see, we have another question for you. We have

Tony in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Should we question someone's salvation if they do not believe in the doctrine of assurance?

Well, that's a great question, Tony. I never really thought of it exactly that way. I think what we'd want to do is to ask them questions about what they believe regarding salvation, because what you find throughout history, and what

I think is still true today, is that very often questions about assurance aren't really about assurance in and of itself.

They're about what it means to be a Christian. They're about the doctrine of justification by faith.

And so I think the conversation I would want to have with someone like that is less about assurance and more about their understanding of justification by faith and their understanding of the promises that God has made in Christ.

Now that would lead to a realization that they have some confusion.

We talked about this earlier in the show about the Roman Catholic Church, which mixes in, in significant ways, our good works.

And so that naturally affects their understanding of assurance. And so I want to probe that a little bit.

So it's not about questioning it just because they disagree with how I'm articulating assurance. I want to get below that and say, what is it that you understand about saving faith?

What do you think the Bible teaches about saving faith that would lead you to deny that anyone can have an assurance of faith?

Yes. And especially when you're talking about individuals who lack assurance, we cannot automatically question whether they're saved because even

Charles Spurgeon said the most godly of saints have more of a sensitivity towards their own sin.

And sometimes, especially perhaps in their darkest hours, they start to question whether they're born again because they take sin so seriously and it has nothing to do with them not being regenerate.

Absolutely. I mean, I took Tony's question a little differently than that. If what Tony's asking is, if someone lacks assurance themselves, does that mean we should question their salvation?

And I agree with what you're saying. Absolutely not. In fact, I think for a variety of reasons, even as someone is growing in their faith, they can begin to question or doubt their assurance, have doubts in their assurance.

And so that's certainly something that can happen. It can be shaken, it can be interrupted for all kinds of reasons.

But I took his question to mean if someone denies outright that there is such a thing as...

That's what he did to me. I don't want to say. That's what he did. At least I think so. What do you mean by justification?

How do you believe the Bible teaches about justification? Yes. I can remember having a conversation with an independent fundamentalist

Baptist friend of mine who's a pastor, and I have to make it clear that just like even

Reformed folks, independent fundamentalist Baptists are not monolithic. They are having disagreements with one another constantly.

I think that's one of the reasons they called them fighting fundamentalists. But he believed, and it's not all that uncommon amongst those folks, that if you didn't have absolute assurance that you were saved, you were not saved, and that a true

Christian would never doubt their salvation. And in fact, I think he went even further and said, if you don't know the very day that you were saved, you're not saved.

Those things are extreme absurdities, aren't they? They absolutely are.

And I think that sometimes, depending on the context that someone's coming from, you have to state up front, that's not what we're talking about when we talk about assurance.

And so, yeah, I mean, that kind of, as you said, extreme absurdity, which

I think does not match with biblical teaching, is something that we absolutely would say is not the case.

Yes, and it's strange for anyone to develop that kind of idea when so many of the folks from the independent fundamentalist

Baptist background believe in the whole

Roman's road approach to salvation. And if people answer a series of questions correctly, they are told, you are definitely saved.

And how they could think that that person must always have total assurance in order to have confidence that they're saved doesn't seem to jive.

And we're also supposed to test our election to see if it is sure, aren't we now? We are.

Yes, exactly. We are. And there are a number of cases in the New Testament where it specifically says that, but one that I've mentioned already is 2

Peter 1 .10, Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling in election.

And in the context there, the way in which Peter seems to be thinking that we'll confirm that, is by continuing to progress in these obedience to the commands of God.

And so he says, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge, self -control, et cetera.

And if you practice these qualities, you'll never fall.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling in election. So, yeah, that's the kind of thing that we see over and over again in the

New Testament. Well, I'd like you to summarize right now, what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we go off the air.

Well, I would say this, that God, in His great grace, not only tells us with clarity how we can be saved and invites us to come to Jesus Christ and to trust in Him for our salvation, but that is all a work of His grace.

And because it's a work of His grace, and because we're grounding our confidence on the promises of God, we can have confidence, we can have assurance that we are accepted as God's beloved children, that we are saved by Him, we are bound for heaven.

And we can have that confidence because our salvation is all of grace through faith alone.

Amen. And I'd like you to, in about a minute's time, or about 90 seconds' time, list any of your own books that you want to highlight so that our listeners can look for them and purchase them, hopefully.

Sure. Well, the most recent book that I wrote that was published last year is called

You Must Be Born Again. And it doesn't deal directly with assurance, but it does deal with the nature of the new birth and gives,

I hope, some biblical clarity about what the Bible teaches regarding salvation. So You Must Be Born Again, published by PNR last year.

The year before that, another little book was published by PNR that I wrote called Reformed Theology, which is an attempt to explain and untangle what we mean by Reformed Theology and what the blessings of Reformed Theology are.

Prior to that, I wrote a little book for Banner of Truth called Growing in Grace, which is just a very introductory level book on how to grow as a

Christian, how to continually be sanctified. And then I co -edited and co -wrote a couple other books.

And then I wrote a longer, more technical book on assurance that has to do with the historical development of that doctrine.

But I would say these last couple, You Must Be Born Again, Reformed Theology, and Growing in Grace would be ones that I hope would be a help to some of your listeners.

And do you think Amazon is the best place to go, or do you have another source you want to... Amazon would certainly have all of them.

I mean, there may be better places where the publisher gets more of a cut. I don't exactly know, but Amazon carries all of them, and they're readily available.

Well, I want to thank you so much for being such a superb guest on the show today.

I want to thank everybody who listened. Don't forget, the website for Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary is gpts .edu.

gpts .edu I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater