Doubt and the Christian life.
Doubt and the Christian life.
The good news is that God doesn’t meet our doubts with withdrawal.
A version of this article originally appeared on Core Christianity.
Despite what you may have been led to believe, the Christian faith is populated by scores of “Doubting Thomases.” While Jesus’s most skeptical apostle has received his fair share of criticism over the years, Thomas is in good company among the redeemed since it is precisely his doubt that the risen Lord shows up to dispel (John 20:24–29). Rather than belittling him for his apparent lack of faith, Jesus’s gesture to dissolve Thomas’s doubt by pointing him to the wounds that secured his righteousness remains indicative of the good news that the church still extends to doubting sinners today.
This is the point that comes to the fore in Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians — namely, the gospel’s dissolution of doubt. This is not to say that “doubting” is somehow antithetical to the gospel and receiving all of its wondrous benefits by faith. Trusting in God’s Word doesn’t necessarily preclude doubt, since our hearts are made of feeble and faithless stuff. Those who have led you to believe that faith and doubt are incompatible would benefit greatly by re-reading the Psalms. King David, who was one of the most prolific psalmists, confesses his doubt and distrust on multiple occasions with words that paint a vivid picture of his despair (Ps. 13:1–2; 44:24; 79:5; 89:46). In many ways, the Psalms are tailor-made for seasons of doubt since they are able to capture the guttural feelings of dejection and despondency in ways that are often beyond us, while at the same time conveying a hope beyond hope, which is that God doesn’t meet our doubt with withdrawal.
Depending on who you talk to, you could be led to believe that withdrawal is God’s response, that you better not doubt for even a fleeting second, or else you risk getting a side-eye from the Spirit. The posture of God toward sufferers and doubters, however, isn’t one of detachment or disappointment. He isn’t aloof or alarmed when we struggle with seasons of doubt, even prolonged ones. Rather, his Word and his Spirit are primed to dissolve doubt, not by offering listicles of disciplines to accomplish or incentives for works done, but by placarding the indissoluble fact that Jesus’s passion and death is the surety of every sinner’s standing before the Lord Almighty. God’s Word is brimming with hope for doubters and sufferers precisely because its message is for them, right where they are.
At the beginning of Lecture 28, Luther, who struggled with doubt during his years as a monk in the medieval Catholic church, speaks to this notion of doubt and the insistence that one’s works are what bring them into right standing before God. As he saw it, the Catholic church’s focus on external demonstrations of faith and piety had bred generations of doubters who were taught to look to themselves to ascertain their standing, demanding adherents to find in their own ability the capacity to carry out what the law demands. This is, perhaps, best illustrated by the phrase incurvatus in se, which is Latin for “curved in on itself.” Such was the diagnosis of the human heart delivered by Luther and the Reformers. The system of religion propagated by the papacy, therefore, only served to strain this inward curve by demanding adherents to find in their own ability the capacity to carry out what the law demands. Righteousness, then, is tethered to one’s devoutness and religiosity.
As you can imagine, this was fertile ground for doubt to blossom. After all, what’s more fickle than the human heart? If the certainty of one’s position in the kingdom of God is connected to one’s devotion, one’s hope remains in a constant state of flux, setting the stage for imminent failure. What this does, according to Luther, is teach “believers to have insecurity and harbor doubts regarding God’s favor and grace toward them” (337). God’s Word, then, becomes an untrustworthy agent of burgeoning doubt since its supposed benefits and blessings are only applicable to those who have mastered their fluctuating passions. Eventually, God’s word of promise morphs into nothing more than a word of possibility that harbors suspicion rather than certainty. “Thus,” in Luther’s words, “the papacy is nothing more than a slaughterhouse of consciences and the very kingdom of the devil!” (337).
But the gospel of God that is derived from the Word of God leaves no room for doubt. This isn’t to insinuate that doubters have no place, but rather that doubters are met by something infinitely more reliable than their own devotion. “We are not to trust in our own strength, our own conscience, our own feelings, our own person, or our own works,” Luther explains (338–39). Looking at one’s piety and performance as a co-equal barometer of one’s justification is not just “extreme insanity,” he continues, “but a horrible wickedness” (337). Luther, of course, was intimately familiar with this system of depending on one’s own works for assurance of salvation, which was truly wicked insanity. Prior to his days as Germany’s most outspoken Reformer, his religious experience was mired in the rigors of the Augustinian monastery to which he belonged, where hope and peace depended upon strict adherence to the exacting demands of God’s laws and the church’s traditions.
But no matter how hard he tried, he always came up short. He could never confess enough sins, pay enough penance, or do “enough” of anything to still his restless soul. Eventually, Luther’s tireless quest for assurance eventually led him to resent God himself, which is why he would go on to describe that system as a seductive monster. “This monstrous doctrine of doubt in God’s grace and His favor surpasses all other monstrosities,” Luther concluded (338). If doubt is produced by incessantly looking at yourself to make sure your faith and virtue are kept in line, then hope is preceded by a word that comes from the outside.
This is the gospel. God’s “outside word” is the good news that announces that the Lord Jesus has given “himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). Rather than looking at ourselves, Luther declares, “we will trust in that which is outside of us — that is, in God’s promise and truth” (339). God sends forth his Word in the flesh to dispel this nasty and monstrous system of fickle hope that’s curved in on itself. To those committed to saving themselves, God gives a Savior (Matt. 1:21). To those convinced that their religious efforts can settle their eternal debts, the Christ of God stands as their ransom (1 Tim. 2:5–6). To those who can’t seem to locate any comfort or assurance in this life, God reveals his word of promise through his Son.
Notice how the apostle John articulates this beloved truth: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). For John, the demonstration of God’s love through the person and work of Jesus had resulted in the concrete reality that those who confess his name are his children. This new identity is not contingent on one’s mastery of one’s passions or religiosity but on one’s faith in the love of God, who took on flesh “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and “to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Accordingly, the gospel’s definitive announcement of the accomplishments of the cross affords struggling sinners with the certainty of their identity in Jesus. “Beloved, we are God’s children now,” the apostle concludes (1 John 3:2).
The gospel proclaims the facts of redemption that are extended to every doubter and sinner through the life, death, and resurrection of the Christ of God. This is the solid rock on which our hope is built, and nothing less (to imbibe the words of Edward Mote’s hymn). As King David would confess near the end of his life, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Ps. 18:2). Luther puts it this way: “This is our anchor, our foundation: the Gospel does not command us to be looking at our service, our perfection, but to God who promises and in Christ the Mediator” (338).
The gospel doesn’t leave any room for doubt not because it demeans those who wrestle with it, but because it invites doubters to stretch themselves out on that which is sure and steadfast. As the Lord Jesus himself declares, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). Accordingly, the message of the gospel should be preached in such a way that it doesn’t leave anyone in doubt either. The definitive announcement of Christ’s blood-soaked accomplishment disavows any notion that our pious résumés can be used to renegotiate our acceptance. Indeed, our doubts, however fierce, are dissolved by the crimson river that flows from Golgotha.
Grace and peace to you.
Works cited:
Martin Luther, Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535): Lecture Notes Transcribed by Students & Presented in Today’s English, translated by Haroldo Camacho (Irvine, CA: 1517 Publishing, 2018).