Nothing is as tragic as a false hope of Heaven. Yet, multitudes, in all ages, have lived and died in a false profession of faith in Christ. They have claimed to be in union and fellowship with the Son of God, yet, all their lives, have been deluded. So serious is the subject that it demands, of all who claim to be Christians, that they examine themselves to see if they really have what they claim to have.
It is not an exaggeration to say that self-deception on the part of religious people is more common than we might suppose. After all, Christ, Himself, gave this warning in a variety of ways. “If…the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). Here, our Lord shows that our supposed grasp of gospel truth can be, essentially, false. If so, it is fatal.
How terribly true that is! Millions who, at this hour, hold to a false form of Christianity, do so with complete assurance. Yet, their whole position before God is entirely false. They are not only in the dark as to the real gospel, but they make their darkness doubly dark by imagining it to be light.
From: Union and Communion with Christ by Maurice Roberts (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), pp. 50-51.
