Matt Tully

Maybe there’s a Christian listening right now who has his/her theology straight and buttoned down and would affirm with you the idea of the perseverance of the saints—the idea that once we’re saved by trusting in Christ for salvation, God has forgiven our sins and he will not lose us. Nothing will jeopardize our salvation. We have that eternal union. But they maybe look at their own lives—their continuing struggle with sin—and they’re not wondering if they’ve lost their salvation; they’re wondering, Was I actually ever saved to begin with? How could I actually be a Christian with the way that I’m sinning and struggling with this persistent thing that I just can’t seem to get over? What would you say to that person?

Sam Storms

In some cases, that’s not a bad thing. Paul says, Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Second Peter 1 talks about this same reality: making your calling and election sure. I don’t want Christians to live in doubt. I think we’re supposed to live in the confident assurance that we’re in a saved and eternal relationship with the Lord. But if we’re living in unrepentant sin, if we’re constantly—with a high hand—defying the God who we trust has saved us, then maybe sometimes a person needs to stop and take stock of their soul and say, I read in 1 John that there are certain indications that I’m truly born again. Do I live in love toward my fellow brethren? Am I seeking to obey the will of God? I do think that some people presume upon God’s grace, and the fact of the matter is they aren’t truly born again. Maybe this conviction and this doubt is the work of the Spirit of God in awakening them to the need for a Savior. Others are truly saved and they just simply haven’t been able to process and have registered deep down in their souls the reality of what forgiveness really means, and cleansing of sin and justification.

So, there’s no one size fits all. Every Christian wrestles to differing degrees with this issue. On the one hand, it’s not always bad to wonder and ask, Am I really born again? Would I have done, and continue to do what I’m now doing, if I were truly a child of God? On the other hand, I want you to live in the confident joy of knowing that you really are justified in the sight of God and that the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to you through faith in him. There is a lot of room between those two extremes that we have to work with, and it all depends on each individual. If I’m sitting with somebody, as I have in the past, and let’s just take an issue that is so much in the forefront of the world today: pornography. When a man says, I know I’m a Christian. I walked an aisle, raised a hand, signed a card twenty-five years ago; but I’m addicted to pornography and I kinda enjoy it and I don’t want to break from it. I’m not going to give that guy assurance of salvation. I’m not going to say, Don’t worry about it. You signed a decision card and had that experience when you were nine years old. You’re saved. I’m not going to do that. I may not have the authority to tell him he’s not born again, but I’m certainly not going to give him the assurance that he is. So, that’s different from a man that’s sitting there who is shattered in his soul with his sin. He is broken; he is weeping. He’s saying, I want to be free. Help me! Pray for me! I know I’m violating and bringing grief to the Holy Spirit by my repeated failure in this regard. What can I do to overcome this addiction? That’s the kind of man I’m going to say, The first thing you need to know is God really loves you. He’s delighted in you as his child. I see the evidence of repentance and the fruit of the Spirit in your life in the way you reacted to your sin. Let’s deal with this issue together.

Matt Tully

That just underscores even in my mind the value of someone struggling to discern where they are at on that front. Going to a pastor, going to another Christian that they trust and talking about that with them could be a really helpful, eye-opening thing for those who maybe doubt their own ability to assess their hearts.

Sam Storms

Not long ago I had a precious young lady in our church who has been married a couple of times and divorced and she had been sexually promiscuous in her past. She was living with this constant cloud of doubt over her. She just woke up and it was there smothering her, suffocating her confidence in Christ, causing her to say, I just can’t believe that God would love me. I can’t believe that he has really saved me. Even though she had repented and she’s walking in holiness, the dark stain of her past was almost more than she could bear.

That’s the kind of person that I like to look at with a smile and say, Listen, you have no idea how loudly God is singing over you in joy and delight. He loves you. He sees the brokenness in your heart. He sees the desire for you to live in purity, and it just pleases him beyond words. That’s the kind of individual who, obviously, needs to read my book and say, I need to have reinforced in my heart all the many things God has done with my sin. By the way, isn’t it interesting—we haven’t talked about this—that God would repeatedly use so many different images and illustrations and language to reinforce this point? It’s like God says, I know what you all are like. I know the struggle you’re going to have. I know you need me to hammer this home over and over again in a variety of different ways to try and finally drive home to your soul the truth of what I’ve done with your sin in Jesus.

Matt Tully

So often we can reduce them down and read them as interchangeable. They are all getting at the same fundamental reality, but they all have their own flavor to them; they all have their own glories to them that I think it’s worth us slowing down and pondering a little bit.

Sam Storms

Yes. Absolutely.

Matt Tully

In the last chapter of your book you write something that really hit me. It might sound like it’s at odds with what we’ve been talking about today, but you write, “What ultimately makes the gospel good news isn’t that we get forgiven, saved, delivered, healed, renewed, justified, and adopted, as good and glorious as these experiences are.” Why would you say that? What are you getting at there? How is that true?

Sam Storms

Well, I can blame my friend John Piper for that. In John’s book God is the Gospel he makes the point very clear: yes, these are glorious blessings. Who would not want them all, and as God’s children we have them all. Why do we have them? Why did God do that? He did it so that we could get him. In other words, stand in his presence. I think of that doxology in Jude with which I close the book: We stand with joy before the glory of God and get to behold his beauty and get to set our gaze and our thoughts and our eyes upon the majesty of who he is. How is that possible? It’s only possible because God forgave us and justified us and redeemed us and adopted us and cleansed us—all the things that he has done to make us fit for his presence, fit to experience the deep delight of knowing him and seeing him and enjoying him. The goal of God in the work of Christ for us, and Peter says it, the just for unjust; he died that we might come to God, that we might get God, that we might, as Revelation tells us, stand in his presence and behold his face. That’s the pinnacle of salvation. The pinnacle of salvation isn’t that my soul feels clean. The purpose of my soul being cleansed is that I might get God! So, all of these blessings of salvation are wonderful, but they are secondary to the ultimate goal which is that we might stand in God’s presence and enjoy him forever.

Matt Tully

Sam, thank you so much for taking some time today to walk us through just some of what the Bible tells us about what God does with our sin. You cover many, many more things in your book. We appreciate it.

Sam Storms

It’s my pleasure.