God Is the Gospel by John Piper

Author:John Piper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, General
ISBN: 9781433502545
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2008-06-10T22:00:00+00:00

Jonathan Edwards calls it the gratitude of hypocrites. Why?

Because “they first rejoice, and are elevated with the fact that they are made much of by God; and then on that ground, [God] seems in a sort, lovely to them. . . . They are pleased in the highest degree, in hearing how much God and Christ make of them. So that their joy is really a joy in themselves, and not in God.”3 It is a shocking thing to learn that one of today’s most common descriptions of the cross—namely, how much of our value it celebrates—may well be a description of natural self-love with no spiritual value.

Oh, that we would all heed the wisdom of Jonathan Edwards here. He is simply spelling out what it means to do all things—

including giving thanks—to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). He is showing us what the gospel is for. It is for the glory of God. And God 3 Ibid., 250-251.

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G O D I S T H E G O S P E L

is not glorified if the foundation of our gratitude for the gospel is the worth of its gifts and not the value of the Giver. If gratitude for the gospel is not rooted in the glory of God beneath the gift of God, it is disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to see in the gospel the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. May he grant us to delight in him for who he is, so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!

WHY GOD CREATED A MATERIAL WORLD

This is my answer to a hundred questions about the good things that God has made and given. The creation of the material world, including our bodies with all five senses, was God’s idea. He did not do it mainly as a temptation to idolatry, but mainly as a display of his glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1). That is the purpose of a million species of animals and plants, and a million galaxies. “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4). Yes, if the thanksgiving is rooted in the sight of the glory of the Giver who is more to be admired than all his gifts, and supremely to be enjoyed in all his gifts.

I would love to say more about this here—the role of the creation in mediating glory from, and worship to, the Creator. But I have devoted significant space to this in a chapter titled “How to Wield the World in the Fight for Joy” in When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy.4 I hope you will go there, if you desire to go deeper into this issue.

Suffice it to say here that God created what is not God.

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