Does John Piper Deny Personal Assurance?
00:00:00.000 | Does John Piper deny personal assurance?
00:00:08.160 | Today we need to address a quote that's found its way all over the internet, attributed
00:00:11.440 | to you, Pastor John.
00:00:13.160 | It was brought to my attention by two listeners, the first, Taylor.
00:00:15.920 | "Hello, Pastor John, I recently read a critique of you saying that you deny assurance of salvation.
00:00:20.920 | Here's the exact quote attributed to you."
00:00:23.760 | No Christian can be sure that he is a true believer."
00:00:27.360 | Is this true?
00:00:28.360 | Did you say this?
00:00:29.560 | The second email comes from a listener named Willis.
00:00:31.600 | "Dr. Piper, hello and thank you for your sermons.
00:00:34.080 | In a recent sermon, our teaching pastor used the following quote attributed to you.
00:00:38.560 | According to him, you wrote this, 'No Christian can be sure that he is a true believer.
00:00:43.680 | Hence, there is an ongoing need to be dedicated to the Lord and to deny ourselves so that
00:00:48.360 | we might make it.'"
00:00:51.080 | I can't find this quote in your books.
00:00:53.040 | I can't find it online at DG.
00:00:54.960 | Best I can tell, this quote came from a booklet published in 1997 by you and the BBC pastoral
00:01:00.520 | staff titled, "Tulip, What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism," position paper
00:01:06.120 | of the pastoral staff, page 25.
00:01:09.400 | I can't find the original document anywhere.
00:01:12.760 | Regarding this quote, did you write it?
00:01:14.560 | And second, do you deny that a Christian can actually experience the full assurance of
00:01:19.160 | salvation in this life?
00:01:21.600 | Pastor, what would you say to Taylor and to Willis?
00:01:24.800 | Well, there are lessons here, aren't there?
00:01:28.240 | There are lessons.
00:01:29.240 | Yes.
00:01:30.240 | And the first lesson is, if you hear somebody say something, not just me, if you hear somebody
00:01:36.600 | say something about another person that seems to you totally out of step, out of character,
00:01:45.600 | contrary to what you know about them, what you know about their theology, it is perfectly
00:01:51.400 | fitting to ask the pastor, the teacher, the blogger to provide sources for the claims
00:02:00.000 | that they make so that you can verify them.
00:02:03.280 | That's lesson number one.
00:02:05.240 | So we're talking here about two sentences.
00:02:08.160 | Number one, Piper said, "No Christian can be sure that he is a true believer," sentence
00:02:15.360 | number two.
00:02:16.760 | "Hence," that's an important word, "hence there is an ongoing need to be dedicated to
00:02:25.080 | the Lord and to deny ourselves so that we can make it."
00:02:30.160 | Now as far as I know, I have never said or written the first sentence, "No Christian
00:02:37.440 | can be sure that he is a true believer."
00:02:40.600 | I've looked everywhere, tried to figure out, is there some context in which I said it,
00:02:45.280 | did I find it anywhere?
00:02:47.600 | And not only that, I don't believe it, so there you go, I don't believe it's true, which
00:02:53.280 | is probably why I never said it.
00:02:58.120 | But not only that, when you search all, what, 10,000 Piper documents or so at Desiring God,
00:03:04.840 | and just go ahead and search any part of that sentence, you won't find it.
00:03:08.160 | At least I couldn't.
00:03:09.160 | I couldn't either.
00:03:10.360 | So if anybody out there knows where I said that, tell us.
00:03:16.240 | I'd like to fix it if I did.
00:03:18.800 | But I'm not aware of saying it or writing it, so I'm assuming I didn't.
00:03:23.960 | But here's the problem with the second sentence.
00:03:26.640 | The problem with the second sentence is the word "hence."
00:03:30.240 | It says, "Hence there is an ongoing need to be dedicated to the Lord and to deny ourselves
00:03:38.480 | so that we might make it."
00:03:39.960 | In other words, I'm not only being described as a person who denies that we can have full
00:03:46.360 | assurance of salvation, but I'm being described as a person who says that this impossibility
00:03:55.200 | of having assurance is the reason that there is an ongoing need to be dedicated to the
00:04:03.840 | Lord and to deny ourselves so that we can make it.
00:04:07.560 | And I assume they mean make it to final salvation in the age to come.
00:04:12.400 | Now what should we say about that?
00:04:15.320 | I do in fact believe that we must be dedicated to the Lord and we must deny ourselves in
00:04:25.040 | order to fight the fight of faith and not commit apostasy and not make shipwreck of
00:04:30.440 | our faith lest we perish.
00:04:32.960 | That's true.
00:04:33.960 | I do believe that.
00:04:35.200 | But it's not true that I believe that because we can't have assurance.
00:04:41.080 | That's not the reason I believe that second sentence.
00:04:44.360 | It's true because it's what the Bible teaches, just as the Bible teaches that we can and
00:04:49.560 | should have full assurance.
00:04:51.800 | So I wonder—this is a guess now—I wonder if what is going on is that someone read that
00:04:59.840 | Piper believes you must fight the fight of faith, you must put sin to death in order
00:05:08.640 | to persevere to the end and be saved.
00:05:13.000 | And then inside their own head, they can't conceive of such a viewpoint, of such a fight
00:05:20.320 | of faith, unless one denies assurance.
00:05:23.920 | So Piper must deny assurance because otherwise he wouldn't say that.
00:05:27.440 | In other words, maybe somebody reasoned like this.
00:05:30.720 | Piper actually speaks threats to believers in his congregation.
00:05:36.800 | He warns them.
00:05:37.880 | He speaks to his whole church and warns them that if they don't put sin to death, they
00:05:42.880 | might go to hell.
00:05:44.920 | And therefore, Piper clearly does not believe in eternal security, and it follows that he
00:05:49.400 | doesn't believe people can have assurance.
00:05:52.280 | Now, all of that reasoning is wrongheaded and unbiblical.
00:05:57.760 | Certainly not my reasoning.
00:05:58.760 | It's not the Bible's reasoning.
00:06:00.720 | That's bad theology reasoning.
00:06:02.720 | It's illogical reasoning.
00:06:04.040 | It's unbiblical reasoning.
00:06:05.760 | I do believe in eternal security.
00:06:08.040 | I do believe that assurance is possible and enjoyed by believers, and I do believe that
00:06:14.960 | one should say to a congregation of Christians that if they don't put sin to death, they're
00:06:19.040 | going to go to hell.
00:06:20.360 | That's not a contradiction.
00:06:21.360 | It's not a contradiction of eternal security, because those who are truly born of God will
00:06:26.720 | take the threat to heart and put sin to death.
00:06:30.320 | Those who are fake Christians, they'll blow it off, and they'll say, "Oh, we don't need
00:06:34.880 | to hear any threats."
00:06:36.800 | That's evidence that they don't know their Bibles, and they may not be born of God.
00:06:41.160 | In fact, such biblical warnings and threats are one of the means God uses to keep his
00:06:50.200 | people safe and preserve them to the end in the joy of faith and in the strength of assurance.
00:07:00.320 | So let's put some Bible under all that.
00:07:02.520 | Hebrews 6:11, "We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full
00:07:10.000 | assurance of hope to the end."
00:07:12.920 | Hebrews 10:22, "Let us draw near with a heart of full assurance of faith."
00:07:19.240 | Colossians 2:2, "Paul prays that our hearts may be encouraged and knit together in love
00:07:24.960 | to reach the riches of the full assurance of understanding."
00:07:29.120 | Romans 8:14, "All who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God."
00:07:34.800 | You didn't receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.
00:07:37.840 | You've received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, "Abba, Father."
00:07:44.000 | The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
00:07:50.360 | Glory!
00:07:51.600 | How would you survive in the Christian life without that kind of assurance?
00:07:56.300 | So I believe, have always believed, as far as I can remember, that to my knowledge, I've
00:08:03.480 | never written or said anything contrary to what I just read, those Bible verses.
00:08:10.240 | Christians can and should enjoy the assurance that we are the children of God.
00:08:18.000 | And if children, then heirs, because, Romans 8:30, "Those whom he predestined he called,
00:08:25.420 | and those whom he called he justified, and those whom he justified he glorified."
00:08:31.040 | In other words, we can have assurance not just that we are God's justified children
00:08:37.440 | now, but that God will see to it with his omnipotent keeping power that we remain the
00:08:45.800 | children of God forever, all the way to glory and beyond.
00:08:52.480 | Now without any contradiction, the Bible also says to these very spirit-assured children
00:09:00.400 | of God in Romans 8, verse 13, just before those texts about assurance, "If you live
00:09:08.200 | according to the flesh, you will die, Christian.
00:09:13.340 | But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live, Christian."
00:09:20.000 | And Hebrews says, "Strive for the holiness, Christian, without which no one will see the
00:09:24.640 | Lord," Hebrews 12:14.
00:09:26.620 | And Jesus said, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away, for
00:09:30.720 | it is better for you to lose one of your members," namely your eye, "than for your
00:09:35.520 | whole body to be thrown into hell," Matthew 5:29.
00:09:38.920 | And Paul said to the Roman church, "They were broken off."
00:09:42.560 | Those Jewish unbelievers were broken off because of their unbelief.
00:09:46.760 | You stand fast through faith, so do not become proud, but fear, for if he didn't spare
00:09:53.560 | the natural branches, neither will he spare you, Romans 11:20.
00:09:58.080 | In other words, the Bible teaches us, give warnings to each other.
00:10:04.800 | Pastors, give warnings to your people.
00:10:07.960 | Scare the hell out of your people.
00:10:10.760 | And I mean that with strict literalness.
00:10:13.560 | There's hell in your people that will take them to hell if you don't scare the hell
00:10:17.680 | out of your people.
00:10:18.960 | Now, don't quote this out of context.
00:10:22.040 | Like, Piper really loves promises more than he loves threats.
00:10:26.240 | But, oh, I'm a Bible guy.
00:10:28.440 | I'm a Bible guy.
00:10:29.520 | I'm going to talk the way the Bible talks.
00:10:32.680 | It says, "Don't throw away your confidence."
00:10:36.280 | I mean, look at your people with tears in your eyes, and look at those who are worldly
00:10:39.680 | and are drifting into sin, are completely consumed with the media that they're all
00:10:44.080 | watching every night, and plead with them, "Don't throw away your confidence, which
00:10:49.320 | has great reward."
00:10:50.760 | So warning, pursue holiness, because if you don't, you won't see the Lord.
00:10:55.480 | Tear your eye out to avoid lust, because if you don't, you're going to go to hell with
00:11:00.280 | both eyes.
00:11:01.840 | That's the way preachers should preach, and small groups should talk to each other.
00:11:06.240 | Now, those warnings are in the Bible not to destroy assurance.
00:11:14.680 | So maybe this is where it all came from.
00:11:17.320 | Maybe somebody heard me talking about warnings, and they said, "Well, that guy surely does
00:11:21.620 | not believe in security, surely does not believe in assurance," which is just baloney.
00:11:27.020 | They don't have any biblical sense when they talk like that.
00:11:29.840 | So let me start that over again.
00:11:32.120 | Those warnings are in the Bible not to destroy assurance, but to prevent false assurance.
00:11:40.040 | People who think that they are on their way to heaven, but who don't hate their sin and
00:11:47.480 | fight it, are deluded.
00:11:50.680 | They should not have assurance.
00:11:53.200 | So the warnings are a life-giving, soul-saving litmus test to help us born-again people hear
00:12:02.160 | the warnings.
00:12:03.920 | They tremble, they turn to Christ for forgiveness and for the power to kill sin, and in that
00:12:12.440 | turning—this is my last sentence, it's so important—in that turning to Christ,
00:12:21.040 | and in that resolve to kill sin in the power of Christ, the Spirit bears witness that they
00:12:30.220 | are the children of God.
00:12:33.120 | It's not based on their perfection.
00:12:35.200 | It's based on that sweet inclination, "I'm turning to Jesus, and in the power and the
00:12:41.760 | love of Jesus, I'm hating my sin and I'm killing it every day," and thus the Spirit
00:12:48.280 | causes them to enjoy the sweet experience of assurance.
00:12:53.880 | Amen.
00:12:54.880 | So don't believe everything on the internet.
00:12:56.920 | No, my—no, don't.
00:12:58.920 | Please.
00:12:59.920 | All right.
00:13:00.920 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:13:01.920 | And thank you for listening.
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00:13:21.920 | I'm not sure what topic is up next, but I'm Tony Reinke, and I am sure grateful that you
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