I got an email from Desiring God about John Piper’s most recent writing leave (which received a lot of prayer from me), and I was thrilled to see the results. The book that he has completed and I am most anxious to read is what he hopes to call God is the Gospel: Meditations on the Love of God as the Gift of Himself. His main premise is that all the good news in the Gospel, such as forgiveness of sin, freedom from enslavement to unsatisfying sins, etc., are all subordinate to a greater end, namely, seeing and savoring the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
As I have applied the Gospel more and more to my soul, I do find joy in the freedom from unsatisfying sins it provides when it is banked on. I love the release from my troubled conscience. I love the power it gives me to turn from those things and break away from sins I used to not be able to stop committing. These are pleasing in and of themselves… but they are all means toward something greater. I think I should let him explain the rest.
[In God is the Gospel,] I ask whether justification by faith, or forgiveness of sins, or the removal of the wrath of God, or redemption from guilt and liberation from slavery to sin, or salvation from hell, or entrance into heaven, or eternal life, or deliverance from all pain and sickness and conflict are the highest, best, and final good that make the gospel good news.
I answer no. These blood-bought gospel gifts are precious beyond words, but there is a reason they are precious that is not yet mentioned in any of them. There is something beyond them that makes them good because they are means to this other thing. When this other reality is missing, none of these things is good news. The highest, best and final good that makes the gospel good news is the revelation of the glory of God in Christ for us to behold and embrace and enjoy increasingly forever. The central text of the book is 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
In other words, as the gospel events of Christ’s death and resurrection unfold in history and in the gospel, they reveal a glory that we were made to see and enjoy as the highest, best, and final end of our existence and of the gospel. Therefore, justification is good news because it makes us stand accepted by the one whose glory we want to see and savor above all things. Forgiveness is good news because it cancels all the sins that keep me from seeing and enjoying the glory of Christ who is the image of God. Removal of wrath and salvation from hell are good news because now in my escape from eternal misery I find eternal pleasure beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ. Eternal life is good news because this is eternal life, Jesus said, that they know me and him who sent me. And freedom from pain and sickness and conflict are good news because, in my freedom from pain, I am no longer distracted from the fullest enjoyment of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
John Piper, Thanks for Praying for Me on Writing Leave—Here’s What Happened
I agree with him. I do love being freed from enslavement to sin, but I love even greater being enslaved to righteousness (valuing God supremely), as Paul nails it in Romans 6:18. I have been divorced from the law of sin and death to be married to the grace of God that pardons and empowers me to enjoy Him forever.
If I were to do something wrong to my dearly beloved, Rosanna, and find myself having offended her, I do want to repent and hear her tell me, “I forgive you, Rob.” But, if I received that forgiveness and she told me, “I do not want to talk to you again, though,” forgiveness would have no meaning to me. What good is forgiveness if our relationship is not restored, if I can’t tell her that I love her, if she recoiled if I tried to take her hand in mine? Now, if she said, “I forgive you, Rob,” and she took my hand again, like we did before I offended her, then I would be truly happy.
With my God, if all He does is forgive me and not hold my sin against me, what use is that if He does not take me into His fellowship again and remove the things in my life keeping me from enjoying Him? He is my Treasure. My sin has separated me from my Treasure. I long for forgiveness to have access again to my Treasure.
Though I can argue this from several biblical texts, I’m anxious to see Piper’s more thorough explanation of many more texts as he’s so far been faithful to do in his books. God is the Gospel, the enjoyment of Him is the truest good news.
Leave a comment