boldness

Confined by Fear

by Ben Zornes · Feb 26, 2024

One of the most important spiritual vital signs is whether you have a low-grade fever of fear. Do you wince easily? Is your mind tangled up with nightmares of all the scenarios of things going wrong? Have you been fretting over all the bad things in the headlines, and letting your emotional state be dictated by oil prices in Saudi Arabia? This sort of fear is rightly described in Scripture as having torment.

Fear will sap your strength and will. It will rob your joy. Your voice will quaver in timidity instead of being raised in praise. Letting fear wander the hallways of your life unchecked will make it certain that you only do the safest of things. You won’t stand up against evil. You won’t venture out of your comfort zone. You’ll be confined to the small chamber of safety, as defined by all your fears.

But where God’s Spirit dwells, there His love dwells too. This love, we are told, casts out our fears. If you know that God has manifested His love to You through Christ, and your sins are forgiven and abundant and everlasting life is your birthright you can walk fearless.

Whereas fear confines you, God’s love is deep and wide and long. This is why the attribute which defined the early church was that of boldness. It is how Acts describes the early Christians, and it is what Paul asks the church to pray that he would have, even in his imprisonment. Now, this boldness doesn’t mean being a loud-mouth. Rather, this boldness is the straightforward declaration of the Gospel, and the fruit of a life assured of this Gospel. The security of knowing that God’s love is upon you and dwells in you, wherever you go makes you fearless regardless of any persecution, famine, distress, or peril you might encounter.

God’s people throughout history have been marked by their fearlessness. They have rebuked kings, faced down armies singlehandedly, put the enemy to flight, and preached righteousness to a stiff-necked people. They have done this because they feared not man, while reverently fearing God Almighty. When we get this backward it cripples our witness, confines our lives, and kills our joy. May God forgive us for trembling before the threats and worries of this world, instead of standing steadfast and certain in His love. And may He grant unto us a true evangelical boldness to live and declare His truth in this dark age we live.

Confidence Towards God

by Ben Zornes · Nov 10, 2022

Introduction

The Apostle John’s teaching here is at once simple and deep. The simplicity isn’t because John was a simpleton; and the depth isn’t a secret knowledge intended only for a scant few. We find here a depth that comes from maturing faith & love. A bride & groom avow their love on their wedding day, but as it is nurtured year upon year, decade upon decade, the depth of that trust & love grows sweeter, truer, lovelier. That, in part, is how Scripture teaches us to understand the doctrine of assurance of grace.

We live in a perpetually insecure culture. This is the result of a desertion of true faith in Jesus Christ alone. This is why there is such widespread seeking after security, whether it be the security of State run programs, or LARPing as very religious people in grand cathedrals. But we must maintain, that security is found in Christ alone.

The Text

19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. 20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. 22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1 John 3:19-23

Summary of the Text

John’s entire argument has been leading up to this important exhortation as to how the believer can be assured in their heart of their acceptance before God (v19). He gives us an if/then argument as the way to assure our hearts that we are “of the truth.” If your heart condemns you, God is greater than any real or imagined condemnation you face; after all, He knows all things (v20). He knows all the truth about you, and still offers Christ to you to be your dwelling place (2:6), righteousness (2:28), Advocate, and Propitiation (2:1-2).

The “if/then” argument in verse 20 is inverted by the “if/then” of verse 21.

20: If your heart condemns you, then God is greater.

21: If your heart doesn’t condemn you (because God is greater), then you have boldness to come to God.

This boldness is made most evident in our prayers. We ask “whatsoever” sort of prayers (v22). We can ask boldly, trusting God to answer our requests, because we are walking in the light (1:7), and have a clear conscience (v22). The nail in timidity’s coffin is that the command we are to keep is uncomfortably simple to the self-righteous or self-pitying, but is a deep comfort to the feeblest of saints: believe in Jesus, and love one another (v23).

The Accusing Heart

It’s vital to notice that condemnation is a legal term. This “legalese” picks up on the legal language used earlier regarding Christ as our Paraclete (2:1)––the one who comes alongside us to plead our case—and our Propitiate (2:2)––the one who covers us. Your comfort is found in this: your gracious Savior has freed you from and forgiven you for both your sinful state and your sinful actions. But the comfort goes gloriously beyond even this.

The comfort extends forward. If the saint sins in the future, the Lord Jesus remains as your faithful Advocate. The Greek word here means, “one summoned to your side”, implying coming to your legal defense.

Our Accuser is cast down, as John’s apocalyptic vision assures us (Rev. 12:10). Which means you need not heed the Accuser’s voice, when the Advocate’s voice is declaring that the Gospel reckons you forgiven, cleansed, and pardoned. This forms the foundation of Christian assurance. We need not sin, because we’ve been given a new nature; but if we sin, we are no less a saint––for Christ the Righteous is our eternal Advocate before the Father.

Having destroyed Satan’s grounds for accusation (Cf. 3:8), John wants to address the accusations which spring from your own heart. Here in our passage, the heart lays a charge against us. While there’s an emotional component here, the legal terminology should lead us to think not in terms of subjective feelings but objective fact.

Does your heart condemn you? Whose heart doesn’t? After all, we bear the guilt and shame of our sin. Our heart bears witness against us that we are violators of God’s Law. Our heart is deceitful (Jer. 17:9). Our heart is stone (Eze. 36:26). But God is greater. Sweeter words have never been spoken.

God is Greater

How do we know that God is greater? We often want to point to the glories of creation as an argument for God’s greatness. No doubt the heavens declare His glory, DNA strands are amazing testimonies to the wisdom & knowledge of God’s creative power, the beauty of the Swiss Alps leaves us longing for the eternal glory found in God. But if we follow John’s argument accurately, the greatness of God which he has in mind is not to be found in the first place by creational glories. We have to go back to the prologue of 1 John to see what greatness John has in mind.

The Eternal Word has been made manifest in the flesh for your joy (1:1-4). Those born of God believe two things: that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (4:2), and that Jesus is the Christ (5:1). Jesus dwells in you, as you dwell in Him by faith (2:24). Do you believe that? Then be assured that Christ dwells in you, by the Spirit, to tell your condemning heart to hush.

A.A. Hodge, in one place, teaches that, “Full assurance, therefore––which is the fullness of hope resting on the fullness of faith––is a state of mind which it is the office of the Holy Ghost to induce in our minds. […] [The Holy Ghost] gives origin to the grace of full assurance––not as a blind and fortuitous feeling, but as a legitimate and undoubting conclusion from appropriate evidence.”

Assurance isn’t a feeling, it is the conclusion of a legal proceeding. A lost child is not concerned with whether they have been disinherited; they are solely concerned with finding their parents and have a certainty of the welcome which they will receive when they are found. This passage is the crown jewel of God’s evidence to the saints of their assurance of welcome. Christ has not only conquered Satan, but He has quieted your condemning heart by His great love, and now you have boldness to ask the Father for grace & mercy to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16).

So Say Your Prayers

John’s argument is a flowchart of sorts. Does your heart condemn you? If, yes? God is greater than your heart. Now, in light of that, does your heart condemn you no more? Good, then say your prayers.

To come to God in prayer is to come to Him by the Son, by the Intercessor. Only a fool will try to come before God in order to pull off a heist; as if he could dupe God by coming in any other way than by the Son. When God’s greatness is displayed in Jesus Christ manifested in the flesh, prayer becomes like the no-doubt 3-pointer. We pray “Thy Kingdom come”, and we are certain that near and far, in our heart and in our homes, from shore to shore Christ is King and shall be exalted in all the earth.

Now, curious point is made here. The text asserts a certainty of receiving our requests and it grounds this certainty in the fact that “we keep His commands, and do those things which are pleasing in His sight.” At first this sets us Protestants ill-at-ease. Sounds like works-righteousness. But this is to miss the simple point John is making. He answers this objection immediately. God’s commandment is to believe in Jesus, and love the brethren. Once again, our confidence towards God is on the basis of faith in Christ alone, and this is the key signature of our prayers.

Of course, this boldness in prayer isn’t to be used to glut our lusts (Jas. 4:3). But we also must be careful not to so narrowly limit what Christ & the Apostles’ frequently make broad. The saint is invited to ask for whatsoever (Cf. Jn. 16:23), and as you are walking with the Lord your requests will not be amiss or improper or carnal, but will be the sort of requests that please the Father.

Boldness in prayer is a mark of true evangelical faith. A clear conscience (by walking in the light and keeping His commandments) produces a fearlessness to make your petitions and requests known to your Father.

Instead of getting swallowed in the nets of doubt, and asking yourself if you’re really, really, really saved, John points you to prayer. Every time you pray you are defying an accusing heart. An accusing heart will object to going before God. But prayer forces you to humble yourself and admit in faith God is Greater. Instead of endless seeking for security, either in yourself, or in the State, or in the Cathedral, or in the family, or in your wealth, the Word that was manifested in the flesh, calls you to trust in Him alone, and then get busy.

Look To Christ

Faith looks to Jesus. Assurance of grace flows from looking, it is not the prerequisite of the looking. Looking comes first, the seeing comes after.

1 John 3:19-22 | God is Greater than Our Hearts

by Ben Zornes · Oct 11, 2022

19 And in this we know that we are of the truth, and before Him shall assure our hearts.
20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knows all things.
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.
22 And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
1 John 3:19-22

We come to the rub of John’s argument as to how the believer can be assured in their heart of their acceptance before God. He gives us another if/then argument as the way to assure our hearts that we are “of the truth.” If your heart condemns you, God is greater than any real or imagined condemnation you face; He knows all things after all. He knows all the truth about you, and still offers Christ to you to be your dwelling place (2:6), righteousness (2:28), Advocate, and Propitiation (2:1-2).

The if/then argument in verse 20 is intended to flow into the if/then of verse 21:
-If your heart condemns you, then God is greater.
-If your heart doesn’t condemn you (because God is greater), then you have boldness to come to God.

It is vital to notice that condemnation is a legal term. This picks up on the legal language earlier regarding Christ as our propitiation and Paraclete, the one who comes alongside us to plead our case. Here the heart lays a charge against us. While there is an emotional component here, the legal terminology should lead us to think not in terms of subjective feelings but objective fact.

How do we know that God is greater? It is all founded on the prologue, the Word has been made manifest. This is leading up to the gloriously simple litmus test of salvation in chapter 4 & 5: those born of God believe that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (4:2), and that Jesus is the Christ (5:1). Jesus dwells in you, as you dwell in Him by faith (2:24). He stands there, by the Spirit, to tell your condemning heart to hush. When the believer’s heart is silenced by the indwelling presence of the Great Triune God, it then has boldness, confidence, and courage to ask of God for whatsoever.

Now, as we ask we know we receive what we ask because we are keeping God’s commandments. As we walk in the light as He is in the light we are inclined to ask for the very things which will fortify and equip us to carry out His commandments, to do those things which are pleasing to Him. His love has been lavished upon us (3:1), and so we are compelled to love the brethren, and when we see our brethren in need (3:17-18) we will be compelled to ask God for such things as are necessary to assist our suffering brother.

This boldness in prayer is not to be done to spend on our lusts, as the Apostle James teaches (Jas. 4:3); but we also must be careful not to so narrowly limit what the Apostles’ frequently make broad. The saint is entitled to ask for whatsoever, and as they are walking with the Lord their requests will not be amiss or improper or carnal, but will be the sort of requests that please the Father. Boldness in prayer is a mark of true evangelical faith. A clear conscience (by walking in the light and keeping His commandments) produces a fearlessness to make our petitions and requests known to our Father.

A.A. Hodge, in one places, teaches that, “Full assurance, therefore––which is the fullness of hope resting on the fullness of faith––is a state of mind which it is the office of the Holy Ghost to induce in our minds. […] [The Holy Ghost] gives origin to the grace of full assurance––not as a blind and fortuitous feeling, but as a legitimate and undoubting conclusion from appropriate evidence.”^⁠1 Assurance isn’t a feeling, it is a legal standing. This passage is the crown jewel of God’s evidence to the saints of their assurance of welcome. Christ has quieted their condemning heart by His great love, and now they have boldness to ask their Father for grace & mercy to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16).

¹Hodge, Archibald Alexander. The Westminster Confession: A Commentary. Edinburgh, Scotland: Banner of Truth Trust, 2002. Pg. 242

Thunderclap Amens

by Ben Zornes · Jun 6, 2022

Saints from ancient days have punctuated their prayers, both spoken & sung, public & private with “Amen.” An early church father, Jerome, described the early church’s practice of hearty “Amens” this way: “Where else does the ‘Amen’ resound in the likeness of thunder of the divine heaven & the empty temples of pagan idols are shaken?”

So then, adopting this practice isn’t just keeping a tradition alive. Rather, as we declare in unison hearty Amens we’re doing a few things. A temptation in Western Christianity is to limit faith to what happens between our ears. But by shouting joyful amens, we use our body to vocalize our agreement with both God’s promises & what He’s produced in us by grace.

But, as Jerome remarked, these Amens of ours also shake the vacuous temples of pagan idolatry. Our Amens are professions of faith that the Gospel we believe is the only true Gospel; the God to whom we pray is the only true and living God; the praises we raise aren’t in vain, the Risen Christ truly receives them. The pagan temples are full of froth & bother, but their gods are deaf, blind, & impotent. Their promises are empty echoes. Idols’ power to fulfill the promises which their lying priests proclaim, is nonexistent.

Not so for the saints of the Risen Christ. Jesus is the Amen. He speaks the Amen. And so we respond, with a thunderclap of ratifying Amens. It isn’t a perfunctory tradition. It’s joining our assent to the Father’s promise to impart to us all the blessings of redemption which Christ, the Amen, won for us by His blood. In Him, all the promises of God are Yes & Amen. All our hopes for a Messiah to save us are answered with Jesus. So we shout Amens that rattle the foundations of all the temples of unrighteousness.

Too often the saints have acted as if we must tiptoe politely through our days on earth. In too many instances, we’ve whispered partial Gospels, or we’ve mumbled out platitudes. God calls us to be heralds of the Good News of Christ’s kingdom, in all our thoughts and words and doings. Instead of hearty Amens to His promises, we shout our acclamations of celebrities, politicians, or sports stars. May God forgive us for our timidity towards Him, and our boldness in things that don’t much matter. The Lord gives to His saints bold faith, in order that they might shout “amens” in sincerity of faith, and back it up with bold faith in action throughout the whole of our life. And in so doing, we shake the temples of wickedness both in our own lives, as well as in our family, church, and nation.

Piping Hot Favor

by Ben Zornes · May 10, 2022

American Christian culture has forgotten how to be reverently joyful, so we’ve contrived a counterfeit by twisting ourselves up into a pretzel of sanctimonious insecurity. The emotional posture that’s struck is that of a painfully shy high-school student. Afraid to join in, worried of being chased off, lacking the nerve to stand tall, faking the smile, hating the loneliness but fearful of trying to gain acceptance and being rejected.

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Our experience with fallen man has jaded us so that when we’re offered the grace on this table, we think that there’s gotta be a trick, some hidden agenda, a gimmick, or that the hammer’s gotta fall eventually. The Gospel’s free grace which invites us to “come all who are weary,” stirs up our cynicism, our anxiety that God has brought us near, just to pull the rug out from under us. So we come to His table with trepidation & suspicion. If we could, we’d nibble a bit first, just to make sure the grace hasn’t been laced with accusation.

But the truth laid before you is better than you can hope or imagine. The Lord has placed His name on you, and your name is graven on His hands. It wasn’t because you were so smart or upright, mighty or wealthy. Nor can your sin & shame, guilt or fears prevent Him from setting His electing love upon You. God the Father has placed piping hot favor on this table. He’s poured a full goblet of the sweet wine of His tender-mercies.

You deserve none of it, and yet He gives you all of it. All your fear & irreverence should only come here to die. Joy mingled with reverence should kindle into a bonfire here. Come, without fear, without suspicion. Come with joy & come with reverence.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Reading the End of the Book

by Ben Zornes · Feb 27, 2014

We are in a day of crisis. The crisis is between which authority will guide the human race: the philosophies of man or the Word of God. The Enemy designs to win the small battles along the way, he fights hard, but he is fighting a losing battle. After all, have you read the end of the book (Rev. 22)? So, in this day and age, I am more and more firmly convinced that rather than trying to innovate and conjure up anomalous methods of advancing the Gospel, we must return to the tried and true truths of the Word of God and Christian History. [Read more…] about Reading the End of the Book