Recommendation D & The Assurance of Salvation

Written by Cedric Parsels

If the Human Sexuality Report (HSR) is to be believed, the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is in the midst of a confessional crisis. “At the heart of the gospel,” the report proclaims, “is the call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.” (Agenda, 2021, p.147). And that call to repentance, they argue, includes a call to repent of all sexual immorality, including “premarital sex, extramarital sex, adultery, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex” (Agenda 2021, p. 148). “These sins,” the report declares, “threaten a persons salvation” (Agenda 2021, p. 148). And, therefore, if Synod 2022 should allow CRC churches to teach that these sins are not sins, it would not only be placing “a dangerous stumbling block in the path of [people’s] sanctification” (Agenda 2021, p. 146),  it would also be removing from the CRC “one of the essential marks of a true church” (Agenda 2021, 147).

Accordingly, in recommendation D, the HSR calls on Synod 2022 to declare that “the church’s teaching on premarital sex, extramarital sex, adultery, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex already has confessional status” (Agenda 2021, p.149). Nothing less than the CRC’s confessional integrity depends on it. 

Of course, those who are seeking to revise the CRC’s understanding of sexual morality disagree with the way the HSR characterizes their views as a hindrance to people’s salvation. Nevertheless, many of them agree that the CRC’s confessional integrity is on the line at Synod 2022. This is because, in their view, the HSR’s claim that sexual sins are a threat to a person’s salvation is itself contrary to the gospel. For example, according to some members at First CRC (Denver, CO), the HSR’s position “goes against the very basic gospel message our denomination affirms...” (Agenda 2021, p. 420). And most of the churches in Classis Grand Rapids East (GRE) agree: “The [HSR has overstated] the ability of sexual sin to threaten salvation. The Belgic Confession Articles 16 and 23 teach that salvation is by God’s grace alone and by God’s initiative” (Agenda 2021, p. 430). Presumably, then, some of the members at First CRC and a majority of the churches in Classis GRE believe that it is a matter of gospel and confessional integrity for Synod 2022 to repudiate the HSR’s teaching on this point by, say, rejecting recommendation D. If it doesn’t do this, then Synod 2022 will have denied “the very basic gospel message our denomination affirms” (Agenda 2021, p. 420).   

Clearly, the CRC and, in particular, Synod 2022 are between a rock and a hard place. There is no way that Synod is going to conclude its business without at least some individuals and churches leaving the denomination. For people on both sides, the stakes are simply too high for the status quo to continue.

Nevertheless, the theological question remains: which of these mutually exclusive positions is correct? Do sexual sins threaten a person’s salvation or not? The answer is: Yes, they do, but not in the way that revisionists suppose.

In the first place, it is important to acknowledge that the members of First CRC and of Classis GRE are correct that salvation is from beginning to end solely the result of God’s free grace. According to Scripture, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23). And these members are also correct that our confessions bear witnesses to this good news. According to the Heidelberg Catechism, “Only Christ’s satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness make [us] right with God” (HC, Q/A 61). “And therefore we cling to this foundation [of Christ’s righteousness]...not claiming a thing for ourselves or our merits and leaning and resting on the sole obedience of Christ crucified...” (Belgic, Art. 23). For people whose sins and shame cause fear of God’s condemnation and rejection, this is good news. 

Where some of the members of First CRC and of Classis GRE appear to have gone astray is in their understanding of the instrument by which God credits or ‘imputes’ Christ’s righteousness to His people, namely, ‘faith’. According to the Catechism, this ‘faith’ is not simply a bare “knowledge” of the gospel nor is it even a “conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true.” True faith includes those two elements, but it goes beyond them. True faith, the Catechism says, “is also a deep rooted assurance, created in [us] by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, that, out of sheer grace earned for [us] by Christ, not only others, but [we] too have had [our] sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation” (HC, Q/A 21). True faith, in other words, includes a justified assurance that we are among God’s elect and, therefore, that we “will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11). 

At this point, people inevitably ask (as they have for centuries): “How can we know whether our faith is true and genuine rather than ‘false’ and hypocritical? Jesus himself encourages us to ask this question. Prior to His return, Jesus teaches that the church will consist of groups: the elect possessing genuine faith and the non-elect possessing a hypocritical faith. And, to make matters more complicated, Jesus teaches us that these two groups will often appear indistinguishable from one another (Matt. 13:24-30; 25:31-46). In fact, Jesus tells us that these groups will look so similar at times that those with hypocritical faith will even give evidence of the Holy Spirit’s being at work in their lives! In perhaps one of the most unsettling passages of Scripture, Jesus says that, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,... Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers’ (Matt. 7:21-22)!” So, how do we discern whether our faith is genuine or merely at the level of conviction?

The Canons of Dordt explain that, according to Scripture, there are at least three ‘marks’ that a person must have in order to be justified in claiming that they have a genuine faith. The first mark is that a person with genuine faith looks with confidence to “the promises of God which he has very plentifully revealed in his Word for our comfort” (Canons, V, Art. 10). That is, those with genuine faith believe that God has promised them that He will save them by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The second mark, the Canons say, is that genuine faith is accompanied with “the Holy Spirit testifying with our spirit that we are God’s children and heirs” (Canons, V, Art.10; Rom. 8:16-17). Those with genuine faith, in other words, relate to God not only as their Creator and Lord, but also as their Heavenly Father, the One who is working all things for their salvation. The third and final mark the Canons mention is that genuine faith promotes “a serious and holy pursuit of a clear conscience and of good works” (Canons, V, Art. 10; 2 Peter 1:3-11). As Jesus put it to his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21; 1 Jn. 2:3-6). According to the Canons, if these three marks are present in us, then we can have confidence that God has chosen us for salvation, that we are God’s adopted children, and that we “will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11). But, if these three are not present, we should be concerned. 

This is the context in which we should understand what the HSR has to say about sexual sins threatening a person’s salvation. As both Scripture and our confessions repeatedly make clear, there is no true faith apart from true repentance. “Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and impenitent ways? By no means. Scripture tells us that no unchaste person, no idolater, adulterer, thief, no covetous person, no drunkard, slanderer, robber, or the like is going to inherit the kingdom of God” (HC, Q/A 87). In other words, those who live unrepentantly in the ways described in the Catechism have every reason to fear that their faith is more a matter of ‘conviction’ than of true faith. They are missing the third mark required for assurance. And, if a person’s faith is merely a matter of ‘conviction,’ then they are still under God’s condemnation (see, Jn. 3:18). And so, as Jesus said, they should “repent and believe the good news” (Mk. 1:15).

That the members of First CRC and of Classis GRE seem not to understand this seemingly elementary biblical and confessional teaching is not encouraging for the future of their churches or for the CRC more generally. It suggests that these members have perhaps separated grace from repentance; that the gospel of ‘free’ grace which they preach represents a devolved version of the one taught in our confessions; that it is not free grace that they preach but ‘cheap grace.’ “Cheap grace,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” Let us hope that these members are not in fact preaching that false gospel. And lets pray that, if they are, that this period of Lent prior to Synod 2022 will lead the members of First CRC and of Classis GRE to remember the ‘costliness’ of grace. Because, if they do not, we should all be concerned for their salvation.