Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Can We Know Truth with Complete Certainty?

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Can We Know Truth with Complete Certainty? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 1: Suffering has always been a major theme of our podcast,
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  Speaker 1: with about eighteen hundred mentions of the word suffering alone.
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  Speaker 1: Just the word suffering eighteen hundred mentions in our podcast history.
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  Speaker 1: You can find a digestive all the ways that this
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  Speaker 1: has been addressed in the Aspestor John Book on pages
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  Speaker 1: three sixty five to three ninety four. And we've recently
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  Speaker 1: concentrated our attention on this theme more than normal. I
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  Speaker 1: would say suffering, as we saw it, distinguishes true ministry
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  Speaker 1: from the prosperity gospel preachers. We saw that in Abja
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  Speaker 1: twenty eighty seven. Then we looked at how not to
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  Speaker 1: respond to suffering in Apja twenty ninety four, looking at
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  Speaker 1: Job's wife, we looked at the pain of a woman
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  Speaker 1: who has been sorely mistreated and how she should respond.
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  Speaker 1: In Abja twenty ninety five, and last time we looked
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  Speaker 1: at how to press on it in ministry even after
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  Speaker 1: God takes your beloved wife away. I was in Apja
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  Speaker 1: twenty ninety six in this heavy season of grieving, Dad
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  Speaker 1: writes and to ask us about his struggle with doubt.
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  Speaker 1: In this anonymous email, Dear Pastor John, my wife and
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  Speaker 1: I are grateful for your ministry, and for this podcast,
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  Speaker 1: and for the impact you have had on our lives.
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  Speaker 1: In January of this year, my wife gave birth to
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  Speaker 1: our firstborn baby boy. He was beautiful. My heart grew
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  Speaker 1: ten times. I've never seen my wife so happy. The
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  Speaker 1: Lord seemed to answer all of our prayers of anxiety
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  Speaker 1: and worry, general and specific, with a regularity which frankly
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  Speaker 1: stunned me. He seemed to be gentle signs for my wife,
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  Speaker 1: particularly of his tender care and goodness to us. I
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  Speaker 1: sense from this that despite our fears about pregnancy and
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  Speaker 1: the health of our baby, the Lord's hand was with us,
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  Speaker 1: as I know it is. Two weeks later, we woke
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  Speaker 1: up and our baby had suffocated. I did CPR for
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  Speaker 1: ten minutes. As the paramedics arrived and took him. I
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  Speaker 1: prayed for God to make him breathe again. I prayed
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  Speaker 1: at the hospital for the same thing, but he was gone.
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  Speaker 1: A situation which seemed too good to be true so
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  Speaker 1: quickly turned into a situation which seemed too terrible to
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  Speaker 1: be real. Before this, I never processed deeply what happens
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  Speaker 1: when a child dies in infancy. Given our situation, I've
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  Speaker 1: thought about this a lot over the last several weeks,
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  Speaker 1: including APJA episodes in which you describe your reasoning through
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  Speaker 1: Romans one, This and other resources, and my own inferences
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  Speaker 1: from the Bible all seem to point in the same
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  Speaker 1: direction that my son is in heaven, But critically listening
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  Speaker 1: to the reasoning of others, there seems to be either
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  Speaker 1: a best guess attitude or arguments that have to skip
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  Speaker 1: to the conclusion sooner or later in their logic for
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  Speaker 1: a lack of explicit Biblical evidence on the topic. I
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  Speaker 1: find that I am ninety nine percent sure that my
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  Speaker 1: son is in heaven, but there's always the little last
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  Speaker 1: bit of questioning or doubt. This doubt holds me back
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  Speaker 1: from rejoicing in the safety and final security and life
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  Speaker 1: that my child has with the Lord. So my question
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  Speaker 1: is this, Can I freely rejoice in the fact that
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  Speaker 1: my son is in heaven or will this be something
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  Speaker 1: I can not be completely sure of and till I
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  Speaker 1: am with Jesus in heaven too.
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  Speaker 2: One of the reasons I want to address this question
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  Speaker 2: is because the essence of the issue being raised is
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  Speaker 2: much broader than the immediate question about how we can
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  Speaker 2: be sure if a deceased infant is in heaven. I
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  Speaker 2: don't want to minimize that question, and I realize it
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  Speaker 2: is the most urgent one being asked at this heartbreaking
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  Speaker 2: moment by this heartbroken dad. But I think the way
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  Speaker 2: the question is posed really does make the issue very
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  Speaker 2: broad and very urgent for all of us. I would
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  Speaker 2: call it the question of the final one percent. So
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  Speaker 2: this dad says that, after all his biblical study is
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  Speaker 2: thinking and praying, I find that I am ninety nine
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  Speaker 2: percent sure that my son is in heaven, but there
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  Speaker 2: is always that last little bit of questioning or doubt.
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  Speaker 2: This doubt holds me back from rejoicing in the safety
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  Speaker 2: and final security and life that my child has with
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  Speaker 2: the Lord. The final one percent prevents his joy. What
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  Speaker 2: is it that takes this dad all the way through
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  Speaker 2: ninety nine percent of certainty but not to one percent.
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  Speaker 2: Here's some of the key words that he gives in
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  Speaker 2: answer to that question. Thought, reasoning from Romans one, other resources,
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  Speaker 2: inferences from the Bible, critical listening, arguments, logic. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: his best efforts to use his God given capacities for
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  Speaker 2: observation and analysis and reasoning and critical reflection and logic
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  Speaker 2: and argument and Bible. These are able to bring him,
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  Speaker 2: he says, to a ninety nine percent confidence, But there
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  Speaker 2: remains a voice in his mind that says, you could
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  Speaker 2: be wrong. Now, my point is that there is perhaps
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  Speaker 2: no doctrine, no truth claim, for which the same thing
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  Speaker 2: could not be said. Does God exist? Is Christ? Divine?
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  Speaker 2: Was Jesus raised from the dead? Is the death of Jesus?
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  Speaker 2: The action of God to forgive sins? Is there a
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  Speaker 2: heaven a hell? Is the Bible inerrant? When our humblest,
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  Speaker 2: most fair minded, most thorough, most diligent investigation of all
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  Speaker 2: the evidences is complete, it would be honest for most
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  Speaker 2: people to say these efforts bring me to eighty ninety
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  Speaker 2: ninety nine percent certainty. But there remains in my mind
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  Speaker 2: a voice that says, it is possible you could be
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  Speaker 2: mistaken on all of that. And so the one percent
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  Speaker 2: gap remains the problem of the one percent. And I
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  Speaker 2: should make clear that the one percent gap exists for
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  Speaker 2: the atheist and the agnostic as well as the Christian.
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  Speaker 2: The assertion that there's no God, that Jesus Christ is
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  Speaker 2: not God, that the Gospel of Jesus is not needed
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  Speaker 2: for salvation, that the Bible is not true. These assertions.
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  Speaker 2: When all is said and done, leave a voice in
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  Speaker 2: your head, a gap, a voice saying he may be wrong.
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  Speaker 2: So for the Christian, how does God close the one percent?
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  Speaker 2: Or does he? Some would quote Paul in two Corinthians
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  Speaker 2: five point seven, we walk by faith and not by sight,
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  Speaker 2: and conclude that faith leaps across the one percent without sight.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think that's what Paul meant. I don't think
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  Speaker 2: walk by faith not sight means walk by uncertainty, not certainty.
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  Speaker 2: In the New Testament, faith is not the opposite of knowing.
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  Speaker 2: It's the opposite of distrusting, rejecting, scorning. In Tewo Corinthians
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  Speaker 2: four fourteen, Paul says, we believe, and so we speak
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  Speaker 2: knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise
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  Speaker 2: us up with Jesus. We believe knowing. Knowing leads to belief.
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  Speaker 2: It's not that the absence of knowing requires you to
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  Speaker 2: blindly believe. That's just not the way the New Testament
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  Speaker 2: thinks about faith. When Paul was trying to awaken faith,
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  Speaker 2: he gave arguments and reasons and evidences. And when he
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  Speaker 2: was arguing for the resurrection, he said, then Jesus appeared
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  Speaker 2: to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most
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  Speaker 2: of whom are still alive, meaning you can go talk
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  Speaker 2: to them and increase your sense of evidential confidence by
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  Speaker 2: looking at evidences. The Bible intends for Christians to have assurance.
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  Speaker 2: Paul describes his ministry like this, I want you to
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  Speaker 2: know how great a struggle I have for you, that
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  Speaker 2: your hearts may reach the full assurance of the knowledge
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  Speaker 2: of God's mystery, which is Christ. He wants full assurance
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  Speaker 2: versus people Hebrews six eleven. We desire each of you
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  Speaker 2: to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance
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  Speaker 2: of hope to the end. First John five thirteen. I
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  Speaker 2: write these things to you who believe in the name
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  Speaker 2: of the Son of God, that you may know that
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  Speaker 2: you have eternal life. Paul praising Ephesians one eighteen, that
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  Speaker 2: the eyes of our hearts to be enlightened, that we
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  Speaker 2: may know what is the hope to which He has
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  Speaker 2: called us. So the question is, how does the Bible
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  Speaker 2: describe the closing of the one percent. It does not
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  Speaker 2: describe that closing as a leap in the dark. It
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  Speaker 2: does not describe it as a wager It does not
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  Speaker 2: describe it as a crossing of our fingers for the
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  Speaker 2: last one percent. Instead, the New Testament describes the closing
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  Speaker 2: of the last one percent as the supernatural shining in
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  Speaker 2: our hearts of a divine spiritual light through the Gospel
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  Speaker 2: Second Crinsians four to six. God has shone in our
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  Speaker 2: hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
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  Speaker 2: glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It
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  Speaker 2: describes it as the witness of God's Spirit himself Romans
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  Speaker 2: eight sixteen. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
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  Speaker 2: that we are the children of God. It describes it
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  Speaker 2: as a divine sealing by the Spirit, as a down
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  Speaker 2: payment of our inheritance Ephesians one thirteen. And it describes
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  Speaker 2: it as the love of God poured into our hearts
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  Speaker 2: by the Spirit Romans five point five. Hope does not
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  Speaker 2: put us to shame, because God's love has been poured
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  Speaker 2: into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been
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  Speaker 2: given to us. So the point is not that every
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  Speaker 2: doctrinal question has the same level of importance or is
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  Speaker 2: granted the same fullness of assurance. The point is that
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  Speaker 2: God wants his children to be fully assured that He's real,
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  Speaker 2: Christ is real, Salvation is real, and we are really
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  Speaker 2: saved and really destined for glory. And the way this
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  Speaker 2: relates to doctrinal questions that may not rise to the
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  Speaker 2: same level of certainty is that the profound experience of
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  Speaker 2: God given spiritual sight and confidence and joy concerning the
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  Speaker 2: central reality of our salvation will enable us to peacefully,
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  Speaker 2: joyfully leave in God's hands all the unanswered questions that remain.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today.
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  Speaker 1: If you have a question to ask Pastor John, find
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  Speaker 1: a link to email us and find our complete episode
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  Speaker 1: archive at askpastor John dot com. Every episode with audio
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  Speaker 1: and full transcripts available for you free of charge. And
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  Speaker 1: if you want to digest of episodes in some reform
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  Speaker 1: to get a flavor of just how often suffering comes
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  Speaker 1: up for us in the podcast, see my little digest
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  Speaker 1: in the Ask Pestor John book on pages three sixty
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  Speaker 1: five to three ninety four. Suffering comes in so many
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  Speaker 1: different forms in God's Word, and our glorious Savior is
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  Speaker 1: a real levant to each and every one of those situations.
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  Speaker 1: And I think you can see that bear out over
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  Speaker 1: the twelve years or so we've been doing this podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I am Tony Ranky Pastor John and I will see
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  Speaker 1: you on Thursday. Thanks for listening.