For many years I believed the doctrines of grace and revered the authority of Scripture, and never understood the gospel. Even when I started to understand the Gospel, I still hadn’t come to Christ. Not with saving faith.
I was stuck.
Waiting for a deeper conviction of sin. Waiting to feel worthy of coming. Afraid of presumption. Afraid of being a false convert. Afraid of coming the wrong way. Salvation seemed like a puzzle and complicated and not for me.
I wasn’t wrestling with the gospel’s truth—I was wrestling with whether I had the right to believe it.
At the time, I didn’t have language for what was happening. But recently, while reading Dordt zoals je Dordt niet kende (Dordt as You’ve Never Known It) by Dr. Gert van den Brink, I encountered a footnote that I thought would be helpful. It quoted Andrew Fuller, the 18th-century Baptist pastor and theologian, describing exactly the trap I had once been caught in.
The Canons of Dort and the Offer of Grace
Dr. Gert van den Brink’s book is a rich and thoughtful study on the Canons of Dordt—particularly on what they say (and don’t say) about the free offer of grace.
Dordt zoals je Dordt niet kende
Het aanbod van genade in de Dordtse Leerregels
Wil God dat alle mensen zalig worden? Is Gods bedoeling met de prediking van het evangelie oprecht? Bestaat er een verborgen wil in God die tegengesteld is aan de nodiging tot de zaligheid?
Gert van den Brink
Many in the Dutch Reformed tradition have grown up in contexts where the sincerity of God’s invitation is questioned, where people are left wondering if the gospel really applies to them.
Van den Brink, professor of philosophy and church history and emeritus minister in the Hersteld Hervormde Kerk, gently but boldly challenges those assumptions. His book helps readers see Dordt’s true teaching more clearly: one that supports, not silences, the urgent and sincere call to believe.
It was in this context that I encountered the Andrew Fuller quote, and loved it because it clearly communicates both Scripture and the Reformed confessions.
Fuller’s Call: Don’t Wait
Andrew Fuller saw, in his own generation, what many still see today: people stuck in “yes, but…” faith. They believe the gospel in theory. But they hesitate in practice.
“If I were commissioned to address a group of men who had taken part in an unprovoked rebellion against their king and country, what would I say to them? I would use authority and pleas, depending on the situation. I would warn, threaten, or try to persuade them. But there would be one point I could not concede:
Be reconciled to your righteous ruler; lay down your weapons and submit to grace!
I must hammer on this relentlessly.”
— Andrew Fuller, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation
Fuller didn’t see unbelief as a passive state. He saw it as resistance. A refusal to yield to a righteous King. And he knew that one of the enemy’s most subtle lies was this: “Wait. Feel more. Sorrow more. Don’t come yet.”
But Fuller pressed people to come anyway.
“ The warrant for a sinner to believe in Christ is not in himself in any sense or in any manner, but in the fact that he is commanded there and then to believe on Jesus Christ.”
— Charles H. Spurgeon
The Objection That Lingers
Among the most powerful fears I carried—and one I often hear from others—was this:
“What if I’m a false believer?”
“What if I come, but like Simon the Sorcerer, my heart isn’t right?”
“What if I’m deceiving myself?”
It’s not an irrational fear. The Bible is clear that many do deceive themselves. But Fuller’s response, and the consistent witness of Scripture, is not to delay belief in order to manufacture assurance. It’s to believe in Christ and rest in His promise—not your feelings.
Real faith doesn’t begin with perfect motives. It begins with looking outside yourself—to Christ crucified and risen, offered freely to sinners.
Be Reconciled
What struck me about both Fuller and van den Brink was their shared insistence: the offer of grace is real. Not theoretical. Not limited to a secret class of “qualified” hearers. But urgent. Sincere. Demanding response.
“Lay down your arms. Be reconciled to your righteous King.”
The hesitation I once thought was accurate and reverent and pious, was often just self-protection. And the gospel call that once seemed distant was, in fact, right in front of me, spoken by Christ Himself.
If you’ve ever feared coming wrongly… know this: the only wrong way to come is not to come at all.
Fuller helped me see that.
Van den Brink helped me see that Dordt teaches it too.
And perhaps, by hearing their voices together, you’ll see it more clearly as well.
