How Can I Know I’m a Christian? - Ask Pastor John

Video from Desiring God

How Can I Know I’m a Christian? - Ask Pastor John

"Audio Transcript

We love Romans 8. Last time, Pastor John, you called it a “mammothly glorious chapter” — mammothly glorious in celebrating that those in Christ are freed from condemnation, empowered by the Spirit, adopted as God’s children, and utterly secure in his unbreakable love. No surprise, you have the whole chapter memorized, and you recited it in a recent prison visit this spring, which came with an opportunity for you to preach your highlights from the chapter too. We got that story from your local prison trip on Monday, last time.

Romans 8 is a glorious chapter that emphasizes the believer’s union with Christ in that beautiful phrase “in Christ” (Romans 8:1–2). It’s a union that represents freedom from condemnation, deliverance from sin, and God’s inseparable love. The chapter speaks of Christ dwelling in the believer (Romans 8:10), and the Spirit too (Romans 8:9, 11). Romans 8 is a rich picture of our union. But the question we all must resolve in the end is this one: How can I know — know for absolute certain — that I am personally in Christ? How did you answer this question?

Right. That is the bottom-line, existential, frightening, glorious question. When I went to preach to the 120 inmates at Lino Lakes prison a few months ago, I assumed that they needed to hear (and would want to hear) not only that Christ died to take away God’s condemnation, but also that there is a way for them to know that this applies to them personally, individually. In other words, there is a way to know that they are in Christ; that they are really Christians, really saved; that they will never come into condemnation. They could know this.

So, that was the final thing that I addressed in those thirty minutes. I felt impelled to address it, this issue of assurance or knowledge that we’re in Christ, not only because I think everybody deep down wants to know if he or she is a child of God or a child of wrath, but also because Romans 8 deals with just this question. That was the chapter I was focusing on.

Who Is in Christ?

What makes the matter so urgent in Romans 8 is that the chapter begins, “There is therefore now no condemnation.” Now, the question is this: For whom? For whom? Is that me? “For those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

So, everybody’s got to cry out here, “Am I?” Everything hangs on the question: Am I in Christ Jesus? Am I so connected with Jesus by faith that this death counts for me? Am I really a Christian? Am I saved? And Paul really cares about this question. I’m not just reading in my own Western individualism, that everybody wants to know if they belong to Christ because we’re all so guilty in the West, and we all want a personal individual relationship. No, no, no.

Listen to the way Paul addresses this startling thing here in Romans 8:9: “You . . . are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” That’s a big if. Oh, my goodness. Now, notice, this next word is singular, individual (Greek tis). You can’t get more individualistic than this. “Anyone [any single person] who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”

Wow. Paul is going straight to the jugular here of individuals. This is not vague, general talk about church or crowds or groups or corporate identities. This is me and you, Tony. Are you in Christ? Am I in Christ? The people listening right now, are they individually in Christ?

“We make war on sinful temptations and deeds. We are led by the Spirit into hating our sin and killing it.”

So, Paul has raised the stakes as high as they can possibly go by saying that this glorious declaration of no condemnation does not apply to everybody but to those who are in Christ, to those who belong to Christ. And so, he moves directly — bless him, bless him! He moves directly to answer the question: How do you know if you’re in Christ? And he gives us at least two criteria, and I’ll take them one at a time, starting in Romans 8:13–14.

Making War by the Spirit

He says, “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). And we know he’s talking about eternal death and eternal life because even those who put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit die physically. So, why does he say this? Why does he say, “If you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live forever; you’re in Christ”? And he answers in Romans 8:14: “[Because] all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

Now, this is how you know you are a son of God, who will never die: Are you led by the Spirit of God? But the connection with Romans 8:13 is all-important. He’s giving a reason for why those who put to death the deeds of the body will have eternal life. And the reason is that they’re led by the Spirit. The sons of God live forever, and they know who they are because they’re led by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body.

Being led by the Spirit in Romans 8:14 does not refer to being led to the right school or the right spouse or the right diet program. It refers to Romans 8:13: being led into warfare with sinful temptations, the sinful deeds of the body. We make war on them. We are led by the Spirit into hating our sin and killing it. So, the first way we know we are the children of God is that we hate our sin. We take “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17), and we kill it. We make war on sin in our life. That’s the evidence that we are a child of God.

This is not perfection. Don’t let anybody interpret me that way. This is real hate and real warfare against your own remaining, God-dishonoring corruption. Every believer has it and will have it till you’re dead or Jesus comes. That’s how you know you’re a child of God. “All who are led by the Spirit [into warfare with their own God-belittling sins] are sons of God,” Paul says.

Crying Out by the Spirit

Then he continues with a second way of knowing that confirms and comes alongside this first way. Romans 8:15–16: “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

The children of God are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit bears witness that we are God’s children. How does he do that? He causes us to cry out from the heart, “Abba! Father!”

Now, of course, Jesus knew there’s such a thing as hypocrisy. Many will say to him, “Lord, Lord,” on that day, and he will say, “I never knew you, because those are just words in your mouth” (see Matthew 7:22–23). And we know that today you can just ask a computer, “Alexa, Siri, say, ‘Abba. Father,’” and the computer will say it. Paul knew, and we know, that it’s not mere words that are the witness of the Spirit in us.

Rather, it is the heartfelt sense that I was a helpless, sinful, undeserving, dead baby, lying in the gutter outside the gates of heaven, and, wonder of wonders, I find myself to be alive to God. And welling up from some place deep in my soul that I cannot explain, there is the cry of a trusting child to his heavenly Father: “Abba! Father!” And this heartfelt, authentic cry of trust is the witness of the Holy Spirit that we are the children of God.

So, that’s what I said to these 120 inmates as I closed. First, if you hate the God-demeaning ugliness of your own sin and, relying on the Spirit, you make war on it; and second, if you find rising up in your heart the genuine, authentic cry of a child, happy to be dependent on your wise, heavenly Father, you can know that you are in Christ and there is no condemnation now or forever." from the Transcript

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.