It is a wonderful thing that there should be a reward attached to our confidence, yet God has spoken of it. He says, “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.” (Heb. 10:35.) We can easily understand what a comforting, soul-sustaining thing it is to have full confidence in the faithfulness of God to all His promises; and in the value of the blood of Christ; and in the nearness into which He has brought us; and in the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit; but God speaks of its having a recompense also.
Many passages show the value God attaches to our confidence in Him; indeed, it is put as a sort of characteristic of the Christian. Christ is declared to be faithful as a Son over His own house; “whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Again, “We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” (Heb. 3:6, 14.) These things were written to the Hebrew believers who were suffering persecution, and who were in great danger of giving up their confidence, and going back to Judaism. These were exhorted not to cast away their confidence, but to hold it steadfast, and “to the end.”
In two of the above passages (Heb. 3:6; 10:35) the word translated ‘confidence’ is perhaps better rendered ‘boldness.’ But how can there be boldness without confidence, that calm assurance in the soul that God alone can give, by faith in Himself and in His promises? In a passage in the Ephesians (3:12) both the words are connected. God has ordained that by the church should now be known the manifold wisdom of God, according to His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord, “in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” Here it is by the faith that God gives.
In Heb. 11 we have a blessed rehearsal of how by faith many of God’s Old Testament saints were enabled to despise the world, to become victors, and some to die as martyrs. Their great boldness and confidence may well excite us to exercise a like faith in our path through the same world in which they conquered.
We find in scripture ‘full assurance’ spoken of in three connections. There is the “full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22.) The word declares that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16.) Implicit faith in that promise will give the soul full assurance. Why should it not be so? If we know a truthful, conscientious man, we believe what he says, and have no misgivings as to his promise: we believe he will be as good as his word. How much more should we trust in the living God, who cannot lie, and who even tells us of His love to this poor world, yea, whose very nature is love?
We read also of the “full assurance of hope” (Heb. 6:11.) It is scarcely needful to say that this has no connection with the vague hope that all will be right by and bye, which is repeated by so many. There is not a particle of assurance in that. The hope that God begets in a soul is altogether different. In the same chapter it is thus explained: “God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Vers. 17-20.) This is the hope that gives full assurance: it is linked with the glory where Jesus is.
There is also the “full assurance of understanding.” (Col. 2:2.) This goes beyond the other two, because it is connected with union with Christ as Head, and a knowledge of the mystery of God. The apostle wished the Colossians to know the conflict he had respecting them, “that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment [full knowledge] of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” They were to find all they wanted, not in science and philosophy of men (which was their danger), but in Christ Himself.
Now to have in our soul’s full confidence in God is surely a great blessing in itself. Instead of being distressed by uncertainty we are then certain, and confident that God will indeed be true to the word that He has spoken. It is also honoring God, and He has declared that He will honor those that honor Him. Indeed, we have only to glance again at the worthies named in Heb. 11, and there we find that God puts honor upon them by declaring that the world was unworthy that such men should live in it. Thus our God gives the faith that confides in Him, and then honors those that trust Him. May all God’s beloved people know and enjoy this great blessing.