The New Humanity . . .

THE NEW CONFIDENCE

Therefore do not throwaway your confidence, which has a great reward. Heb. 10:35

A survey was made among high school and college students in order to discover what they considered their most serious personal problem. The results revealed that “a lack of confidence” was the most serious weakness that these young people recognized in their own personal lives. And what a wreck this can make of one’s life, from whatever angle one views it. Whether in terms of his life’s work, his marriage, his relations with others, or his anticipation of the future, it is all a dreadful experience without confidence in oneself and in the very substance of life.

This essay is concerned especially with that confidence that only the Lord can give, that spiritual confidence referred to above, which, according to the writer to the Hebrews has great reward. A lack of such assurance is surely a terrible malady within God’s community in our time. We hear references to the high level of mental illness among us, but we have other symptoms of a vacuous religion that are more widespread. Many of us are simply bored with life, and our jobs and families are about as exciting to us as a donkey ride through a desert. Joy is all too rare, and a bright confidence and quiet optimism are seldom seen. There is, moreover, an uneasiness and uncertainty about our spiritual well-being, for most of us are not even sure that we are saved.

Religion should be life’s greatest adventure. Religion is indeed life itself. Something is seriously wrong when it is a drag upon us, when it makes us restive and unsure, and when it is a duty to perform rather than a joy to be shared. We reveal more than we might suppose when we equivocate in reply to such a question as Are you saved?, which isn’t being asked in this materialistic age as much as it used to.

Why cannot our people respond in a cry of joy, “Yes, indeed I’m saved, and praise the Lord for it”? It may be because we really believe in a salvation by works, despite all our denials. If our works are in order and if we have recently enough prayed that insipid prayer “Forgive me of all my unforgiven sins,” then we might feel some assurance. But we must become a people who know, who are bold and confident in their salvation.

We should never tire of Paul’s words in Gal. 2, where he says: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” That sounds like a man who knows. And such a man can talk about joy and peace with real meaning: “Rejoice in the Lord, again I say rejoice.”

This is what we are calling the new confidence, which characterizes the New Humanity that we have in the Christ. The old system under Moses and the moral law of the Gentiles served to discipline the people and to give them an assurance of sorts, but those of us who share in the New Humanity realize how inadequate such systems were and what a difference Jesus makes.

Socrates is an example of one whose soul was disciplined by the moral law, and one whose search for truth brought him a sense of divine mission that few people ever realize. But Socrates did not have the Christ, and what a difference this makes! There was an assurance about Socrates that made all of Athens his schoolroom, and he portrayed a boldness that challenged all of the vain philosophies of his time. And there was even that quiet assurance that he was called of God to be a troublesome gadfly to the complacent Greeks. Yet there was a void in Socrates. In the hour of his death he makes reference to a sacrifice he had made to a god, as if there might be some virtue to the emptiness of Greek religion that he had spent his life criticizing. But Socrates could not know as Paul knew, for there was no Damascus experience for him.

King Hezekiah is a good example of the limitations of the Mosaic system, for in his confrontation with death his religion did not sustain him. He was one of those kings who “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done,” and surely God used him in a wonderful way in the history of Israel, especially at the time God’s people were threatened by the Assyrian invasion under Sennacherib. It was the spiritual leadership of Hezekiah that brought victory to Israel.

But the king faltered in the face of death. Isaiah tells the story of how the Lord sent him to Hezekiah with this message: “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order; for you shall die, you shall not recover.” That is a harsh message indeed, but it would not have disturbed one with the hope of the apostle Paul, who even expressed a desire that death might come and hurry him along into the presence of Christ. But it frightened and discouraged Hezekiah, and he reacted as one who had nothing to sustain him through the valley of death.

The king turned his face to the wall and wept bitterly, reminding the Lord how faithful he had been and asking if his life might be spared. The Lord granted a stay of death, and fifteen years were added to Hezekiah’s life. It is doubtful that this was best for him, for the years that followed brought further testing from the Lord, which only revealed the pride of the king, which in turn set the stage for the Babylonian invasion and the captivity of God’s people. So the lesson may teach us that it is best to let God determine our days.

The point that we are making, however, is that in the crucial experiences of life the Christ makes all the difference in the world. Hezekiah did not have Jesus to assure him in the hour of trial. He had Moses and the prophets, and these he heard, but he knew nothing of the New Humanity. His was a limited assurance. The new confidence was not yet available to men.

Those who lived before Christ, whether Jews or Greeks, could not have had that “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf” which can be true only of the New Humanity. The tragedy is that even Christians let such a confidence slip from them. The charge in Heb. 10:35 is therefore in order: Do not throwaway your confidence, which has a great reward.

The context in which that admonition was given indicates the basis of the Christian’s assurance. Reference is made to how they had suffered: they endured a hard struggle with sufferings, being exposed to abuse and affliction; they had joyfully accepted the plundering of their property. Then it says, “... since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” This is why they should be confident.

Might this suggest that a life of ease and prosperity more of a problem to the Christian than persecution and adversity. Difficulties tend to unite people, while persecutions cause them to be mutually sympathetic and helpful. It is amidst prosperity that we grow cold toward each other. Ease hurts us far more than trouble ever could.

The new confidence of which we speak does not come through being doctrinally “sound” or by having “the truth,” as these ideas are usually understood. One may be unsure of any number of his interpretations of scripture, and yet be fully convinced of his relationship to Jesus. He may be void of “the truth” in reference to that long list of things that divide us, and yet be bold in his assurance that Jesus is his. He does not have to be right about everything to sing Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

What kind of a people are we when we will sing a song of the blessed assurance, and then turn around and speak with uncertainty about our salvation?—the Editor