ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

REJOICE IN THE LORD

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he urges us three times to ‘Rejoice in the Lord.’ (3:1; 4:4)

This is not a ‘throw-away’ phrase aimed at cheering us up because of some life situation we might find ourselves in at the moment. Rather, for Paul, it is the gospel-based opposite of a works-based relationship with God.

It is quite evident, as we read through the Gospels and Acts, and several of the New Testament letters, that, at that time, (and it persists right up to the present), a dominant and recurring human error was relating to God on the basis of law, instead of on the basis of his great mercy and grace given to us in Jesus Christ.

People were putting their confidence in their perceived religious merit, even boasting about and glorying in that perceived merit. A particular expression of this self-confidence was focused on the Jewish rite of circumcision – and the belief that non-Jewish followers of Christ had to be circumcised in order to be saved, and in order to be accepted as believers in God. (You can track some of the debate about this in Acts 10, 11 and 15.)

While that particular expression of a works-based salvation does not bother us today, any works-based relationship with God attracts the same criticism: that we ought not put ‘confidence in the flesh’, we ought not boast about our good works, our national, racial or religious heritage, or anything else we ourselves are or have done. Because they cannot save us or keep us saved.

There was a time, Paul says, when he used to ‘put confidence in the flesh’ – in his circumcision, in his national and tribal heritage and identity, in his meticulous Pharisaic obedience to the law, in his zeal for God, in his legal innocence – Philippians 3:4 – 6.

He used to trust that these things that he was and that he did were sufficient to gain and maintain his acceptance with God.

But when he met the risen and ascended Jesus Christ, when he understood who Jesus is and what Jesus did on the cross, Paul’s mindset was completely changed. Those things that he had previously considered ‘profit’, he now realized were utterly worthless:

He now considered them ‘loss’ – verses 7, 8.
He now considered them ‘rubbish’ – verse 8.
He no longer trusted them. He no longer boasted about them. He no longer gloried in them.

All he wants is –

To know Christ.
To be found in Christ, without any claim to personal, law-based righteousness.
The righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul’s repeated ‘Rejoice in the Lord’ directs us to the liberating, grace-based, opposite of having confidence in anything that we ourselves are or do. When we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, our understanding of our salvation is that it is complete and secure in him, because of what he accomplished for us by his death. Therefore, because of God’s gift of salvation in Christ, we can rejoice ‘with an inexpressible and glorious joy’ (1Peter 1:8). But when we believe that out salvation is something that we have to gain and maintain by our own good works, there is always the constant need to be ‘good enough’, and to be seen to be ‘good enough’. This law-based relationship with God is impossible for anyone to sustain. (Unless, of course, you reduce the definition of 'sin' and of 'holy', and by doing so also reduce the significance of Christ's death.)

As Peter said when the teaching that circumcision was necessary for salvation was being debated in Jerusalem:

‘Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are’ – Acts 15:10, 11.

Our confidence (trust), our boasting, our glorying, our joy – all of these are focused on and derived from Jesus Christ, and from him alone. In him, and only in him, we have assured salvation.