Assurance of Salvation? (w/ Room for Nuance) | Theocast

All right, we are back with not just another episode of the Room for Nuance podcast, but also an episode of

the TheoCasts podcast.

I am Sean DeMars, and you guys are?

Justin Perdue.

Yeah, so we always like to get started with prayer, if that's okay with you guys.

All right, and I'll have the guests open us, whichever rock, paper, scissors to see who opens us up in prayer.

Just one, one for the win.

Let's see who's got it.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

All right.

You're up, man.

How'd you figure that out?

I did paper.

Because I won.

So I get to pray.

That's how we're doing it.

I see how the game works.

Let's pray.

Let's do it.

Our Father in heaven, we're grateful that you have shown mercy to sinners like us.

We're grateful to know that you are always with us.

We pray that by your spirit, you would guide us in this conversation.

We pray that the things that we talk about would encourage the saints and that they would honor you.

And we pray that in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, this is going to be a joint episode.

A mashup, if you will.

A mashup, if you will.

But who's leading this thing?

I feel like, Justin, you're a take charge kind of guy.

Well, Sean, I mean, you were the one who initiated this.

That's true.

I got the ball rolling.

You keep it rolling.

Yeah.

I mean, we are in our office, but your equipment.

So it's kind of a tie.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Hey.

I mean, we can play rock, paper, scissors.

All right.

Well, let's start this.

Tell us about Theocast.

Tell me what your name means.

I think I can guess.

And then tell me kind of what the heartbeat of your ministry is.

John, you should go first on this.

Yeah.

Well, we were a real short story.

We were trying to figure out just a name for a podcast, and they were all really bad.

And one night I was sitting.

I'm like, listen, we talk about theology.

It's a podcast.

Why don't we just keep it simple and literally just call it Theocast?

And no one else had had the name.

And that's what it came to.

That in and of itself is shocking.

Yeah.

I thought I was thinking, like, Theos, God, cast.

I'm casting a vision out into.

It literally was.

We're a theology podcast.

We talk about all kinds of theology, and it's a podcast.

So it was literally that simple, and no one had had it.

So we're like, let's just do it.

But the podcast really has always been about helping people kind of pull back the

pietistic, legalistic, like, self -help view of the gospel

and putting people back into the Reformation of the Sola Fide, the confessions.

And the tagline of our podcast is, Helping Worry Pilgrims Find Rest in Christ.

Say that one more time.

Helping Worry Pilgrims Find Rest in Christ.

I kind of mumbled there.

So sorry.

One more time.

Are you saying worried or wearied?

Wearied.

Weary.

Encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

There you go.

See, maybe if I move the microphone down, you'll be able to see my lips.

So that's been the heartbeat of it.

We'll take on theological problems once in a while.

If we feel like it's causing some confusion and rest, but we're really trying to help people find the sufficiency in

Christ in all of life.

And then from there, they learn how to be a part of the kingdom.

And so instead of most Christianity feels like you're obeying God so that hopefully you'll make

it into the kingdom.

And we think that's reverse.

So that's kind of what the heartbeat of the podcast is.

Yeah.

To add to that and maybe restate some of what you said in my own ways.

Yeah.

We're trying to help people understand the utter sufficiency of Christ as their savior and what it means to be united to

Jesus, not just for justification, but for all of the Christian life and for what that means for their eternity.

And I agree with John a lot of times the way that even amongst serious minded, well -intentioned

brothers and sisters in the Lord, even like Calvinistic brothers and sisters in the Lord, if I can say that word,

there is a sense in which you're kind of chasing after something to prove your

legitimacy.

It's like, yes, it's all of grace.

It's by faith alone in Christ alone.

But now there's a sense in which if you're not careful, you might just mess this up and prove yourself to be an unbeliever.

Do you think that's a non -valid category?

No, I'm not saying that there aren't false professions.

Of course there are.

But I think the emphasis sometimes in, again, I think because of, and we can talk about all of

this, because of the bad fruit of revivalism amongst other things,

legitimate responses to easy believism and legitimate antinomian theology,

there sometimes is a posture, again, amongst well -intentioned pastors where it's almost like we

need to smoke out the fakers.

And that tone, I mean, we're just coming in hot here.

I mean, that tone informs a lot.

I mean, even when it comes to preaching in the way that we pastor people, rather than the emphasis being

on Christ for us and union with Jesus, kind of like Paul's response in Romans 6,

where the age -old objection, if where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more,

should we just sin?

Right?

That's a legit question that the gospel raises in one sense.

And his response is interesting because he doesn't say, by no means, here is

what the law says, even.

It's not how he starts.

And he doesn't say, by no means, if you are a serious Christian and not a fake, here's how you live.

The way he begins to ground the saints and help them think about their obedience is by no

means because we have been united to the Savior.

And we've been baptized into Jesus.

We've been set free from sin's guilt, and now we are free from its dominion.

Right?

And so that's effectively what we're trying to do is put the emphasis in that place and to help people see

that the Christian life is not one where we're chasing after status.

We've been given justification.

We're not chasing after an identity.

We've been given one in that we've been adopted as children of the Father, and we're now in Christ, and we live from

that, not for it.

So that's really all we've been meaning to do for a while, and help people know that you're not a Christian

because of what you do.

You're a Christian because of what you believe.

And now that you've been united to Christ, that is who you are.

And we even in the pages of the New Testament would see that's how the apostles often exhort the saints toward holiness.

Live like who you are now.

We can talk about all this more.

Well, even in the illustration when Jesus says you want the wheat and the tares, it's like you start pulling out the tares, you're going to pull the wheat with it.

So we leave that alone, which is different from if you have a false teacher in your congregation.

They have just exposed themselves to the point where they have to be removed, right?

But it seems like a lot of preaching when we're dealing with our congregation, there's always this,

I guess, this fear that we have a false convert, false convert,.

False professors, false conversions.

And that tenor, it becomes like it's been in

our experience in the history that I come from, from like a fundamentalist Calvinistic background, that seems to kind of be

the tenor of the preaching.

We're always trying to find the person who's faking and make sure that we kind of bring them to repentance.

So the preaching becomes very exacting and very self -examination.

And we're not giving people hope that's beyond their own capacities or their own obedience.

And to be clear, I mean, John and I are both pastor churches where we practice church discipline.

And so nothing that we're saying right now is in any way calling any of that

into question or evaluating our lives.

We're all about healthy examination and healthy introspection even.

What we're pushing back against is the hyper introspection or a constant kind of

examination and measuring of oneself that becomes actually very unhealthy and counterproductive

because the emphasis now becomes and the focus becomes me somehow.

Like rather than being pointed to Christ always and then seeing my own Christian

life through the lens of Jesus as my representative, Jesus as my substitute,

Jesus as the one to whom I've been united, and then I see me through him.

I'm brought into the foreground and my life is the focus.

And we feel like that is an inversion of the best ways to talk about Christian living.

So you look like you have a thousand questions.

Yeah.

You get to ask them.

Yeah.

You got to tell us about your podcast.

Ooh, okay.

Do we want to keep rolling down this train or do you want to...

I'll leave that up to you.

Yeah, let's finish your train.

And then if there's any time left, we'll talk about me.

Okay.

See, we're deferring to you.

Save the worst for last.

I see that.

Lead us.

You know what, you got the lead now.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what I want to try to do is imagine people who might be listening or watching

who will have questions or perhaps disagreements with the way you've stated things.

Because very often what will happen is people will view, and you used this word a couple of times in what

you were saying, brother, they'll view your emphasis from their perspective, not necessarily understanding your

perspective or your context, and they'll evaluate.

I've used this example multiple times.

People pushing back against Platt's radical book.

It's some of the critique very valid.

Also not understanding that David Platt was pastoring one of the wealthiest churches in America where people were not in any way

trying to sacrifice radically.

And it was in that context that I think the book made a little more sense now.

It did get published to the whole wide world.

So that's another question entirely.

So let me think about my context in line of what you just said, okay?

My context is I'm a pastor of a church in one of the most church cities in the Bible Belt.

Okay, a city of 55 ,000 people.

All of the bad juju you just mentioned, revival and revivalism, false converts,

go down the water slide and get baptized this Sunday.

Yeah, 100%.

All that stuff.

Contextually, there's a very serious pastoral need to let people know that

the way that they've been thinking about Christianity is wrong and that they may in fact not have any good reason to be

confident in their salvation.

On top of that now, theologically and textually, I'm thinking about verses like examine

yourself to see if you are truly in the faith or pick any one of the first, second, third Johns,

love, obedience, faith, they have to go together.

Examine yourself to make sure that they are going together because if they're not, you don't actually love God and all that

other stuff.

What would your counsel be to a pastor like me who says, yes, I'm on board.

I want to do gospel ministry from a place of Christ's accomplished work for us on the cross, but at the

same time, this is a real problem.

How do I do this?

Examine yourself.

How do I do this in that way?

You believe in the sovereignty of God and salvation, correct?

Well, of course.

You consider yourself to be a Calvinist.

For whatever reason, at times, there are portions of our Bibles that we

are put into a context and we forget about them.

So no matter what context someone is in, the jungles of Africa, a transgender, or someone

who was raised in the big evangelical church with the water slide, they all need the same thing.

Their need doesn't change.

Is that fair?

Yeah.

Their need doesn't change, but we see different emphases in different parts of the scripture, depending on

the audience.

Well, let me reword it this way.

If you're dead, you're dead.

It doesn't matter how—.

You resurrected.

Exactly.

And then what resurrects them, right?

It's the same gospel that resurrects all three, right?

It does not change.

So if I'm wondering if someone is not in the faith, the solution

doesn't change.

It's always, we present them with the law.

Have you met the standards by God's requirement, perfection to the law?

Well, all three are going to have to say no, right?

Then you ask the second question.

Then by what means do you consider yourself to be accepted by God?

Well, the two over here are going to be like, who's God, right?

You got the person in the jungles.

You're going to have to explain that to them.

The transgender, depending on their background, and then you're talking about this person in the south who's been raised in the church.

If they say, well, and if their answer isn't faith in Christ and the gospel and trusting in his

sufficiency on my behalf, if it's anything other than that, like a good person, my baptism, then you understand

their experience at church isn't really a gospel.

They haven't heard the gospel yet.

So salvation is always by one means and one means only. It's not

taking your faith more serious, doing certain kinds of acts of obedience.

You can never equate someone's salvation with their performance because if you do that at that moment, you're not saved by

faith.

You're being saved by works.

I also pass a very similar context to you do.

I mean, Nashville, Bible Belt of the United States, and I very rarely meet

anybody in my city that doesn't go to some kind of a church or associated with some kind of a church.

Or call themselves a Christian.

Exactly, right?

Although increasingly these days, it even feels like it's changed in the last like 10 years or so.

It has only in that.

Yeah, I think you're right about that.

Tennessee has gained a lot of outside of people from outside of the South.

Go back to California.

Actually, that would mean you would have to go back.

Exactly.

Yeah, so this is, for me, pastoring and encouraging other pastors, it's

always what is it that leads people to salvation?

And Paul says it's the gospel, right?

The gospel is the power unto salvation.

So if I'm ever questioning if someone's truly not understood or

they're not living according to how they're supposed to be living, it might be, one, they're anemic and they've not been discipled,

because that definitely happens, because Paul said, rebuke anemic churches.

It's like, hey, Corinthians, stop sleeping with each other, right?

Or they actually aren't saved and the only solution to salvation is the gospel.

So those are what we're kind of trying to push back with.

If you come in with heavy -handed, harsh preaching, it won't convert them.

So here's how I would say it.

If I think that the people I'm speaking to, that a

number of them are false professors, by definition, a false professor

would be someone who we suspect is unregenerate.

The strategy there, and I know you're going to agree with me, the strategy there is not to tell dead

people to try harder, right?

It's not to tell dead people to be holy or to

obey more or to be more serious, etc.

The solution in that environment, the strategy in that environment, is to preach the law in all of its

holiness, in all of its perfection, the fact that it reflects God's own holy character, and that it

is to be obeyed perfectly at a spiritual level.

You know, the Jesus and Matthew 5 kind of thing, right?

You need a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

You have heard it said, what a shocking, audacious statement, right?

You've heard it said in the 10 words that God gave on Sinai, you shall not murder, but I am going to

apply that at a spiritual level to your heart, that if you have anger in your heart toward your brother, you're a lawbreaker.

He does the same thing with the seventh commandment, and he sums up Matthew 5,

verse 48, you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

That's the way that we would preach the law, and the law preached that way to a sinner.

All it can do is lay you bare.

All it can do is condemn and crush and kill you.

It cannot save you.

And so that, to me, is where you begin if you think that you've got...

So don't misunderstand what we're saying, not that you are, Sean, but even for the listener out there.

We are not saying that you don't preach the law.

You do.

You preach the law to expose.

You know, the law used as a mirror, right?

As we assess ourselves in light of it, we see I'm undone, I'm condemned, and I'm

driven to Jesus Christ who died to fulfill the law's penalty and who lived to fulfill its

requirements, right?

And he is the forgiveness of my sins.

He is my righteousness.

I've covered in his robes.

I've washed my robes and made them white in his blood.

And now through him alone, by faith in him alone, apart from anything that I could ever do, I have peace with God

now and forever, right?

So that's that law and gospel reality.

You know, Charles Spurgeon says...

And Spurgeon's a guy that we all like, and it's hard to disagree with Charles.

Hard. Very hard.

Really hard to disagree with Charles.

Even the Armenians love him.

That's right.

I know.

I'm always shocked.

So while we're... For our purposes today, it's really interesting too.

Not only do Armenians love him, but folks that are not covenantal theologians love

him, and he was covenantal.

Folks that might get a little nervous about the way that we would talk about the distinction between the law and the gospel love him, and he would say

the same things.

And he has a sermon in a little book that I think Michael Reeves edited it,

Christ's Glorious Achievements.

And the first sermon in that book is called Christ, the End of the Law.

It's worth a read because he does this very thing where he talks about the law to a

sinner can only judge.

It can only condemn.

It can only kill.

And he says, yet strange irony, we cannot keep men away from it.

Just like the gnat that is drawn to the candle, even though it burns its wings, we cannot keep men from seeking righteousness by the

wall.

Right?

And then he goes on to say other things like, brethren, as we talk about the law, we're breaking it.

You know, as we talk about its letter, we're violating its spirit, right?

All of these things.

And that his point in all of it is that when it comes to righteousness before God,

there is only one way to receive it.

And it is not through the law.

He says, if you ever think that you can ascend to God up the trembling sides of Mount Sinai,

it is evidence that you have never seen that shaking mountain at all.

Like you don't understand the law.

Let's just forget everything else we were going to talk about and just quote Spurgeon to each other.

It's beautiful, man.

And always so good.

It's really good.

Just so another question that you asked was, what about examine yourself to see if you're of the faith, right?

Justin and I had a really long conversation one day on a podcast about this, because we just, we've heard this passage used so

often.

In that context, Paul is dealing with people who are questioning his apostleship and his gospel.

And so he tells them, okay, you don't accept my apostleship and you don't accept my gospel.

Well, that's how you came to faith.

So you better examine yourself to see if you're truly of the faith because you got it from me.

And in that context, it doesn't really work unless you are somehow questioning your pastor's

faith, I guess, or questioning the apostle Paul's faith.

But does that mean that there isn't other portions of scripture that would cause us to think

that a self -examination isn't warranted?

Yes.

The only time that you're going to see that there's a self -examination that is warranted is in passages where there's unrepentant

sin, where you have been confronted and you've been told, hey, you're in sin, you need to repent, and you're unwilling

to.

You're unwilling to repent.

Well, Justin and I would agree, you really need to examine yourself at this moment, because if we have confronted you with the law,

we've shown you you're condemned, you were unwilling to stop doing this, you really are

We confronted you with the law, and we've demonstrated that the way that you are living is out of step with what the Lord says is good.

And you disagree with that.

Like, I don't need to stop doing this.

Then at that point, you are actually demonstrating that your faith is not in

Scripture and in Christ, and you really should think twice about calling yourself a Christian.

That's very clear in Scripture.

1 John talks about that.

James talks about that.

And so there is the unrepentant disagreement with the law.

Now, there are people that I'm sure you've experienced this, we both have, where even our own lives, there are times

where we can get trapped in sin.

I don't agree I should be doing this.

I mean, I agree I shouldn't be doing this.

You shouldn't be blind to the sin that we're trapped in.

Exactly.

Oh, for sure.

Like, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to be in it, and I need help getting out of it.

That's very different being trapped in sin versus not agreeing with God on your sin, right?

So at that point, I would say, hey, you really do need to think about your profession of faith because you're not agreeing with

God on the gospel, and you're not agreeing with God on what is sin.

Yeah, and even what's the difference between a Christian and a non -Christian or a believer and an unbeliever?

It's not that the believer doesn't sin and that the unbeliever does sin.

It's that the believer agrees with God about his sin and sides

with God against it, and then is trusting a righteousness that is alien to

him to cover his sin.

Trusting in agreeing with God about my sin, siding with God against it, I'm casting myself into the

arms of the Savior whose blood I'm covered by and whose righteousness has robed me.

That's what makes a person a Christian.

It's that.

It's not that we don't sin.

Of course, we fight against it.

We strive against it.

You know, with the help of God's Spirit, as we live life in the fellowship of the saints, we lock arms together.

As we are pilgrims in this life, we pray for protection from the evil one.

We pray that God would give us grace that we might not sin.

All of those things are right, and those things are not contradictory in any way.

To be fully assured and to know that we have rest and peace with God in no way leads to

licentiousness.

We continue.

It shouldn't.

It should not.

I would put it this way.

The preaching of the utter sufficiency of Jesus Christ never caused anyone to sin

because, let's be frank, none of us need help sinning.

We have a corrupt flesh that still loves sin, and so we don't need help sinning.

I think this is partly what Paul's getting at, even in Romans 6.

The idea that Jesus, who died for our sins and who is our righteousness, the

idea that being united to Christ would somehow coddle or nourish

corruption and sin in us is absurd.

To be united to Christ, it's like we've been united to the vine, like John 15

paradigm.

Because there's life in him, there's no life in me.

Being united to Christ, it's like the fountain of holiness begins to flow.

Jesus is the fountainhead of holiness, and those streams do not dry up.

It only flows one direction.

The only way that we would ever be holy is to be united to the Holy One.

That's a lot of what we're trying to communicate as well, is that holiness is something that it only

flows from Christ to us, and it is through our vital union with him by faith that we

would ever be holy in the first place.

And so we would say that if you want to see holy people in your church, of course we preach

the law, not only the way we were talking about earlier, like to the unbeliever, but we also preach

the law as the guide of our lives, as the rule of life in Christ.

And we encourage each other.

We're like, man, look how good this is.

Look how wise God's law is.

Man, we want to live like that, don't we?

Because we've been given new hearts that now delight in God's law and love it.

And it's like, man, we want to live like this.

We often fail.

That's why we need repentance, why we need to continue to turn to Jesus.

Amen.

We preach the law like that, but we also understand that the power unto sanctification

is only through the preaching of Christ.

The law can guide sanctification, but it can't empower it.

Only Christ and the power of God through our union with Christ is what actually produces the

transformation.

So we got to keep preaching Jesus to the saints for that reason.

So first, John.

Well, just to be clear, I want to make sure I could articulate what you're saying back to you.

Not that I, all of that, but let me try to put a little bit of, especially what you said, brother.

John, you said, I think, that the only time a call for self -examination is

warranted is if there's unrepentant sin.

A call for self, if you're going to look at it in scripture.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm looking at.

You know, I know.

Yeah, we agree about the book.

Yeah, yeah.

I guess what I mean is a call for self -examination in question of one's salvation.

Yeah, that's right.

Because Paul says, examine yourself, see if you have the faith, versus examine yourself to see if you're being effective.

Because Peter does this.

Yeah, for sure.

Peter's like, hey, are these fruits in you?

This is 2 Peter 1.

Are these fruits in you?

Because if they are, you're effective.

And if they're not, you're ineffective.

And you forgot, you've been cleansed.

So there's this difference between effective effectiveness.

That is definitely being called a lot.

I think in 1.

John, you know, you've been known by God, loved by God.

Yeah, so there's a difference between, hey, you should examine the way you're acting right now, because it's not loving, it's

not kind, and it's not for the sake of the body.

And this is not effective for what we're doing.

Or even say, yeah, and it's not honoring the Lord.

It's not helping your brother.

It's not helping your neighbor.

Yeah, there's a lot of calls to that.

And I would say every epistle has those.

It's kind of the greeting, uplift, rebuke.

That's in that rebuke section of like, I'm rebuking you because, well, you really should examine how you're acting right now.

It's not appropriate.

Compared to, you need to examine yourself because I don't think you're in the faith.

Now that is a very, very important accusation, right?

Even in 1 John, 1 John's like, perfect love casts out all fear.

Well, who has perfect love?

Jesus does, right, towards us.

So we have no fear.

There's no condemnation.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, right?

When you think about Romans 8, what can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus?

So we're always comforted by God's love for us.

We love, 1 John, we love because he first loved us, right?

The only time that you should really have a concern about your

salvation is when you are now messing with the underbelly of the gospel,

right?

That's where I was saying, even in that, the discipline passages are the ones where we're like, look, we've walked

you down the road.

Now you're acting like an unbeliever completely versus you're acting sinful and not

helpful.

Now you're acting like an unbeliever.

So I have like, I have a dozen different things that I could say right now and maybe we'll get to them.

I'll say something that is also maybe provocative and I'm not trying to be a shock jock with this, but even maybe to dovetail a little bit, because I

agree there are different kinds of self -examination.

I think that's a good distinction.

Like examining, are you being effective?

Examining, are you being helpful to your neighbor?

Are you living in a way that honors God and blesses your brothers and sisters and is for the edification of the body or are you not?

Versus examining yourself as to whether you're even a Christian at all.

Or maybe phrase it this way, when should a person question his or her salvation, right?

And I think that the time when that is most plain in scripture is when

you are being confronted with sin in your life and you are unrepentant.

Or I might even put it this way.

Now this is going to presuppose a lot that you're in a healthy church that preaches the gospel,

that is led by godly elders, and practices healthy discipline.

It assumes all that.

So there's like six churches that this is applying to.

So for all, you know, like maybe 500 people, like I don't even know how big the audience is, but for

all 12 of you that this applies to, I hope you're encouraged by what I'm about to say.

I think in a church that's healthy, that practices discipline rightly, we should

question our salvation when we are facing the discipline of the church.

And outside of that, we need, obviously we're still calling each other all the time.

In our services, we read the law every week, we confess sin every week corporately, we're assured of our

forgiveness in Christ, but what are we doing there?

I mean, we're calling one another to repentance perpetually all the time.

Amen.

Which is a form of examination.

Right, we do that, but we're doing that in a way where we know, man, like we sing all the time, our sins,

there are many, as mercy is more.

We're still doing that from a place of we're convicted, we lament, we grieve the fact that we're weak, we

don't want to sin, so what do we do with our sin?

We confess it, we acknowledge it, we pull it into the light, but we're doing that from a place knowing that God is

our father, not our judge, knowing that we're safe and secure in Christ, we're loved and known by

God, and we confess our sins.

That's very different than, hey, I'm facing the discipline of the church, and

I should look at my life and question sincerely whether or not I am in Christ or not.

Those are different things.

Yeah, so that was a thought that I had, one of the 12 thoughts.

Right, good.

Hard to choose, I'm guessing, between them.

Which one is your favorite?

Brother, I'm greatly perplexed over here.

You guys specialize, forgive me if that's not the right word, but I think if it is

the right word, it's a good thing to specialize in, in helping believers find assurance.

Why do you think that resonates so powerfully with your audience?

Because, I mean, you have a pretty decent audience, and people never get tired of it.

People just need more of it.

They love it.

Why do you think that resonates so much?

Yeah, it affects their life, their daily life, right?

So if you live in, if you live, have you guys ever

passed a police officer speeding?

No.

And then, what do you do for the next 10 minutes?

You're waiting, right?

You're just like, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting.

Am I gonna get, did he catch me, did he catch me, did he catch me, did he catch me, right?

That's how most people live their Christian faith.

Is God gonna catch me?

Is this gonna be the day?

Is this it?

This is it, he's gonna, and so they live in this constant fear of the judge coming after them.

And yes, I know I've been cleansed, and so we, most people have a portion of the gospel.

There's really like four aspects to the gospel when you think about it.

Like you have your forgiveness, where God cleanses you of your sins, right?

This is the part where we stop.

God has forgiven me, and it's, we have this clean slate mentality of like, if I don't mess up, then I'll make it to heaven.

Well, the second part of the gospel is, that is not going to go well for you.

So all of Jesus's righteousness, everything that he did to obey, what does it say?

We're clothed in it.

We're imputed with it.

So those are the first two parts of the gospel, which is so thankful.

The third part of the gospel is that not only have you been forgiven and clothed, the power of the spirit comes and

lives within you, right?

This is the promise of the new covenant.

And then the fourth part of the gospel is that it's all 100 % kept by God's power, right?

And this is 1 Peter 1, verses four.

He says, by God's divine power, he will preserve this until the day of judgment.

So when you understand that perspective of it, you live life differently.

A lot of people live their life trying to get into God's kingdom and making sure that at the end of their life, they'll

make it.

You'll hear the tone and perspective of the New Testament's very different.

You are in.

Now live like it.

Live as a light to others, care for them.

As a matter of fact, you are so safe and secure, you can die living for the king because

all is safe and sound.

So when people are liberated from a full gospel, like all of the gospel is given to them, they believe in

all of it.

This is what Paul is getting upset with them and even says -.

Sorry, not liberated from the full gospel, liberated to a full gospel.

To a gospel, yeah.

Liberated from the fear -based gospel, yeah.

You know, Paul gets really angry at the Galatians.

He's like, who's used witchcraft to bewitch you?

He's like, how did you begin?

So you begin by God's sovereignty upon your life by faith.

He goes, and now you're going to continue by the law, the law of obedience so you can earn my favor.

He says, no, the way you began is why you continue.

You came into the faith by trusting in the sufficiency of Jesus and you will continue by trusting in the sufficiency of

Jesus.

So now obey this way.

So I think a lot of people, it's really resonated with them because a lot of preaching coming out of revivalism,

coming out of legalistic pietism, even the prosperity gospel,

right?

You do your part, God does his part.

He'll bless you.

And even charismatic theology where it is, they're always trying to get the

Holy Spirit within them so they can confirm their faith, like speaking in tongues in certain aspects of it.

So when you finally tell someone your entire existence in relationship to God is fully wrapped up in his power,

there's a moment that's liberating, not to the moment where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go live for myself.

You realize I want to be closer to that and I want everyone else to

experience that.

So the way I live, the way I think, the way I talk, it's all gonna be in reflection of the

assurance that I have and all my peace and joy comes from that and I want you to have that peace and joy as well.

When you get around people who only have the cleansing side of the gospel and they're trying to work off the rest,

they're often, well, we fail, we sin.

So we're often depressed, we're often doubting.

And then the only way to sometimes find assurance is like, well, I'm better than Sean, so I become judgmental.

Not a high bar, but go on.

Yeah, but you become judgmental.

I mean, how many judgmental Christians have you met?

Very few.

Right.

No, I think all of them of whom I am the foremost.

Yeah, exactly.

I think the way I would begin to answer, you asked, why is it that talking about assurance resonates with people?

I think there's a lot here.

I mean, I think at the most basic level, it's because as believers, we are sinner saints.

We are at the same time, we're justified, but we still sin.

And so the fact that we still sin troubles us.

Our consciences accuse us.

The evil one doubles down on that.

The way that Satan operates, I mean, we could talk about any number of things right now, but the way that the evil one operates to people who are outside of Christ, he

convinces them, you don't need mercy.

You're fine.

But to people who are in Christ, he says, oh, there's mercy in the

Lord Jesus Christ, but not for you.

And I think many among us, our consciences are more tender than we might let on.

We're riddled by guilt and fear and shame.

And when we have some sense of the holiness of God from the scriptures, we

think, my goodness, he is magnificent.

He is pure.

He is holy good, but I'm none of that, right?

And he is righteously wrathful against evil.

And I know that there is sin that just continues to come from the corruption of my

flesh.

And when we're not taught, and this is what John was getting at, people have not come from contexts in the

church, many where they've been taught well about everything that

Jesus has done for them, how the work of redemption is over, right?

And how there is nothing left for them to do when it comes to peace with God.

And so there is this underlying assumption for many people that there is some contribution that I need to make

in order to know that I'm safe and I'm gonna fail in making that contribution well enough.

And we see it all over.

Or there's a sense in which I question, like

I know that I do not live the way that I want to live.

I'm disappointed in myself.

God has to be, right?

There's that suspicion.

Or like you said, that analogy is beautiful.

If you pass the police officer on the side of the road and you're looking in the rear view mirror, there's this suspicion that a lot of

saints have that at the end of the day, God is gonna flip the script and he's gonna

judge me.

And he would be right to do so because I'm not worthy, right, is how we feel.

And so I think for all the people out there that have heard us talk about the love of God for them in Christ or the utter

sufficiency of Jesus and everything that he's done for us and what this then means for how we relate to God,

the fact that we can be safe in the presence of a holy God is an astonishing word to speak.

And I think for some people, a lot of people have a hard time reconciling that.

Like, is it okay for me to feel safe with a holy God?

Well, in the Lord Jesus Christ it is, right?

And it's not that Jesus had to come and die and suffer so that God could love you.

It's because God has loved you from before the foundation of the world that Christ came.

And now he's achieved all of these things for you so that there is no barrier to fellowship and communion with God

for you anymore.

And now live in that, you know.

And we've just not been taught that.

Many of us have not come from an environment where that was what we were fed.

And so we, like Luther, Martin Luther's helpful to me on a lot of these things.

Like Luther would say -.

Just his tirade against the Jews stuff?

Oh, you mean his law and gospel stuff?

His law and gospel stuff.

Or even Luther's really tender conscience and the fact that he was so gripped by

God's holiness and his sin that until he had had his tower experience and had come

to see that the righteous live by faith, and here's what that means.

I love his honesty too, where he would say, you know, we're told to love God.

And he'd say, love God?

I hate him.

Why?

Because I see in him, he's a holy judge and he's going to condemn me.

And he should.

But it's like, that's how Luther felt toward God.

And he was so like warped out of his frame over this that, you know, he's confessing sin for hours and hours a day.

And he's, you know, flagellating himself and all these kinds of things.

And it's never enough.

And he was exactly right about that, you know.

And I just think there's a lot of people in modern Christianity that have had similar kinds of

experiences or that's what they've absorbed is that I need to do something.

Last comment here, the Canons of Trent.

So the Council of Trent was a Roman Catholic ecumenical council in the middle of the 16th century that was

effectively held somewhat in response to the Protestant Reformation.

So they produce writings, canons, standards of this council.

And I think it's session six, canon 24.

This would have been in the late 1540s.

Effectively it communicates that if anyone teaches that

fruit or good works, I should say good works or obedience are a fruit of justification

received and are not a cause,

right, of justification or of maintaining it, right?

Let him be accursed.

And so I would say that in modern evangelical context, nobody is saying that we

obey in order to contribute to our justification.

But I think there's an implication sometimes that we obey in order to maintain our justified status.

And that idea is straight out of the canons of the Roman Catholic Church

that we obey to maintain something.

The Protestant reformed way to talk about it is we obey because

we've been given everything.

And last analogy, I've lied several times in saying that I'm about to wrap up and I'm -.

I can imagine being a congregant in your church on a Sunday morning, 17th final point.

Brother, you have buzzed the tower four times.

When are you going to set this thing down?

Yeah, exactly.

So the analogy of the family is useful.

The apostles write this way with respect to obedience.

They'll say, you're in the family.

That's not changing.

That's what grace means.

But now that you're in the family, here's how the family lives.

Rather than, you're in the family, but in order to stay in the family and not get kicked

out, you need to live right.

Just completely different emphasis.

No, you're in the family.

God has adopted you.

He's put his name on you.

He's not ashamed to have done that.

He delights in you.

He looks forward to the day when you're presented pure and blameless in his presence.

There's going to be great joy there.

There's rejoicing in heaven over the fact that this has been done for you and you've been united to the Savior.

You're in the family and that will not change because God has you.

And now here is how we live in the family.

Live like who you are.

And in my mind and heart, for me, rather than making obedience seem

somehow less necessary or, well, I don't need to worry about it then,

exact opposite is produced, I think, in the hearts of the saints where we say, my gosh, I want to live for him.

My goodness, I want to obey.

And that doesn't mean that we're not warned.

We can talk about that in a minute too.

What do we do with warnings?

I mean, even like 1 Corinthians 6, 9 to 11, when Paul uses really strong language.

Here I go buzzing the tower another time.

When he says, you know, like he's just gotten done.

1 Corinthians 5, he's rebuking the whole church for the fact that there was a man who's having relations with his stepmother.

And you're somehow, you're arrogant.

You should be putting this man out.

You should be grieved, but you're arrogant, thinking that this is somehow an expression of Christian freedom or something, that you can just do what you

want.

You should remove this man from among you so that he might be restored, so that he might be saved.

And then he's rebuking them for the fact that they're suing each other and they're dragging each other into court.

I mean, it's not a good look.

I mean, it's a tire fire there in Corinth, right?

And so then he says, he names a list of things, all kinds of

debauchery and sin that we would find people engaged in.

And he says, do you not know?

Like, do you not remember?

Have I not told you that people who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Now that's law right there, man.

That is a word of law and it should be spoken.

And then he says this though, and such were some of you, right?

But now you've been cleansed.

You've been washed.

You've been sanctified.

You've been united to Christ effectively.

And so I would even say there, that's an interesting passage where circling back to our earlier conversation, strong words of warning.

Why would you ever do these things for which the wrath of God is coming?

People who do these things deserve judgment.

You're not that anymore.

You used to be that.

You're different now.

Here's your new reality and now live like this.

That's what he's emphasizing even there.

So there's various ways that the apostles even use strong language of warning.

Not all of them.

Like some of them are more of that kind of discipline, question, examine yourself stuff.

Other times it's not calling their salvation into question at all, right?

But it's still strong.

Don't do this.

But I'm not saying that you're not Christ, but you need to understand, don't do this.

Because this is not how you are to live and this is not what you are anymore in the first place.

I'll just add one more thing to that since I haven't flown by the tire at all yet.

Get you a couple.

It's a good thing to do.

So water's nice, man.

A lot of Christianity, rightfully so, is centered around good works, right?

We're concerned about that because there's work to be done.

And what we're trying to do is put good works back where they belong.

Good works in the law are to gain God's attention and favor.

Look what I have done.

Do you consider me to be righteous?

Well, there's none righteous, no, not one.

But good works in Christ done by faith, they mean everything.

But not for our justification and not for our sanctification.

What are they for?

Think about most of the good works when they're defined in the New Testament, right?

They're all outward facing, gentle, meek, kind, patience, forgiving, right?

So even the definition -.

Pursuing love and unity.

That's right.

I mean, what are the two greatest commandments?

Love God, love neighbor, right?

So as we're loving God, we're going to love each other.

So when you have someone who is assured, they realize that the purpose of their life and

good works is not to gain God's attention.

It's because as Luther says so famously, God doesn't need your good works.

He used Christ to save you, but your neighbor needs them, right?

So consider how to build one another up.

Lay your life down, right?

Be sacrificial.

Consider others more significant than yourself.

Even the fruits of the spirit, they're all outward facing, not inward facing.

So when someone finally realizes, oh, I can fail and fumble and do good works,

and God will somehow use them for his glory and advancing the kingdom, that's a whole lot less pressure.

And it also makes sense when Jesus says, come to me, all you who are heavy laden by the law.

Like you've tried to obey the law and it's not working.

And what does he say?

I will give you rest.

And then he goes, my yoke, it's a whole lot easier because you're obeying from love.

You're obeying from what you already have.

And you're doing it as a reflection for others' benefits.

You're not doing it to try and keep or maintain that which can't be kept.

You guys have referenced Luther a lot.

Justin, I think I remember you telling me on a phone call, brother, that you actually have a lot of cachet with Lutherans.

Theo, like Lutherans love some -.

Theocasts.

Theocasts, right.

We have good relationships with some confessional Lutherans, yeah.

Yeah.

I've also found that people who sort of, again, to use that word, specialize or emphasize or focus on,

they feel called to help people understand a more robust gospel, particularly in relation to

assurance.

They are often accused of antinomianism.

As Luther was.

And we are.

That's what I was going to ask.

So I'm sitting here listening to you talk about the use of the law.

I mean, every other word.

You're just like, the law, the law, the law.

We have to hold the law.

We have to hold the law.

And yet, I'm pretty sure that you guys are accused of antinomianism.

What do you do with that?

You just keep saying, I'll just repeat myself again.

Well, I know, I'm assuming your podcast is like, you want just blunt statements.

So I just want the good stuff.

Exactly.

I think sometimes people don't give us the courtesy of listening to everything that we say.

They'll take a soundbite of 30 seconds to a minute.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like people.

Christians wouldn't do that.

Recently, someone took a soundbite of 30 seconds and said some stuff, and then someone sent it to us.

And I was like, you know, that's their discretion.

That's what they want to do.

I think it's uncharitable.

Even our own book, our book that we have on rest,.

The name of that book?

Yeah, so it's called Rest, A Consideration of Faith Versus Faithfulness.

It's free.

Go to our website and download it.

Nice.

Or you could go to Amazon and buy it, right?

But in there, you know, we were trying to, a lot of what we're talking about, it's just condensed and down a lot smaller form.

But we rewrote it.

We wrote our first edition.

We just started to kind of update a little bit.

And we put a chapter on there that's, so what about obedience?

And I always chuckle because people will get through the first half of the book, make their conclusion.

The last half of the book is dealing with like, what does this look like in our faith now?

And I always chuckle because it's like, somehow they just forget to get to the latter part of the book.

And when you talk like we are, you're going to get the same, and I

feel comfortable in this, you're going to get the same accusations that Paul does.

Paul's going five chapters, just hardcore at you with the gospel.

And then he's like, all right, well, I know what you're thinking.

So why don't we just disobey so that grace can abound?

And he stops people from doing that, right?

And he goes into application.

Well, there's no way you're going to obey rightly if you don't understand the gospel rightly,

right?

You're going to obey for the wrong reasons.

And it actually is damaging to you and to the gospel and to your faith.

And so Paul is, and the writers of the New Testament are very concerned about you get the gospel right, and then

you put obedience in.

I think that a confusion of the law of what it is and the gospel

causes this.

So we are rightly explaining the gospel for what it is.

And it makes people nervous because then, I'll tell you this right now, I am 100 anathenomian,

and I will embrace that.

When it comes to my salvation, I can't do anything to be saved, right?

The Confusions 289 makes that pretty clear, like 100 % anathenomian.

So if you're going to say you guys are anathenomian, well, where is the accusation?

When it comes to my faith in Christ and my justification, I am an anathenomian.

But when it comes to my post salvation, right, like now I'm regenerate, I'm alive, and you're

telling us that you now are an anathenomian, I just think that's an unfair accusation because first of all,

we both hold to and very clearly teach that church discipline is

for the good of the church.

Well, you can't enact your discipline if there isn't a reason to obey.

But the law changes for us, right?

Paul says that when those of us who are in Christ, we no longer have a fear of condemnation.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So, well, then what is the law for us now?

Well, the law becomes a wonderful guide.

Think of it this way.

Go back to the driving illustration.

We see the speed limit wherever it's at, and that speed limit is there because it helps remind us what is a safe

way to live in life.

That's exactly how the law becomes for us.

It can't judge us.

It cannot condemn us, but it is a good reminder that it's safe and good for us and for others that we obey in

that way, right?

Stop signs are good because it means I'm not gonna plow into someone.

So the law becomes that for us.

This is a good way to live.

It reflects God's glory and it's good for neighbor.

But it cannot condemn you.

It can't.

In Christ.

In Christ, right?

But when you start, oh, disobeying the law, that's where church discipline comes in.

It's good for the brothers and sisters to come in and say, hey, I'm gonna confront you on this.

I don't think you understand that you are violating God's law.

That's not good for his glory and that's not good for our church.

And we would encourage that.

I mean, Galatians 6 .1, those who are trapped in sin, go to them and pull them out with a spirit of gentleness and meekness, right?

And so we preach all of the gospel and we preach all of the law, but we never combine them.

And I'll give this illustration because I know you have some thoughts you wanna say, or you might have another question, but

one of the things that we are very passionate about is law gospel distinction.

The law is always do this, these commands, and if you do them, you will have the title of righteous.

And therefore, if you're righteous completely, you will live forever.

The law is always do, list of things to do.

The gospel is titled as news, right?

So news is either potential, no, news is always past.

And news is connected to a person.

So the gospel is the good news of what Jesus did in all of his life, right?

So his birth, his life, his death and resurrection.

So the gospel is all about what has already been done.

You either believe it and have eternal life, or you obey the law and have eternal life.

Those are your only options.

And the whole Bible is broken down into these two categories.

Unfortunately, in modern day context, the gospel is you repent, you do, you turn away from your

sins and you obey enough and have faith in Jesus, and you can have

eternal life.

And that's where that collapsing happens.

And that's what we're trying to say.

We get called antinomians because we won't allow the law to be collapsed on the gospel.

The law has its place before salvation and the law has its place after salvation, but never in the gospel.

That's why we get called antinomian.

Yeah, I mean, I think, so we did an entire episode, not, I don't know, in the last six months,

nine months, why we're not antinomian.

The listeners could check it out and get the more long form answer.

Yeah, I think we're accused -.

Longer than that?

For real, bro.

Yeah, it was like 45 minutes.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, obviously, I mean, Paul was accused of being against Moses.

I mean, that's like he, right.

I mean, that's pretty clear.

And then, I mean, Luther, the reformers, same thing.

I mean, and then, you know, Lloyd -Jones is famous for saying, if you're not accused of being an antinomian, you're probably not preaching

the gospel.

I mean, all those -.

That one hits.

It does.

I mean, so that's all legit.

That's fair.

So in some senses, you, when you're called an antinomian, I think as Christians and as

preachers of the God, of God's word, of the gospel, I think we'd receive that with like,.

Yeah, amen.

It's, yeah, I'm happy to take that shot.

Happy to be lumped in with all these others and yeah, receive.

Specifically when it's, you're talking about emphasis of the gospel, not because we've been caught in some atrocious sin.

Sure.

Right.

So that's all true.

I think the reason that we get called antinomian largely is because of what John said, because of our commitment to the

distinction between the law and the gospel and how we want to protect, at least as we understand the

scriptures, the law is a covenant of works, like do this and live, right?

This is how Jesus speaks often in the gospels to various audiences of people.

I mean, I'm thinking of, you could think of the rich young man, or you could even think of the prelude to the

parable of the good Samaritan.

I mean, there's things there where in various contexts, people will say, teacher, what do I need to do

in order to have eternal life?

And Jesus straight up says to the scribe in Luke 10, well, what's in the law?

How do you read it?

And the scribe answers, you know, love God and love neighbor, basically.

And Jesus says, you've answered correctly, do this and you'll live, right?

And then of course that scribe seeking to justify himself, and we would ask, well, according to what?

According to the law, he asks, he begins to litigate and asks, well, who's my neighbor, right?

I mean, so even there, we see the law as a covenant of works, like do this and you'll live.

Then you have the gospel, which we would refer to as effectively the covenant of

grace, right?

Where it is given to sinners, we receive it by faith and it's all completely wrapped up into what Jesus

has done.

And so there is no sense in which those two categories of works,

grace, law, gospel should be collapsed into each other.

And I think because we maintain that distinction so staunchly, we are often accused of being

antinomian.

What I would say in response as to why we're not, two things, we've mentioned already, so I'll be brief.

One, we'll see.

Watch me, brother, watch me.

I like this guy.

One is we practice church discipline.

Two, we uphold what has historically been called the third use of the law.

The law is the guide, the law as the perfect rule of life.

And so just for those who aren't used to it, can you just give the first, second and third?

Sure, so it depends on which tradition you're talking about.

Like Lutherans would number this differently than reformed folk would.

So for us, the first use of the law, and again, I want to be really clear here.

This is like anything else.

We're grasping at the leash of language to try to describe these things.

And these categories, they're not just perfect.

They're like, oh, once you have these three uses, everything just fits neatly in a category.

And that's not what we're trying to say, but they are.

Kind of like civil ceremonial.

Sure.

Also, that stuff.

Yeah, that kind of free folk.

People trying to categorize things that are really pretty interconnected.

Sure.

Yeah.

But I do think these are helpful.

So historically, the first use in the reformed tradition is the law is a mirror, right?

That it's given first and foremost to show us our sin and then drive us to

Christ.

And so this is like Romans 3, 19 and 20.

You know, the law holds everyone accountable.

It shuts everybody's mouth.

By works of the law, no flesh will ever be justified since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Or the law was given to increase the trespass of Adam, right?

Romans 5, 20.

Like when in the aftermath of sin, when the law was given, it didn't make things better, it actually made it worse,

right?

Romans 7, 13, you know, so that sin would be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful

beyond measure.

Or Galatians 3, 19, the law was given because of transgression until the promised offspring of Abraham would come.

That's first use.

Second use is kind of civil.

It's broad.

It's to restrain human corruption.

God prohibits evil in the law, right?

Third use in Christ to the Christian is as the perfect rule of life or to guide our living.

And so this is where we would say that that third use piece, what makes it unique is that the law in that

regard is not condemnatory with respect to our standing.

It is not threatening with respect to our standing, yet it guides our living.

And we pursue conformity unto it by the spirit in union with Christ.

And so that third use of the law part, to be an antinomian, historically speaking, you would need to

deny that.

And I'm happy to say this right now.

I mean, because this may be helpful.

To the listener.

So I mean, even find a name names here.

Oh, yes.

I assume this.

So even take an individual like Tullian Shavijan.

So he was really good on the first use of the law and justification, really good.

But where he would be different than us is that he would deny the third use of the law.

So one is not like the other.

That would be the way that I would begin to respond.

Yeah, because obedience, any type of and I understand the sentiment like any there's a

repulse against any kind of obedience when it says there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

But if you're in.

But how do you know if you're in Christ Jesus if you're not walking in obedience?

Yeah, well, and I would say that and that's a good question.

We could definitely we could go there.

So like first, John, in the gospel says, I write.

So, you know, speaking to that question, are you saying what you're going to say?

I'm going to in a very, very roundabout way.

OK, so John and John says in his gospel in Chapter 20, he says, I write these things that you might.

Believe and then believing, knowing you have eternal life.

So he says, learn the life of Jesus.

And when you do, you have eternal life.

So I would say that everywhere in Scripture, when we're talking about.

Assurance, am I saved?

It is always pointed to the object of our faith.

Is Jesus sufficient to do what he promises?

And if you believe that he is, he goes, you've been saved.

You have assurance, right?

We have put faith as the object of our assurance.

And when you do that.

Faith rather than the finished work of Christ.

Rather than the person.

Yeah, you have faith in your faith.

Or it's like it's the strength of the faith, the quality of the faith, the sincerity of the faith that is the emphasis, not the object of

faith.

That's right.

So you have to, I love using this illustration.

Are you afraid to fly in a plane?

Okay, have you ever been near someone that is?

Like you see them on the plane, they're super, super nervous, right?

So you're sitting there, you go from point A to point B, the same person next to you, point A to point B, but the entire time they are in

utter terror and fear.

Were they transported less safely than you?

No, right?

Their experience may have been different than yours, but they got there the same way.

Why?

Because they had less trust in the means, right?

They were less secure of whether they could be there or not.

So when we talk about faith in an object, the object is the security of

our salvation.

It is never our faith, right?

The faith is the evidence that we have been saved, but the faith is not the

security of our faith.

This is what is so important because at times we think somehow that it's the faith that saves us.

Jesus is the one who saves you.

Do you trust in me?

I mean, do you understand?

Whether I believe in a plane has the capacity to take me to point A to point B, it doesn't really matter.

It only matters if the plane actually has the capacity.

So if Jesus has the capacity to save me, the evidence that I am in Jesus

is my faith, right?

Then what we learn is that our good works become the additive, or what he would say, a helpful

way of adding to our faith.

This is why even in 1 Peter, when he talks about his divine power has granted you everything you need for life and godliness, right?

Or this is 2 Peter, sorry.

And then he says, now take to that faith and add these works.

Remember this, right?

And so you add all these things to it.

Well, you're adding to them because you've already been grounded and safe.

And our confession and the confession speak about assurance in this way in that the ground of our assurance, the way that we

absolutely know without a doubt that we are in Christ, we're safe, is always our faith.

And our good works can be bolstering and add to that.

So there's nothing, as a matter of fact, I would encourage people to look at their good works and say, wow, look what God is doing

in my life.

But if you make, if you reverse it and the good works become your assurance, I

have one question for you.

How many good works do you need to fully find assurance?

Right?

And there's no question in the Bible in that.

The Bible does say you can have complete assurance by faith alone.

So I'll put it, I'll say a few things here too.

Like obedience, how do you know you're in Christ?

That's effectively kind of how you said it.

So, and I'll talk about it specifically related to works and obedience.

Here's how things often are posited.

We'll make a few statements that are true, and then we'll draw a conclusion that isn't, at least from our

vantage point.

So we will rightly say that all those who are justified will do good

works.

True.

If there are no good works, you're not justified.

True.

Then the conclusion often is, therefore, do good works to know you're justified.

That's where we would push back as the most fundamental.

When you use the word no, you mean it in a sort of infallible,.

Unshakable sense.

More of an assurative sense.

An assurance kind of sense, right?

Like how do I know from the perspective of assurance?

How can I be assured that I have peace with God?

And we would say like with our confession, and Sean, I think you're going.

To agree with this,.

Rightly, our good works and the fruit that is born bolsters our assurance.

It obviously is of great encouragement, not only sometimes to ourselves as we are aware of it

in a way, but it's an encouragement to the saints.

It's helpful to the body of Christ.

Others might identify these things in our lives and say, bro, like super encouraged by the way that I see evidence of God's grace

in your life or super encouraged by the ways that I'm seeing you do this or the way your life has changed.

Like we should be encouraged by that.

And we should in the church encourage others as we see these things.

Paul even writes that way.

I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing.

Totally.

So it's not that obedience or good works or fruit are not

bolstering our assurance.

The thing that we want to drive a stake in the ground and say, good works or obedience can never be the ground.

Of our assurance.

I guess I'm thinking about scriptures.

You probably are.

It's Jesus for us that is.

Okay.

It seems like you want fruits.

Well, I'll just speak in terms of fruits, but that's pretty wide open category, good works.

You want it to cut in one direction, in a positive direction, as a source of strengthening assurance.

But it seems like you don't want examination of fruits to cut in the other direction to maybe remove any sort

of assurance.

And I'm thinking about, again, going back to 1 John, thinking about James and the way

he specifically is like, listen, if you don't have these works, then you're probably deceived.

You don't have the faith that you think you have.

I know this is tough.

There's a tension here.

You're trying to say both and.

You're trying to hold two things in tension.

But from my perspective, what you're saying sounds very Lutheran.

And I think the Lutherans take it a little too far in that they basically say, like, you should

never look at your fruit and ever let that in any way lead you to examine or

even doubt your salvation.

Thoughts?

How long can someone sin doing bad fruits until you would say

they're no longer a believer?

Is that a,.

That's not a rhetorical question.

No.

Yeah.

I don't think that's, I probably would just disagree with the way the question was stated, but I'm assuming you're trying to be provocative.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

But there's something to think about, like, how long was David in sin?

We think a few hours, but no, it was a long time before Nathan the prophet came to him and said, let me tell you a story.

Yeah.

You are the man, right?

David was in sin for a long time before he came to repentant.

You think about the Church of Corinth and Paul's like, I've got to write to you not only the first time, but now the second time.

You think about even the last verse of James.

James gives the indication that there are people who are so far in disobedience that God's about to take their life.

Like that, like Ananias and Sapphira.

He goes, and if you can get them to repent, at least keep them from dying.

So there is an indication in the New Testament.

I like this one as well.

First Peter chapter, I'm sorry, Ephesians four talks about if you don't want to be trapped,

tossed about in every wind of doctrine or deceived, then you need to implement these things in your life, which

means you can have all of that to be true, right?

Galatians 6, one, those who are trapped in sin.

It doesn't say how long they've been trapped in sin.

We don't know how long those people were trapped in sin, but we know that they were.

So there's an indication that Christians can and will struggle with sin, right?

First John even says this.

If you say you're not struggling with sin, you're a liar and the truth is not in you.

So how many times and how often can someone struggle with sin?

According to First John, he doesn't tell us that.

How many times can you repent?

He doesn't tell us that either, right?

So there's an indication that someone can be weak and immature in the faith and they could be weak and immature for a

very, very long time.

There's even a rebuke in Revelation that talks about this.

So I'm very cautious and I stand back and look at all of scripture and say there

are warning passages, but there are also indications that Christians can struggle, right?

The harshest passages are given in First John towards people who are

outright rejecting the gospel, right?

For instance, John says, if you say you have love for God and not love for one another, which is a rejection,

he's like, which is a rejection of the law.

I don't want to interrupt you.

Yeah, he's like, then you don't have the truth in you.

Like you are not agreeing with God on God's standards.

But for someone to struggle with sin is normal.

Now, what about looking at fruit as far as like on the negative

side, right?

It's interesting in that when someone is in disobedience in the New Testament, I'll give you an

example with James.

So I preached to James and the problem I struggle with James and how people approach his letter is they

don't allow all of James to inform them.

Over nine times, he goes through these sections, he says brothers and then he tells them what he wants them to hear.

Brothers, he tells them what's going on.

Brothers, he is never questioning their salvation.

He is saying your actions aren't matching your words.

And therefore your justification of your words, you need to rethink what you're saying.

He's not calling into question their faith.

He's like, you need to look at yourself like I'm seeing you.

The way you're acting doesn't match your mouth.

Therefore, the justification of your words is not true.

So he's constantly affirming who they are.

Peter does the same thing.

And he's calling into question their actions saying, you are not living a life that is beneficial.

The strongest warnings are always when someone is not agreeing with God about their sin.

And they're saying it is okay to live in opposition to God.

And therefore I can be a Christian and live in opposition to God openly and defiantly.

And at that point, then yeah, you should say that is bad fruit.

And we would agree that you really need to examine your salvation because at that moment you can't.

Versus someone who was struggling, trapped, caught, wandering.

You can.

I mean, even Peter talks or Paul talks about Demas who kind of wandered off from the faith because of his presence.

Right?

And who brings it back later on?

Barnabas is the one who brings Demas back.

Right?

So you have this idea that people can wander from the faith and that it's our responsibility to

either bring them back or to disciple them.

But if they're unwilling to repent of that sin and see that it's an opposition to God, then it's at that point I would say,.

Yeah, that's bad faith.

You need to examine yourself and you're not of the faith.

A few thoughts.

One on church discipline.

And Sean, given that you and I both have like nine marks, connections, relationships,

DNA, both have been on, you know, done the internship, been on staff at Capitol Hill, all the things.

You know, even as we, and it's good to always acknowledge that even within certain groups of Christians or

pastors or whatever, it's not monolithic in how we all understand things.

So even for myself, and I'd be interested to hear how you think about this.

And then I want to touch on 1 John in a minute.

But right now, church discipline.

So even when it comes to the most severe level of church censure, which is excommunication,

I think a good question to ask ourselves is what are we saying and what are we not saying?

We all, of course, are going to acknowledge that none of us are God and none of us can see the human heart and

that ultimately, you know, the Lord is the only one who knows whether or not this person is a Christian.

Everybody acknowledges that.

I think the way that we talk in our local church as pastors about even excommunication, we

will say that when we do excommunicate someone, which we have done in multiple points in our church's brief

-ish life, we are not saying with certainty that this person isn't a believer.

What we are saying is that this person is in hard -hearted, obstinate, unrepentant sin that

is incredibly dangerous for him or her.

And we are barring them from the fellowship and not admitting them to the table.

Because we no longer have confidence.

Well, so that, I mean, even the emphasis of 1 Corinthians 5, so that they might be restored, one.

And then, two, what we're saying is their life is being lived in such a way where

they are outside of the bounds.

Would you agree with that statement?

As a church, you're saying we no longer have confidence.

You're not declaring that they're an unbeliever.

You don't have the authority to do that.

Of course.

But would you say as a church, you know, when we received you into membership, we gave you the team jersey, we were expressing a semblance of

confidence in your confession of faith.

When we remove you from the table and remove you from membership, we're just saying we just aren't confident that your confession is

in line with the gospel.

Sure.

So, and I know that illustration is used in, like, Jonathan Lehman uses

that illustration.

I don't use that illustration the same way.

So this is where there might be a little bit of disagreement, and that's fine.

So, like, I would not use the same language that you might.

This is why I brought it up, because I know enough of our, of where we hail from and how we agree

on church discipline and how we might articulate things differently, which is getting at the question you're asking

us.

So, yeah, I don't, we would not use the same kind of language of, we're putting the jersey on you, and then we're taking the jersey back.

The way that we would phrase it is, we are not certain that this person's an unbeliever, but we are

certain that there is clear, demonstrable, unrepentant sin that if, like, if this, if

this remains the case.

I wouldn't use the word certain either, just to be clear.

Yeah, confident is the word you use.

Yeah, totally.

Totally, brother, yeah.

So, but we just don't, we just don't speak about, we don't use the language that we can, we are no longer confident in this

person's profession or confession of faith.

We just don't use that.

We say what we, this person professes faith in Christ, and this person is living in a

way contrary to that profession.

And they are -.

You would not, therefore, say we have lower confidence, less confidence?

I think because we so, maybe acknowledging what I already have said,

because we don't know their heart, what we're gonna, what we're gonna major on is what is clear.

And we're gonna major on the emphasis, particularly of 1 Corinthians 5, that this removal is what needs to be

done for the sake of this person, so that he or she might be restored,

you know, in the day of the Lord's return.

Yeah, Paul talks about turning them over to Satan to have his way so that they might be restored,.

Which means -.

But you guys are big on saying like, we need to interpret the whole Bible's language on this.

Matthew 18, right?

Treat them like a Gentile or a tax collector.

Yeah, sure.

Right?

That's, I think,.

In the realm of less confident.

Somebody who needs to be - Treat them like someone who needs to be converted.

Right, well, yeah, you, and mainly what you're doing is you're calling, that's where we would go back to, you're preaching, you are

effectively applying the law to them in that way to crush and to humble.

So I do think that's legitimate in terms of how we would then interact with them.

Yeah, but even in that context, it's just, so this is important.

So like, one of the first steps that we're going to do if someone's in an unrepentant sin is to remove them

from the table.

Like, hey, you can't come in good communion knowing you're in defiant sin.

We're not going to welcome you to the Lord's table.

And this is not an official act of the church.

This is just you, the elders.

This is official act of the church.

That's the first step.

Well, and not the first.

I'm just saying, first step is always to confront them.

And call the church.

And even admonish.

But there's a time before the church would officially vote to excommunicate the member where you would call them to

not participate.

And that's just like, even, I mean, we've read Polity, you know, the Baptist stuff.

And then so if you look at some of the older Baptist documents, and then if you look as well in like, you know, the PCA's book of church order,

et cetera, the three tiers of censure, of admonishment, suspension from the table, and excommunication,

that we would kind of be in that camp.

I just so ardently disagree with that.

That's fine, brother.

And that's fine.

And that's not meant to be a jab at you guys.

No, no, no.

I mean, that's fine.

And I think there's freedom in how this is applied.

I'm just walking it.

So like, there's a -.

Sorry, it's actually interesting that I disagree with you guys about that.

But because I think I disagree with it for reasons that feel more in line with you guys and the way

you think about this stuff.

Because I'm so like, listen, the supper is a means of grace that God

has given us to draw us to repentance and draw us to himself.

And unless the church has officially excommunicated you, officially removed you from the table, I just don't see

any reason in scripture to remove that means of grace from someone as long as we're still trying to bring them

back to repentance.

So to me, removing someone before the church has officially excommunicated them, removing them from the table is actually

working at cross purposes with God's means of grace.

I mean, we can have that conversation.

I mean, dude, how long do we have?

I mean, we'll be here all day.

Let me finish your first question.

And I think we should go back to that.

I still want to speak to 1 John at some point.

Yeah, so I think that, so Jesus and the New Testament authors are protecting

the fidelity and the unity of the church.

So sin, like when Paul says in Ephesians, he says, grieve not the Holy Spirit, right?

We think that's personal sin.

That is sin in the church.

He's like, the spirit brings unity.

When you sin, it grieves his work and it causes diversity.

It's disunity in the church and division and anger in the body, etc.

What happens when you have unrepentant sinners who are unwilling to change, they are going to bring conflict

into the church that is contrary to its work, right?

We are to live sacrificial, repentant lives for the sake of the unity of the church.

So Jesus says, you have to put them out and treat them like an unbeliever because we don't unify ourselves with unbelievers, right?

They don't have the Holy Spirit.

They can't bring their gifts of grace.

Therefore, this is why we don't do church for unbelievers.

We do church for believers to go out and get them.

So he's like, you have to treat them as one who is, there's so much in sin that you have to put them outside

the context because they're not being unified with the body.

But why are we putting them out?

We're not putting them out so they remain there.

We're putting them out so they see themselves for who they are.

You are acting like an unbeliever that we might restore them.

But the restoration, what is it they need?

They always need the gospel because if we're saying, treat them like a Gentile, what do Gentiles need?

They need the gospel, yeah.

So it's always in context of the church.

We always individualize it in the context of the person.

But I think we need to contact, look at it in the context of the person and the church.

And because Paul's talking about like the purity of the congregation, he's worried about the unity of the congregation.

So, and Jesus is also thinking about it in the sheepfold.

So there is an essence because sometimes when it says, don't even eat with them, I think he

means in that context of like, you're not gonna, you're not gonna enjoy the Lord's table with them.

You're not gonna, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and you can take that in both ways.

I don't care how you wanna take that.

Yeah, I think it's very similar to 2 John where it says, do not receive these false teachers into your home.

You don't do something that makes it look like to the public world that you're in fellowship with this person who's either an

unrepentant sin or preaching a false gospel or whatever.

Yeah, that could be corporately.

It could be individually.

You can go have lunch.

I mean, as a matter of fact, I would hope that our members would go have lunch with someone.

Who's an unrepentant sin.

But the way that you relate to them during that meal, it's gonna be very different.

Yeah, you're gonna,.

And I would even say there's a difference between a false teacher.

Oh, of course.

Yeah, you would agree.

Yeah, gradations.

Yeah, so I would always look at it as until they, until an individual

is like, has absolutely changed their faith, saying I actually no longer embrace the gospel.

I'm gonna continue to tell them, you are living outside of God's will and judgment.

If you remain in this state that you are in now, an unrepentant sin, you're gonna have to stand in judgment before

the Lord in that, right?

Because there are contexts in the New Testament where people do live in really grotesque sins for a very long time and then they come

back.

Our confession speaks to this.

In chapter five, it says that God at times allows people to wander in their sins so that when they repent, they have a

greater dependency.

Yeah, there's all kinds of good and holy purposes he has, and that's one of them.

That's right.

Yeah, I guess I would.

Just, the reason why I appreciate confidence as a category is because it's not on -off.

It's like a dimmer switch.

Obviously someone who's wandered 10 ,000 feet from the fold in egregious sin for

quite a long time, the church and you as pastors and whoever else is in their lives has

diminished confidence.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

That's true.

Yeah, that's right.

And then, you know, if they come back, they start poking their head in on a Sunday morning, we have greater hope and confidence,.

You know,.

Let's just keep giving them the gospel and pray that the Lord causes fruit to be born.

Yeah, and keeping with repentance.

Yes, and I have no problems with that.

Even Paul talks about how encouraged and strengthened he is by the fidelity and faithfulness to the

gospel that they have.

Of course.

So that's not language that we're,.

Yes. Yeah.

I don't have any more to say than another that I agree with you.

I mean, to kind of speak to the way that you kind of launched us into this portion of the conversation, I do,

I will receive what you said about the way that I, as a pastor, emphasize fruit and

examination of it in that positive direction to adorn your profession, to build up the

body of Christ, to bless your neighbor, and to bolster your assurance.

Absolutely.

I want to talk in those terms all the time.

Where I think we go the negative direction is really when we practice church discipline.

I don't know that outside of that, I'm doing, I'm not saying I don't know this, Sean, but

I might not be doing as much of that as you might.

And that's, it might just be a difference.

Well, I'm even examining myself as I'm sitting here listening to you guys talk, and I'm like, oh, do I need to calibrate?

I wonder, I'm thinking of when I preach through judges or John, which is like every time you're in John,

it's just like, do they really believe in Jesus?

And the temptation is just to lean heavily in that direction.

Sure, sure.

So I'm trying to listen and receive too, like do I need to calibrate?

Yeah.

No, these kinds of conversations are really helpful because we are like -minded brothers in the Lord that have

maybe some disagreements over some things or might have different emphases, or we might have just different degrees to which

we think this, do this, whatever, apply this.

This is healthy.

It's good.

It's sharpening.

First John.

So this is a, I'm going to be, I want to be thoughtful.

I want to be nuanced.

Hey, there's plenty of room for it.

Shout out to Room for Nuance.

But I'll give my take on First John.

I'll lead by saying that I think in our modern context, any

commentary, for example, that's been written on First John by anybody who's alive.

Is bad.

Well, kind of, kind of.

I mean, so I think generally speaking, the way that we view First John is as like the litmus test of salvation.

I would contend that the emphasis of First John, so I preached it a few years

ago.

But I think John is writing to a church that has been bombarded by false teaching and

apostasy.

And in the context, I mean, you can gather some of these things from what he writes.

So there are people who are denying, effectively, the sinfulness of sin.

Gnosticism and all this stuff.

Yeah, so proto -gnostic thought, right?

Yeah, and then this kind of like dualism where there's like kind of spiritual plane, physical plane.

Sins done in the body don't matter, right?

Because all that really matters is kind of the spiritual plane.

So that's that kind of denial of the sinfulness of sin or that sins committed in the body don't matter.

You see that even in chapter one.

Obviously, there's a kind of docetism going on as well, where Jesus only appeared to be in the flesh,

but he wasn't really human.

And it's very clear that there are people who have left the church that John is writing to,

even in chapter two in verse 19, a verse that we know well, they went out of us, or went out from us because they're not of us, right?

Yeah, so that's all going on.

And I think John is actually writing to the saints to assure them that they're

legit in light of all the things that have been bombarding them.

So that's why he makes such an emphasis on several things, confessing sin and acknowledging sin.

Confessing, how often does he say, we confess that Christ came in the flesh, and that's critical.

And then he talks about love.

Rather than abandonment, he talks about love and loving one another.

And then rather than denying that sin is even a thing, he's saying

pursue righteousness.

So I think what he is writing, because how often too in that letter, like if you go through it, how often does he not only call them

brothers or beloved or beloved children, he writes a lot of really strong words about how you are

strong, or we are children of God, right?

So he is constantly pointing them to who they are, and I think is trying to demonstrate not that they

are illegitimate, but that the people who left them are illegitimate.

And so I think that for me, and then you even get into chapter five, where in verse 13, where he

writes these things so that they would know, right?

And like John Calvin, John Calvin's commentary on 1 John, I think is quite good.

And on that verse, he writes some things that I quote often that have become

in one sense very much a kind of guiding principle for me as a preacher.

He says that the apostle writes this to those who are already in the faith so that they might know that they're in Christ.

And he says, let's take note though of how disciples are confirmed in the faith.

It is to have the office and power of Christ explained to them.

And then he says, it is therefore the duty of a godly minister to extol as much as

possible the grace of Christ so that being satisfied with that, we might look to nothing else.

You know, and I think he's right on that.

And so that's my take on 1 John.

And again, like -minded brothers can have differing opinions on that.

Yeah, we're talking about three or four degrees of difference here, not 15, not 50.

Not fundamentally different directions.

That's right.

So brother, you wanted to read something real quick?

No.

Okay, good, good.

Close it.

Keep your thoughts to yourself.

That's right.

I want to ask you guys your opinions on three books in relation to this subject.

This could be fun.

I think so.

Hopefully we won't get those books thrown at us based on our responses.

We'll see.

First book from somebody I think we all appreciate, Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our

Holiness.

Oh, Sean.

Okay.

John, I'll go. I'll take the bullet.

All right.

So appreciate Kevin, like you're saying.

Sure.

Which means he's about to get real quick.

Love that, brother.

He's got a servant's heart.

So grateful for his ministry.

All right, so we took a pull back the curtain.

We took a brief break, and we were acknowledging the fact that these kinds of conversations are so healthy because we tend to look

back over church history and assume that people who are a part of the same tradition were just monolithic and thought the same

way about everything, which is just abjectly false and so patently false.

So this is great to do.

So yeah, it's possible to appreciate a man's ministry and agree with him about a lot of things and then disagree with him about some

things.

That can be done, and we don't just need to burn his entire ministry down and just, well, I need to just reject

everything he's ever said or written, which is, I assume, kind of the point of your entire podcast, Room for Nuance.

How about that?

All right.

So that book by Kevin, The Hole in Our Holiness.

He really, where I would take some exception to it is even his treatment of Hebrews 12.

So I think, Kevin, we're all reactionary.

We have to acknowledge that.

We all react.

Yeah, you do theology in a real world where people are saying things and you respond to them.

Yeah, that's right.

Nothing happens.

I mean, even the Protestant Reformation, for goodness sakes.

I mean, we're all sitting here today because there's reaction.

Confessions of faith, creeds in the ancient, you know, in the patristic era.

I mean, they're all done.

Why?

Well, it's a reaction to what's going on.

Yeah.

So that's not illegitimate to be reactionary.

I think Kevin, understandably, was reacting to, like, tele -introvision and some of that kind of stuff where

it was this first use of the law only and a denial of the third use of the law.

And there really were reasons to ask, like, does holiness matter based upon how some of these guys, particularly in the Presbyterian

world at that time, were speaking, teaching, writing, et cetera.

So I'm sympathetic to that.

I do think, for my vantage point, I do think that the book, to a degree,

was maybe an overcorrection.

And in particular, the treatment of Hebrews 12, I don't agree wholly, because

I think in the context there, you know, Hebrews 12 begins with, we are to, you

know, obviously set aside the sin that entangles all these kinds of things, and we are to look to Christ,

the author and the finisher of our faith, right?

And then he begins to talk about God's fatherly discipline.

And he speaks in such a way, the writer writes in such a way, is to say that you're being

disciplined because you're a child of God, right?

And this is actually so that, like verse 10 or 11, so that you might share in his holiness, God disciplines you.

This one's never pleasant when you're going through it, of course not.

And that's why he has to exhort the saints that you're being disciplined not because you're illegitimate, you're being disciplined

because you're God's child.

And so strengthen your weak hands, your feeble knees, and bear up under the discipline of God

in as much as it concerns you, pursue holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.

I don't see that to be as threatening of a thing as maybe Kevin made it to be, because literally the

discipline of God as your heavenly father is meant for you so that you would share in his holiness.

So he's actually working this in us.

And there is a holiness without which we will not see him, and he is disciplining us to that end

that we might share in his holiness.

So I might make a different emphasis in terms of an application of Hebrews 12.

Having said that, obviously we are concerned for holiness and obedience in the church.

We're called to it, and it's wonderful that we would pursue it, and we should pursue it.

So nothing that I'm saying should be misconstrued in that regard.

So that's, yeah,.

Turn that thing around now.

In the book, I believe, and forgive me if I misquote it, but I'm pretty sure he says to

the tone of, I will stake my entire ministry on the fact that this verse means that our

holiness does play into our just, or basically

He's saying that he's not, this is not writing about positional holiness, to which I would agree.

Agree.

But the struggle then becomes if, and I agree with Justin

that he didn't really take time to execute the entire passage, kind of just pulled the one verse out and said, see right here, it

says this.

And when you're looking at it and you're reading it, you're talking about a loving, gracious, heavenly father who, I mean, he begins

with looking unto the author and finisher of our faith.

So stop and think about that just for a moment.

If he authors and finishes it, what does the writer want us to walk away with in that

statement?

Competence, assurance.

If he brought me to life, he will bring me to glory.

So that's how he begins the context, right?

He goes, now the journey from life to glory, it could be a rough one, right?

So he's like, lift up your drooping head, like, hey, listen, you can lift your eyes, lift your head up.

It's been a rough path, but know that when the Lord disciplines you in these moments where you struggle,

it's love.

He disciplines those whom he loves, right?

So there's this flow of confidence and gentleness and encouragement

towards holiness.

And then all of a sudden, just to turn that thing on its head and smack you against it, it doesn't make sense, right?

You're like, why would he go from confidence and gentleness and encouragement?

And God's fatherly discipline.

To just like pop fear on you, right?

So when you look at it in context, even in the verses that follow, he is encouraging them to think different.

About their life, right?

So I mean, he even goes on and says, cease to it that you're restraining from sexual morality and holy,

just like Esau.

So it's almost like the right of people is sitting down this child and saying, all

right, look, you're different now, okay?

There's a different way of thinking about life.

Your confidence needs to always be Jesus setting aside the weight and the sin that he sets us.

And what are we doing as we're setting aside as in this running of the race?

We're not looking to ourselves, examining myself.

He goes looking unto Jesus who started you and he will finish you.

So some of our criticism of a book like The Hole in Our Holiness is that we agree we want to

be holy.

The motivation is not fear that I may not make it.

The motivation is, I'll turn to another passage.

1 John even says this, right?

1 John says, what we will be, we have not yet, he has not yet appeared.

But while we wait for his appearing, we purify ourselves as he is pure, right?

Looking unto Jesus.

So this is, 1 John saying it just slightly different than Hebrews.

Hebrews, look at Jesus, set aside the weight.

Look at Jesus, purify yourself.

So the motivation for holiness is always the good aspects of who Christ is.

My kickback would be the holiness without no one will see the Lord.

How much holiness?

This is always my question.

Is that your argument with the author of Hebrews?

No, I think the author of Hebrews is making his argument very clear in that, hey, listen, holiness has its place

and it's a part of your life.

And it's all a part of this entire context.

My argument with DeYoung, he uses it the way he did in a fear tactic.

My answer is, how much holiness does one need to have in order to make sure they see the Lord?

Is there a place for fear in sanctification process?

100%.

Justin and I was talking about this the other day.

I'm really afraid of the consequences of my sin against my family.

Against the glory and honor of the Lord.

Against the implications of my church.

I am afraid of what it will do because it's negative and destructive and not helpful at all.

Am I afraid of that?

My sin will lead me to the place where I will not be saved?

No, because there's nothing that can separate me from that.

Because you're asking, is there a place for fear as it pertains to our relationship to God?

Yeah, so I agree with you guys about all of the fatherly,

comforting, assuring language of Hebrews.

But it feels like at the end there where he says, holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

It's not fear that my sin might hurt my marriage.

That's why I asked you the question.

Because you're getting at that fear as it pertains to God and me.

It's couched within the context of overall assurance, but I don't want to neuter that.

And I don't even remember everything that Kevin said about it there.

I didn't expect us to get so...

It's been a while.

Yeah, same.

So even here, is there a sense in which Christians fear God?

I mean, I think we need to define fear, again, a fear of the Lord because that's used in various places

throughout scripture.

And I think there are different nuances to it.

There we go again.

There we go again.

Maybe I get a royalty every time you say it.

So I think the way that I would say, Sean, I think, I mean, in short, is there a place

for the fear in the form of dread in the Christian's life as it pertains to sanctification?

I'm going to push my heart against that and generally say no.

So can I pause you right there?

But I want to clarify what I mean.

Okay, sure, go ahead.

So what I would say though is that we do, as Christians, fear God.

We revere Him.

We respect Him.

We're in awe of Him.

We see Him as holy and majestic and glorious and all those things.

And we do know that His righteous wrath is coming.

For all those who deserve it.

And we would understand, even as far as my corrupt flesh is concerned, I do deserve that as well.

So there is a sense of great reverence and fear that we have in that regard.

But I am not any longer, because of my union with Christ and the fact that I have been in

Lord Jesus.

I really am.

I am not what I once was.

I am a new creation and united to Christ.

That I am now God's child and that that is not going anywhere.

And so there is no longer fear of Him as judge.

There is fear of Him as Father, which is fundamentally different.

And, you know, like if we think about -.

Can I pause you right there then?

So I just, so I don't lose this.

Please, brother.

I hear you.

That doesn't sound like what the author of Hebrews is saying there.

Couched with all the language of assurance and children, he still is, it's not like fear of like,

yeah, I'm your father.

I'm going to discipline you.

He says, fear, without holiness, you will not see the Lord.

So like, I do like, I don't know what you guys think about the structure of Hebrews and all that.

Five sermons.

I mean, if we want to just have a six hour podcast, we could cover all of it.

But like, I wonder if you guys were sitting in maybe the church service where

this sermon were being preached, right?

Yeah, because we do.

It does seem like a sermon.

Yeah, right.

And he says, listen, without holiness, you will not see the Lord.

Couched in all the language of, you know, all the other stuff in the chapter, which grounds our assurance.

I wonder if you would correct him.

I wonder if you would say, that's not an appropriate way.

Now, obviously you're not going to sit here and tell me that you would correct the author of Hebrews divinely inspired.

But I wonder if you were in my church service and I tried to have that warp and woof as I was preaching through, the warp and woof

of the text.

Don't ask me exactly what that means.

You'll just feel it out.

If I was preaching that text to my congregation and I'm giving them the assurance and discipline, it comes from a father who loves us and he's going to

keep us and he's the author and perfecter.

But don't get it twisted.

If you are not holy, you will not see God.

And that should terrify you.

I wonder if you would correct me after that and say, brother, I don't think that was appropriate.

If you use the word terrify, I might push back against that.

Cause I don't know.

I mean, that's the most terrifying thing I can think of to, to not see the Lord.

Be holy.

Cause if you're not, you won't see the Lord.

Sure. Yeah.

We still have two more books to do.

So you do have decisions to make though, because you, you have to look at all of scripture and

I would say even all of the book and make your decisions in light of that.

I feel like, I mean, even back up, I think it's funny how we're emphasizing the holy part,

but we're not emphasizing the part before that.

Right?

He says, strive for peace with everyone.

And so what does he mean by that?

Like there's a context to everything he's writing.

What is he concerned about?

Right?

Like what is, what is it at the heart of what he's getting at?

And I think that there is a, that we rest in sufficiency of Christ and

we understand that we're going to struggle against sin, saint sin and reality.

That is right there in the text.

And that if you don't agree with him on this, there's a problem.

There's a problem if you don't agree with him on this.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, that's, it's, there's a, because how then do you answer the question in Romans eight, where he's like, well, there's

nothing that will separate you from the love of God.

And then even you, right?

Jesus loses none of his own.

So I have to hold that intention.

We are saved by faith, not by works.

I have to hold that intention.

That passage, you're saved by works.

If you're in, if you're putting the emphasis, the way you're putting it, you have to say you are saved by works.

You have to say that without holiness, you will not see the Lord.

Well, I'm just quoting.

Well, you could also say for God's love of the world,.

Therefore free will.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

And this is one of the problems that I think sometimes we can get into with, like, sometimes you just have to let a

text stand on its own and you don't, you cannot qualify it to death with every facet and

nuance that the, that the gospel presents, you know?

Cause if you do that, you're going to neuter passages.

There's always, there's always a danger of doing that.

I agree.

I certainly agree.

Yeah.

I agree.

But I guess at the end of the day, when you stand, so we're all three standing before Christ and Jesus says to you,

why are you here?

And your answer is?

Same answer we would give.

Yeah, same answer.

Right.

But then how do you justify that in light of this?

Well, okay.

Are you not going to say, I have holiness?

No, but I would, okay.

So now we're going to get off and do a big long thing here.

I'm just saying, this is why I struggle with your emphasis and what you're pointing to because it's inconsistent with the rest of

scripture.

So we have to ask ourselves.

Well, I just, I just basically just, I just said like, what if I just quoted the author of Hebrews and just said exactly what he said?

But there's always a context to a statement and that's what I'm kicking back saying.

You can't make a statement.

All right, here's one.

For, I'm going to change the scenario.

Okay.

What if Justin comes to you and says, I do not like the way that John talks to his children.

He's extremely harsh and forceful.

And you're like, well, that's a pretty serious accusation towards a pastor.

What happened?

Well, we were standing on the road and his little, his son ran out into the middle of the road.

Could have got hit by a car. He screamed at him.

There's a context to it, right?

So you're stating this and I'm like, yeah, but there's a context to what he's saying inside of the entire Bible and book, which

I don't think you can divorce from it.

Well, Sean, of course you agree.

I mean, so we, I agree with you that there are, there is a sense in which you can't, you cannot nuance

everything.

That's right.

And you can't, because a lot of times a text, it loses its punch.

Yeah.

I agree with that completely.

And of course you as well, given what I know of you, are going to agree that we preach that

verse or these couple of verses in the context, not only of like Hebrews 12, but in the context of the

letter, the sermon, if you will.

Of course, yeah.

Right.

And so there is, there has to be a sense in which even the, the way that that verse

hits is informed by everything around it.

Obviously.

And so we all agree on that.

Yeah, that's right.

And I think for me, yeah, I have no rebuttal with the writer of scripture, of

course, but I have no rebuttal even with the force of the verse.

I, what I, what I would do though too, is what I did just a minute ago, that even the words

of holiness and the fact that we need it, it's like God is working in us, verse 10,

that we will have it.

And that's what the discipline is there for.

So it's not like I'm going to say, and just try to neuter, I'm not trying to neuter verse 14, but I'm

fear in terms of reverence, all like God's power, all of these things.

And even where he's going to go, he's going to go Sinai and Zion.

It's like even this, and the fact that we've been given this unshakable kingdom and all these things, and God is a

consuming fire.

I mean, because he's pointing them back to Mount Sinai and he's contrasting it though with where they have now come to

effectively to Christ and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to the blood of Jesus that preaches a better word

than the blood of Abel.

And so like all of that, there is fear and reverence and awe of God

and there is holiness that is required of us.

And I understand that.

Can I jump in just for a second?

Guys, can we just move on?

We got two more whole books to do.

Okay, five second statement.

I don't believe you, but let's see.

So I just want to, for context sake, I do believe he's talking about, you need to look at discipline and

holiness and you're going to receive this discipline.

Here's my last statement, that we may share his holiness in light of the discipline.

So he's saying, if you think you're going to go through the Christian life without discipline, which produces holiness, then you're not going to see glory.

The two are connected.

The discipline of God and holiness.

So you're just like, no, I don't want discipline from God.

I don't want that.

Because then you're not going to see holiness.

I think that is the context.

Okay, so we'll move on to that.

All right.

Now that we've figured all of that out, we're going to move on to the second book.

Am I Really a Christian?

Or is it Am I Really Saved?

Am I Really a Christian by Mike McKinley, wherein he walks through 1 John.

And I think his goal, he wrote, he's told me this and he said it publicly, his goal with that book was

primarily to people coming in falsely confident in their salvation or cultural

Christians, walking them through 1 John, almost intentionally trying to get them to doubt, to

examine themselves.

But if you talk to him more about it, he says, he thinks 1 John has this, and I think he's right here, that it

has this effect where it causes some who are falsely hopeful to doubt.

And it causes some who are falsely doubting to hope.

But anyways, have you read Am I Really Saved?

Okay, well, then you're not a part of this.

Boo, get out of here.

Bro, admittedly, I don't know that I've read the book.

I've obviously, I know Mike and I love Mike.

And I'm aware of the book.

Okay.

But I don't think that I have read it.

And so in that regard, I'm hesitant to react in detail.

Sure, great.

Yeah.

Well, then we'll move on to the third one.

I've already said what I think about 1 John,.

Which might probably be more indicative.

Of how I might respond.

Yeah. Yeah.

Third book, classic, written by somebody who's long dead.

Okay.

Odds of you loving it are higher.

J .C. Ryle's Holiness.