How to Have Assurance in Christ in an Age of "Exvangelical" Apostasy Bait

I recently noticed that a friend I knew from my college CRU days now says “exvangelical” in his bio. That’s an elastic word, but it typically refers to someone who no longer considers themselves a Christian in any traditional sense.

Sadly, this has become a pattern. Since my initial days with CRU when I was in college about 25 years ago, many of my Christian friends from that time have left the faith. How did it happen?

As people leave college, start careers, and begin families, the “wet cement” of their worldviews harden into settled convictions. Some of them move in a more leftward direction, others to the right. Once people reach their mid-20s, their basic worldview is set and that’s where they stay.

From my observations, the “exvangelical” phenomena occurs almost exclusively with Christians who moved to the left politically, which almost always tracks with moving to the left theologically. That’s not to say conservatives don’t have doctrinal or moral problems. Many of my conservative friends have had major sin problems. But their problems are not typically the “I’m no longer a Christian” variety. They take their problems and sins to Jesus and work it out.

The different and more disturbing trend I’ve seen with leftist Christian friends is a willingness to redefine Jesus to fit their modern, progressive sensibilities. They have no problem questioning the sufficiency of scripture regarding a number of the left’s most pressing hot button issues. Once that happens, the Bible becomes pretty much irrelevant to that person’s faith. Oftentimes, abandoning the Christian faith is soon to follow. They end up affirming things like abortion, LGBTQ+ ideology, open borders, and so on.

Some of them will claim that this is the “way of Jesus.” (It isn’t, by the way. Progressive Christians use that word to cast Jesus as a modern leftist). Not uncommonly, these people end up rejecting Jesus altogether.

Paul said, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition” (Col 2:8). “Captive” is the right word. Ideas take prisoners.

This is what I find most troubling. I’ve known people like this over the years who previously seemed sincere in their faith. We were in CRU together. We went to church together. We did ministry together. They always said the right things. But they became ideologically captured by the left.

Since my formative ministry years began with CRU in college, then on staff for five years with CRU, and then planting a church in a collegiate environment for the last fifteen years, I’ve seen how progressive ideologies take young Christians “captive” and pull them away from the faith. It’s led to more apostasy than I can stomach.

This is enabled by well-meaning Christians who give false assurance to people who are not genuinely converted. I was trained to do this when I was on staff with CRU. We were trained to immediately assure every new convert that they were, without a doubt, a genuine Christian who had eternal life. We would tell them, “now that you’ve made a decision to follow Christ, let’s go over all the scriptures that assure you of salvation and eternal life.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was a mistake.

The Problem with Decisionism

The problem with modern evangelicalism is an unbiblical notion of “decisionism.” Many evangelical Christians assume someone is a Christian simply because they made a decision to “receive Christ” and have their sins forgiven. Scripture doesn’t teach that. Scripture teaches that Christians can be assured of their salvation if they go about it the right way.

Consider these texts. First John 5:13 says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” How does one know he or she has eternal life? John tells us. “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). In other words, a decision to follow Christ is insufficient grounds of assurance. One must also demonstrate a life of obedience.

Jesus said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). Jesus also said, “you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt 7:20). The proof is in the fruit. Saving faith is demonstrated in the follow through.

In Matthew 13:5 (the parable of the sower), Jesus said, “Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.” The whole parable of the sower is about three types of people who are not Christians, those some of them may seem like Christians at first.

First John 2:19 says the same thing: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” Thus, some people may initially indicate a decision to follow Christ but later fall away. In this instance, they were never truly saved.

Of course, true believers can never actually lose their salvation. But neither should false converts ever presume they are saved based on a one time decision. They must count the cost and continue in the faith.

A church that embraces “decisionism” might neglect ongoing discipleship since they assume everyone already has their “fire insurance.” They assume they can move on to saving more souls by securing more decisions, failing to recognize that some of them may not be truly converted. When a church overemphasizes the initial decision at the expense of teaching obedience and lifelong discipleship, false conversions and false assurance abounds.

How can you have assurance of your salvation?

So how can a Christian be assured of his or her salvation? An important text in this regard is 2 Peter 1:10, which says, “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

Some observations. First, God is sovereign over who is saved. God calls. God elects. Sinners respond through repentance of sin and faith in Christ. It’s all a work of God’s grace in the life of the sinner. As Jonathan Edwards famously said, “we contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

Even though no one is saved by works (Gal 2:16), scripture nevertheless affirms that good works accompany every genuine conversion. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 7:21).

Second, Christians are commanded to “confirm” their calling and election. But how? Certainly, God’s calling and electing will be made manifest in the heart of the believer in what we might recognize as a “decision,” but that decision is merely the first step in a lifelong commitment to discipleship. In Philippians 2:12, Paul says something similar: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. In other words, salvation is accomplished by grace, but confirmed by works.

So by what sort of works can a Christian confirm his or her calling and election? My next point answers this question.

Third, Christians confirm their calling and election by practicing Christian virtue. Second Peter 1:10 says it explicitly: Christians will “never fall” IF they “practice these qualities.” In other words, Christians can prevent apostasy by practicing “these qualities.” What sort of qualities does Peter have in mind? The previous verses spell them out.

Second Peter 1:5-7 says,

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

In short, genuine Christians will persevere in the faith by diligently acting like Christians. He continues by making this promise:

“For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, pursuing godliness is the means God uses to keep you from falling away.

Peter then follows up with a warning: “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (V9).

Any Christian who abandons the pursuit of godly virtue is in danger. Any Christian who faithfully pursues godly virtue may receive the inner peace of assurance. Therefore, Christians should not look to their decision to be assured of their salvation, but should diligently confirm they are a true Christian by acting like a true Christian. (See also the London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) regarding assurance.)

The False Assurance of Leftist Christianity

This is where the connection to leftist politics comes in. The modern left undermines the pursuit of Christian virtue at every turn. Their worldview demonstrates hostility to Christianity and hospitality to sexual perversion of every kind.

Under such conditions, many leftist unbelievers may confidently believe they are Christians when they are not. Some will be pastors or ministry leaders (AKA wolves). These people should not have assurance of salvation. John says, “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar” (1 John 2:4).

This creates great confusion in the hearts of true Christians (and in the churches they attend), where there is little clarity about what it means to be truly converted and truly follow Christ. Most of them have been taught that the only thing someone must do to be a Christian is make a one-time decision, and how you live after that doesn’t matter. This is most certainly false.

Thus, the phenomena of mass apostasy we see in the modern church is not a matter of true Christians losing their salvation, which is impossible, but rather it’s a matter of modern churches being filled with false converts who think they are saved. This confidence is based on an emotional, impulsive decision, perhaps because they wanted to “have their sins forgiven,” but they never truly took up their cross to die daily and follow Christ. Perhaps they were never challenged to do so from the pulpit. Perhaps they were simply given false assurance from the start, depriving them of the divinely appointed means of perseverance.

The True Assurance Promised in Scripture

God does want his true children to be assured of their salvation, provided that assurance is based on the right criteria.

Assurance is the mental and emotional peace one can experience because he or she pursued it. This fact should be a source of comfort. The scripture does not encourage us to introspectively examine our fickle, deceitful hearts, wondering if we were sincere enough at the time of our decision. That can cause a crippling paralysis where we never experience the assurance promised in scripture. Rather, the Holy Spirit testifies to our hearts that we are truly his children and will be with Him for eternity as we pursue virtue as prescribed in 2 Peter 1:5-7.

Thus, my counsel for true Christians who doubt their salvation is not to navel-gaze into whether he or she made a genuine decision to follow Christ, but to confirm their calling and election through the pursuit of Christian virtue.

Recent Publications

• Truth Script recently ran a piece I wrote called “Is Singleness the Ideal? What the Church Should Say About Marriage Today”

Media Mentions

• I was interviewed by Terry Mattingly for a report on political division in churches for a religious news outlet and published by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Personal Update

As some of you may know, the church I pastor in Cincinnati, OH, has been pursuing the possibility of relocating to a larger building across the river in Northern KY. We’ve made significant progress in the last few weeks and I will hopefully have more to share soon! Please consider joining us in prayer for (1) wisdom to make good decisions, and (2) financial provision as we have to raise a lot of money in a short period of time to make this work. We’re hopeful and confident in the Lord’s direction and provision, but we still need to be wise in seeing this through. Thank you!