Broken to be saved?

Recently I have been having many discussions with a young man who believes that you must be broken in order to be saved. What is the correct answer to this question?

I do not have the context of your conversations, but I would understand your friend to be saying that the Holy Spirit needs to convict us of our sins through the law before he can bring us the comfort of forgiveness through the gospel. Before the Holy Spirit can bring the comfort of spiritual health and healing in the forgiveness of sins, he needs to impress upon people how spiritually sick—spiritually dead—they really are.

The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit going about his “strange work” and “alien task” (Isaiah 28:21), as he convicts people of sin. When people are led to despair of their sins and reject any means of saving themselves, the Holy Spirit can then comfort people with the precious news of the gospel, pointing them to Jesus Christ.

It is the Holy Spirit, through the word of God, who carries out this work in the hearts of people. Through the word he leads people to confess, “What a wretched man I am!” (Romans 7:24). Through the word he leads people to confess, “With you [,Lord,] there is forgiveness” (Psalm 130:4).

All this is the work of the Holy Spirit—to whom we give special praise this Sunday, Pentecost Sunday.