No humanly crafted theology or confession is perfect. As we strive to clearly say the things that God has taught us, we make mistakes. At times, our formulation, intended to document faith, actually ends up creating doubt a little further down the road. This is the case with the Reformation confessions. The Reformation confessions all rightly affirm that assurance of your salvation is not only possible, but expected. By way of example, consider the very first question of the Heidelberger:
“Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
“A: That I am not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ….”
AMEN!!! But those confessions introduce a tension which the original Reformers (so admirably described by C. S. Lewis in the introduction to his volume of OHEL) did not experience, but which plagued their grandchildren mercilessly. The answer to the first question of the Heidelberger concludes with the statement that Jesus “makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.” In a moment of less-than-wholehearted desire to live for Jesus — and we all have such moments — what’s a fellow to think? The statement can be read in a gracious and grateful manner, as the original framers intended, or it can be read in an over-scrupulous way that plunges entire congregations into a labyrinth of doubt: perhaps none of us is really among the elect! This is the reason the Halfway Covenant existed — a sordid time in the history of New England, and pregnant with pastoral lessons for those who care to look.
When a man is plagued with such doubts, it is not evidence that he has failed to take the confessions seriously; it’s frequently evidence that he read them very seriously indeed, following the logic all the way to the end. The fault line was there from the very beginning (as it always is in human-origin documents; we never get everything right).
This is one of the virtues of Free Grace theology. It is not a departure from Protestant faith; at its best it’s a highly necessary course correction to an error that was absent from early Protestant practice but very present in early Protestant formulations.
Posted by Tim Nichols 
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