"Until the gospel events of Good Friday and Easter and the gospel promises of justification and eternal life lead you to behold and embrace God himself as your highest joy, you have not embraced the gospel of God. You have embraced some of his gifts. You have rejoiced over some of his rewards. You have marveled at some of his miracles. But you have not yet been awakened to why the gifts, the rewards, and the miracles have come. They have come for one great reason: that you might behold forever the glory of God in Christ, and by beholding become the kind of person who delights in God above all things, and by delighting display this supreme beauty and worthy with ever-increasing brightness and bliss forever."
"My [John Piper] burden in this book is to make it as clear as I can that preachers can preach on these great aspects of the gospel and yet never take people to the goal of the gospel. Preachers can say dozens of true and wonderful things about the gospel and not lead people to where the gospel is leading. People can hear the gospel preached, or read it in their Bibles, and not see the final aim of the gospel that makes the good news good. What makes all the events of Good Friday and Easter and all the promises they secure good news is that they lead us to God."
"Every person should be required to answer the question, 'Why is it good news to you that your sins are forgiven?' 'Why is is good news to you that you stand righteous in the courtroom of the Judge of the universe?' The reason this must be asked is that there are seemingly biblical answers that totally ignore the gift of God himself. A person may answer, 'Being forgiven is good news because I don't want to go to hell.' Or a person may answer, 'Being forgiven is good news because a guilty conscience is a horrible thing, and I get great relief when I believe my sins are forgiven.' Or a person may answer, 'I want to got o heaven.' But then we must ask why they want to go to heaven. They might answer, 'Because the alternative is painful.' Or 'because my deceased wife is there.' Or 'because there will be a new heaven and new earth where justice and beauty will finally be everywhere.
What's wrong with these answers? It's true that no one should want to go to hell. Forgiveness does indeed relieve a guilty conscience. In heaven we will be restored to loved ones who died in Christ, and we will escape the pain of hell and enjoy the justice and beauty of the new earth. All that is true. So what's wrong with those answers? What's wrong with them is that they do not treat God as the final and highest good of the gospel. They do not express a supreme desire to be with God. God was not even mentioned. Only his gifts were mentioned. These gifts are precious. But they are not God. And they are not the gospel if God himself is not cherished as the supreme gift of the gospel. That is, if God is not treasured as the ultimate gift of the gospel, none of his gifts will be gospel, good news. And if God is treasured as the supremely valuable gift of the gospel, then all the other lesser gifts will be enjoyed as well."
"Only one thing is [the chief good or highest goal of the gospel]: seeing and savoring God himself, being changed into the image of his Son so that more and more we delight in and display God's infinite beauty and worth."
"Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven - none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us."
"Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God."
"People who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there."
"The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel."
"The human heart was made to stand in awe of such ultimate excellence. We were made to admire Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
"The ability to see spiritual beauty is not unwavering. There are ups and downs in our fellowship with Christ. There are times of beclouded visions, especially if our sin gets the upper hand in our lives for a season."
"Spiritual seeing is seeing spiritual things for what they are - that is, seeing them as beautiful and valuable as they really are."
"The ultimate good of the gospel is seeing and savoring the beauty and value of God...The ultimate aim of the gospel is the display of God's glory and the removal of every obstacle to our seeing it and savoring it as our highest treasure. 'Behold your God!' is the most gracious command and the best gift of the gospel. If we do not see him and savor him as our greatest fortune, we have not obeyed or believed the gospel."
"We are made for Christ, and Christ died so that every obstacle would be removed that keeps us from seeing and savoring the most satisfying treasure in the universe - namely, Christ, who is the image of God."
"Satan is not mainly interested in causing us misery. He is mainly interested in making Christ look bad. He hates Christ. And hates the glory of Christ. He will do all he can to keep people from seeing Christ as glorious. The gospel is God's instrument for liberating people from exulting in self to exulting in Christ. Therefore Satan hates the gospel."
"[Christ] is the ultimate gift and treasure of the gospel."
Reader's Thoughts:
I've recently been greatly convicted about how selfish and self-centered I am. The Lord is using many things and people, including this book, to remind me that life is not about me. The gospel is not about me. Even Satan's tempting is not about me. Life is about God glorified. The gospel is about God glorified. Satan's temps, because He knows that God is glorified..and he hates that. So who am I to live life for me? Who am I to live spiritually only thinking about the spiritual benefits or gifts from the gospel? And who am I to blame my hardship on Satan. He's not just trying to bring me misery. He doesn't even care about me. He cares about trying to defame God. But God is victorious. God is the gospel. God is glorified. Everything is about Him. And I want to treasure Him. I want to savior Him. I want to know Him. I want to exult Him. The gospel frees me to stop exulting in myself, and start exulting in Him. That truly is liberating. But I am also reminded that just because I'm starting to get this now, I am human. My understanding and my seeing of His beauty, worth, satisfying nature are not unwavering. I need to remind myself of these truths. I need Him every hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment