“These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance” (XVI. 2).
Those who believe this “strengthening assurance” part of the confession are NOT showing their genuine faith in Christ by their works. Rather, they are weakly staggering (Romans 4:20) or stumbling at that Stumblingstone (Romans 9:31-33) as the only ground of assured acceptance before God.
In attempting to “strengthen” their assurance of a righteous standing before God by their own self-righteous efforts, they show that they have “not attained to the law of righteousness” (Romans 9:31). The attempt to gain a “stronger assurance” that one has attained a righteousness that equals God’s perfect law of righteousness is an attempt to seek after a right standing with God NOT by faith in Christ, but by their own self-righteous efforts. Christ’s righteousness is the sole grounds of acceptance before God. Those having need to “strengthen their assurance” that they are accepted by God show that they are ignorant of Christ’s righteousness as the sole grounds of acceptance and are self-righteously going about to establish a righteousness of their own (Romans 10:1-3).
The atoning blood and imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone does NOT give them complete assurance of acceptance before God because they are ignorant of, and thus not submitted to, the righteousness of Christ as the sole grounds of acceptance. Because they are ignorant of the fact that the righteousness of Jesus Christ is the ONLY righteousness that God accepts, they feel the need to “strengthen” their assurance of acceptation by the “strengthening” or establishing of a righteousness that will give them assurance of being accepted (cf. Romans 10:1-4). Since the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone will not give them assurance, then they will seek to establish a righteousness that will. Thus, their assurance is “strengthened” in their own minds by their going about to establish a righteousness of their own (Romans 10:3).
The righteousness that gives a person an unwavering confidence of acceptance before God, THAT is the righteousness that is being submitted to. THAT is the righteousness that is being established for that person. Either one’s own righteousness is being established and submitted to, or it is the righteousness of God in Christ that is being established and submitted to.
If a person’s good works strengthen their assurance of having been justified then that is the same as being justified by one’s own works. This person is more or less assured depending upon their works; their “justification” admits of degrees. The perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ established for His people admits of no degrees.
The righteousness or obedience that gives confidence or assurance of acceptation with God, that is the righteousness that is being established for oneself, that is the righteousness that is being submitted to.
The righteousness that becomes the ultimate determining factor in assurance is the righteousness that is being established. If “good works” play any part in “strengthening” assurance, then they are dead works that are completely void of true faith. IF a person says that a true Christian can be justified in the eyes of God’s law and justice, while not being totally sure about it in his conscience—which is why this person would need to “strengthen” this assurance because he has “tinges of doubt”—THEN that is to blatantly contradict Hebrews 9:14. For the true Christian, the blood of Christ has purged (cleansed) his conscience from dead works in order to serve the living God. A conscience that requires works in order to “strengthen” its assurance has not been cleansed by the blood of Christ.
The confession further cites such passages as 1 John 2:3, 5 and 2 Peter 1:5-10. The WCF badly confuses a simple and clear distinction between works that flow from assurance and works that are done in order to “strengthen” assurance. Works that flow from assurance are done out of thankfulness to God; they are fruit unto God. Works done in order to gain, maintain, obtain, or regain assurance are dead works and fruit unto death.
“And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him” (1 John 2:3, 5).
Those who love God endeavor to keep His commandments. Those who love Christ keep the words and commandments of Christ and are loved by Christ and the Father (John 14:21, 23). But again, this loving obedience only flows from those who are truly submitted to the penal and preceptive obedience of Jesus Christ as the end of the law for righteousness (Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:10-10; Romans 10:3-4).
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness because by His obedience He fulfilled its requirements. Thus, His propitiating blood and imputed righteousness is the sole ground of acceptance before God for all whom He represented. If a person needs to “strengthen their assurance” of acceptation, it is only because they are ignorant of the absolute perfection of the obedience which the law requires. By “strengthening their assurance” by works they are debtors to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect to those who need the assurance of their justification before God “strengthened” (Galatians 5:3-4).
Believers, through the Spirit of God, hope in a righteousness that is outside of ourselves, found in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. The WCF authors and adherents must needs “strengthen” their assurance of being justified by establishing a righteousness of their own, which to them will give them more confidence–a stronger assurance.
“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall” (2 Peter 1:5-10).
You do NOT show forth the praises of Him in order to supposedly “strengthen” your assurance that you have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light; instead, one shows forth the praises of Him because they are assured that they have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light. One cannot give thanks for what they are unsure of. One cannot give thanks for being called out of darkness, unless one is absolutely sure and certain they have been called out of darkness (1 Peter 2:9).
Many are the fruits and results of being effectually called and unconditionally elected by God. To name a couple: Walking in good works and bearing of fruit (Ephesians 2:10; John 15:16). Faith and the resultant obedience confirms one’s calling and election. But confirmation is NOT confidence. Science and archeology may serve to confirm the truth of Scripture, but a sure and certain confidence that the Bible is true does NOT come from science and archeology.
The true Christian—unlike the framers and adherents of the Westminster Confession of Faith—does NOT confound fruits of salvation with confidence of salvation. True Christians, like the apostle Paul, put no confidence in the flesh (Philippians 3:4). Their confident assurance of a righteous standing before God does NOT come to them through their own “assurance-strengthening,” righteousness-establishing efforts. On the contrary, their confidence comes from the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ who answered the demands of God’s law and justice in full on their behalf.
It is one thing to make one’s calling and election sure by pursuing holiness out of thankfulness to God; it is quite another to establish one’s own righteousness by this supposed pursuit of holiness.
Ironically, the men of Westminster are NOT making their calling and election sure since they wish to extract a self-righteous false assurance out of their supposedly “Spirit-enabled” works. They are corrupt tailors who are sewing a cloak of self-righteousness with which they seek to add to, substitute for, to put in the place of the righteousness of Christ as the sole grounds of being accepted by God. And just like the self-righteous Pharisees of old, they too, will thank God for all their supposed “good works” that they suppose are wrought in them. They lie against the Holy Spirit whose work is to lead His people to look to Jesus Christ ALONE (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:7-15; Romans 9:23-30; 1 Corinthians 2:12; 2 Corinthians 4:6), and NOT to their own self-righteous navels:
“But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because [they sought it] not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone” (Romans 9:31-32).
Agrammatos 