Can We Know Reality with Full Certainty?

Struggling has all the time been a serious theme of our podcast — with about 1,800 mentions of the phrase struggling in our podcast historical past. You could find a digest of all of the methods this has been addressed within the Ask Pastor John ebook on pages 365–394. And we’ve got lately concentrated our consideration on the theme — greater than usually. Struggling, we noticed, distinguishes true ministry from the prosperity gospel preachers. We noticed that in APJ 2087. Then we checked out how not to reply to struggling in APJ 2094, taking a look at Job’s spouse. We regarded on the ache of a lady who has been sorely mistreated, and the way she ought to reply, in APJ 2095. And final time we checked out the right way to press on in ministry, even after God takes the one you love spouse away. That was in APJ 2096.

On this heavy season, a grieving dad writes to us about his battle with doubt on this nameless electronic mail: “Pricey Pastor John, my spouse and I are grateful on your ministry, for this podcast, and for the affect you will have had on our lives. In January of this 12 months, my spouse gave beginning to our firstborn child boy. He was stunning. My coronary heart grew ten instances. I’ve by no means seen my spouse so joyful. The Lord appeared to reply all of our prayers of hysteria and fear — normal and particular — with a regularity that frankly surprised me. These appeared to be light indicators, for my spouse significantly, of his tender care and goodness to us. I sensed from this that regardless of our fears about being pregnant and the well being of the newborn, the Lord’s hand was with us, as I do know it’s.

“Two weeks later, we awakened, and our child had suffocated. I did CPR for ten minutes because the paramedics arrived and took him. I prayed for God to make him breathe once more. I prayed on the hospital for a similar factor. However he was gone. A state of affairs that appeared too good to be true so shortly become a state of affairs that appeared too horrible to be actual. Earlier than this, I by no means processed deeply what occurs when a baby dies in infancy. Given our state of affairs, I’ve thought of this so much over the past a number of weeks, together with APJ episodes through which you described your reasoning by Romans 1. This and different sources and my very own inferences from the Bible all appear to level in the identical course: that my son is in heaven.

“However critically listening to the reasoning of others, there appears to be both a ‘best-guess’ angle or arguments that must skip to the conclusion eventually of their logic for lack of express biblical proof on the subject. I discover that I’m 99 p.c positive that my son is in heaven, however there may be all the time the final little little bit of questioning or doubt. This doubt holds me again from rejoicing within the security and ultimate safety and life that my youngster has with the Lord. So, my query is that this: Can I freely rejoice in the truth that my son is in heaven? Or will this be one thing I can’t be utterly positive of till I’m with Jesus in heaven, too?”

One of many causes I need to handle this query is as a result of the essence of the problem being raised is far broader than the quick query about how we could be positive if a deceased toddler is in heaven. I don’t need to decrease that query, and I notice it’s the most pressing one being requested at this heartbreaking second by this heartbroken dad. However I feel the best way the query is posed actually does make the problem very broad and really pressing for all of us.

The Drawback of the 1 P.c

I might name it the query of the ultimate 1 p.c. This dad says that in any case his biblical research, his pondering and praying, “I discover that I’m 99 p.c positive that my son is in heaven. However there may be all the time that final little little bit of questioning or doubt. This doubt holds me again from rejoicing within the security and ultimate safety and life that my youngster has with the Lord.” The ultimate 1 p.c prevents his pleasure. What’s it that takes this dad all over 99 p.c of certainty however not the 1 p.c?

“Religion shouldn’t be the alternative of understanding; it’s the alternative of distrusting, rejecting, scorning.”

Listed below are a number of the key phrases that he offers in reply to that query: “thought,” “reasoning from Romans 1,” “different sources,” “inferences from the Bible,” “essential listening,” “arguments,” “logic.” In different phrases, his greatest efforts to make use of his God-given capacities for statement, and evaluation, and reasoning, and demanding reflection, and logic, and argument, and Bible — these are in a position to carry him, he says, to a 99 p.c confidence, however there stays a voice in his thoughts that claims, “You would be incorrect.”

Now, my level is that there’s maybe no doctrine, no reality declare for which the identical factor couldn’t be stated. Does God exist? Is Christ divine? Was Jesus raised from the useless? Is the loss of life of Jesus the motion of God to forgive sins? Is there a heaven? A hell? Is the Bible inerrant? When our humblest, most fair-minded, most thorough, most diligent investigation of all of the proof is full, it might be trustworthy for most individuals to say, “These efforts carry me to 80 p.c, 90 p.c, 99 p.c certainty. However there stays, in my thoughts, a voice that claims, ‘It’s potential you might be mistaken on all of that.’” And so, the 1 p.c hole stays the issue of the 1 p.c.

I ought to clarify that the 1 p.c hole exists for the atheist and the agnostic in addition to the Christian. The assertion that there’s no God, that Jesus Christ shouldn’t be God, that the gospel of Jesus shouldn’t be wanted for salvation, that the Bible shouldn’t be true — these assertions, when all is claimed and achieved, depart a voice in your head, a niche, a voice saying, “Chances are you’ll be incorrect.” So, for the Christian, how does God shut the 1 p.c? Or does he?

Our Full Assurance

Some would quote Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7 — “We stroll by religion, not by sight” — and conclude that religion leaps throughout the 1 p.c with out sight. I don’t suppose that’s what Paul meant. I don’t suppose “stroll by religion, not by sight” means “stroll by uncertainty, not certainty.” Within the New Testomony, religion shouldn’t be the alternative of understanding; it’s the alternative of distrusting, rejecting, scorning.

In 2 Corinthians 4:13–14, Paul says, “We additionally consider, and so we additionally converse, understanding that he who raised the Lord Jesus will increase us additionally with Jesus.” We consider, understanding — understanding results in perception. It’s not that the absence of understanding requires you to blindly consider. That’s simply not the best way the New Testomony thinks about religion. When Paul was making an attempt to awaken religion, he gave arguments and causes and evidences. And when he was arguing for the resurrection, he stated, “Then [Jesus] appeared to greater than 5 hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are nonetheless alive” (1 Corinthians 15:6), that means, “You may go discuss to them and improve your sense of evidential confidence by taking a look at evidences.”

“God desires his kids to be absolutely assured that he’s actual, Christ is actual, salvation is actual.”

The Bible intends for Christians to have assurance. Paul describes his ministry like this: “I need you to understand how nice a battle I’ve for you . . . that [your] hearts could . . . attain . . . the . . . full assurance of . . . the data of God’s thriller, which is Christ” (Colossians 2:1–2). He desires full assurance for his folks. Hebrews 6:11: “We want every one in all you to indicate the identical earnestness to have the complete assurance of hope till the top.” First John 5:13: “I write these items to you who consider within the identify of the Son of God, that you could be know that you’ve got everlasting life.” Paul prays in Ephesians 1:18 that “the eyes of [our] hearts [be] enlightened, that [we] could know what’s the hope to which he has known as [us].”

How God Addresses Our Doubts

The query is that this: How does the Bible describe the closing of the 1 p.c? It doesn’t describe that closing as a leap at midnight. It doesn’t describe it as a wager. It doesn’t describe it as a crossing of our fingers for the final 1 p.c.

As an alternative, the New Testomony describes the closing of the final 1 p.c because the supernatural shining in our hearts of a divine, religious mild by the gospel: “God . . . has shone in our hearts to offer the sunshine of the data of the glory of God within the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). It describes it because the witness of God’s Spirit himself: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we’re kids of God” (Romans 8:16). It describes it as a divine sealing by the Spirit as a down fee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14). It describes it because the love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit: “Hope doesn’t put us to disgrace, as a result of God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

So, the purpose shouldn’t be that each doctrinal query has the identical stage of significance or is granted the identical fullness of assurance. The purpose is that God desires his kids to be absolutely assured that he’s actual, Christ is actual, salvation is actual — and that we’re actually saved and actually destined for glory. The best way this pertains to doctrinal questions that will not rise to the identical stage of certainty is that the profound expertise of God-given religious sight and confidence and pleasure regarding the central actuality of our salvation will allow us to peacefully, joyfully depart in God’s palms all of the unanswered questions that stay.