Blessed assurance, indeed

Today I wanted to talk theology, hymn theology. I was talking about the assurance we have in Jesus the other day, and the person I was talking to talked about the hymn Blessed Assurance. It reminded me of the time when a dear saint of the Lord in a moment of complete candor, looked at me and asked, "Billy, how do you know, really know you're saved?" I was flabbergasted at the time that she worried about that.

Felt like a blog to me, so here we go...

First, the hymn was written by Fannie Crosby, and I've always felt you can't go wrong with a Fannie Crosby. Crosby, of course, was a blind song writer. It is written based on Hebrews 10:22, which reads, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

The lyrics are as follows:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long; this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.
The interesting thing to me in this wonderful hymn, is I actually read very little about assurance as much as I read about the moment of conversion. That's just me, however.

The story behind the hymn is this:
Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a large pipe organ installed. The organ was incomplete, so Mrs. Knapp, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. "What do you think the tune says?" asked Knapp. "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine", answered Fanny Crosby. The hymn appeared in the July 1873 issue of Palmer's Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany.

John Wesley, founder of my denomination the United Methodists, believed in one could have assurance, which by the way Catholic theology disagrees with.

Wesley believed that all Christians have a faith which implies an assurance of God's forgiving love, and that one would feel that assurance, or the "witness of the Spirit". This understanding is grounded in Paul's affirmation, "...ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God..." (Romans 8:15-16, Wesley's translation).

This experience was mirrored for Wesley in his Aldersgate experience wherein he "knew" he was loved by God and that his sins were forgiven.

"I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken my sin, even mine." - from Wesley's Journal

Early in his ministry Wesley had to defend his understanding of assurance. In 1738 Rev. Arthur Bedford had published a sermon in which he misquoted Wesley's teachings. Bedford had understood Wesley as saying that a Christian could be assured of persevering in a state of salvation, the Calvinist view.

In a letter dated September 28, 1738 Wesley wrote, "The assurance of which I alone speak I should not choose to call an assurance of salvation, but rather (with the Scriptures), the assurance of faith. . . . [This] is not the essence of faith, but a distinct gift of the Holy Ghost, whereby God shines upon his own work, and shows us that we are justified through faith in Christ...The 'full assurance of faith' (Hebrews 10.22) is 'neither more nor less than hope; or a conviction, wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, that we have a measure of the true faith in Christ..'

How do you know you're saved? In the long run, it is faith. I believe that we can have that assurance simply by that transformation, the new birth, that comes when we accept Jesus as our savior. If we believe in our hearts that Jesus was risen, that he is our savior, and we proclaim it with our mouths, I believe we have that assurance of salvation.

Knowing is so wonderful. It doesn't lessen my responsibility of my actions; it heightens them. When I fall, which is still too often, I know I can get back up through His grace. Doesn't make it any less hurtful to Him or to me, but it means I can get back up. Always, get back up. That's assurance.