Quest for Assurance
Joel Beeke’s The Quest for Full Assurance opens with this paragraph:
Theologians and pastors of post-Reformation churches struggled for theological precision in defining the relationship between personal assurance of faith and saving faith. Their labors produced a rich technical vocabulary that distinguished between assurance of faith and assurance of sense; direct (actus directus) and reflexive (actus reflectus) acts of faith; assurance of the uprightness of faith and of adoption; practical (syllogismus practicus) and mystical (syllogismus mysticus) syllogisms; the principle (habitus) and act (actus) of faith; objective and subjective assurance; assurance of faith, understanding, and hope; discursive and intuitive assurance; immediate and mediate witness in assurance; and the being and well-being of faith.
Steve Schlissel quoted that paragraph at the AAPC Pastors Conference and then put his head in his hands: “Ohhhhhhh….. There’s not enough Excedrin in the room!” Why do people have to make assurance so difficult? God speaks, and we believe Him. He promises us salvation and we believe His promise. How hard is that?