Responding To Tim Challies §3: Theodore Beza, “Need Some assurance . . .”

The following is a very apropos repost that I am putting up in my series “Responding To Tim Challies” on assurance of salvation. My mom is in town this weekend, so I don’t have a lot of time to devote to blogging, but I wanted to keep the flow going; and I think this post taps that flow nicely! I originally posted it here (and it received quite a bit of feedback), and now it will become part of my series on this issue which I have also posted about here (#1) and here (#2). I plan on doing a couple of fresh posts to round this series off probably starting next Tuesday (but keep checking back, I might throw one up earlier than that). Anyway, check out the blessed en(dis)couragement that Theodore Beza has provided for the smoking flax who are struggling with assurance issues; be warmed and filled . . .

. . . May Theodore Beza comfort your soul:

In order to resist this second [temptation], it is necessary to know if we have this faith or not. The means is to ascend (monter) from the effects (effets) to a knowledge of the cause (cause) which produces them. Now, the effects (effets) that Jesus Christ produces in us, when we have apprehended him by faith, are two. In the first place, there is the testimony that the Holy Spirit gives to our spirit, that we are children of God . . . . Secondly, . . . when by faith Jesus Christ has given himself to us eternally in order to dwell in us, his virtue produces and reveals there his powers, which are known in Scripture by the word “regeneration” . . . . This regeneration has three parts . . . . The power of Jesus Christ coming to take possession of us produces three effects (effets) in us: the mortification of this corruption which Scripture calls the old man, his burial, and finally, the resurrection of the new man . . . . To know this regeneration it is necessary to come to its fruits. Thus, . . . the man, being set free from sin . . . begins to do what we call good works (4.13).

Need more:

[Good works] make us more and more certain of our salvation, not as causes of it, but as testimonies and effects (effets) of the cause (cause), that is, our faith . . . . Since good works are for us sure testimonies of our faith, it follows that they also make us certain of our eternal election . . . . So then, when Satan puts us in doubt about our election, it is not necessary to first go and search for the decision of the eternal plan (conseil) of God; his majesty would dazzle us. But, on the contrary, it is necessary to begin with the sanctification which one experiences in oneself, and to climb higher (monter plus haut). Since our sanctification, from which proceeds good works, is a sure effect (effet) of faith, or rather of Jesus Christ is necessarily called and elected by God to salvation, . . . it follows that sanctification with its fruits is the first step (le premeier degre) by which we begin to ascend (monter) all the way to the first and true cause (la premier . . . vraye cause) of our salvation, that is, our eternal and gratuitous election (4.19).

– Theodore Beza quoted from his, “Confession de la Foy (1558),” in “Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe,” 64-5 ed. Matt P. Holt

Rest now my weary souls! Look to the decree and find rest . . .

How can anyone read this, and say, “yep, this is pure ‘Gospel’ truth?” Let me just say, with all of my attitude in-tact, that I realize folks like Beza & co. were just working with the theological tools they had (they didn’t know any better). What’s your excuse? Have you paid attention to the kind of spirituality that this kind of stuff produced in the ensuing years following . . .

There are too many people, who I care about, stuck under this kind of ‘spirituality’, one that doesn’t invite them into the loving arms of Jesus; but instead calls them to the courtroom of the ‘Divine Law-giver’, and asks them to examine themselves to see if they think that they have evinced enough ‘good works’ to be found worthy to look at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Typically folks, who are serious about this, never get past the moment they wake up. The kind of ‘spirituality’ shaped by a Bezan framework can only lead to one place . . . despair, bewilderment, and wonderment over whether or not Christ died for me. I know, I know, you hold to something similar that Beza speaks of here, and you have no problems this way at all — well your special then. But, I know (personally) folks who aren’t so assured; and it’s because this kind of soteriology is taken seriously by them, even if they know, intellectually, that they are saved (thanks to the practical syllogism), yet they can’t shake the implicaitons of this kind of salvific project. They can’t get past the idea that God is this Sovereign Law-giver who decrees that some are elect, and the rest reprobate; that He died for some, and maybe not them (they’re not totally sure, since they’re good works aren’t really measuring up today). Anyway . . .