The Legacy of Sovereign Joy by John Piper

Author:John Piper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography, History
ISBN: 9781581348132
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2006-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

LegacySovereignJoy.48134.int.qxd 9/21/07 10:01 AM Page 81

Sacred Study

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day, and in our day, was and is virtually silent about the history of the incarnate Lord on the earth—except in amplifying the glory of the Lord through the written record of the incarnate Word?

That is, neither the Roman Catholic Church nor charismatic prophets claimed that the Spirit of the Lord narrated to them untold events of the historical Jesus. This is astonishing. Of all the claims to authority over the “external Word” (by the pope) and alongside the “external Word” (by contemporary prophets), none of them brings forth new information about the incarnate life and ministry of Jesus. Rome will dare to add facts to the life of Mary (for example, the immaculate conception11), but not to the life of Jesus. Charismatic prophets will announce new movements of the Lord in the sixteenth century, and in our day, but none seems to report a new parable or a new miracle of the incarnate Word omitted from the Gospels—in spite of the fact that the apostle John wrote, “There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written” (John 21:25).

Neither Roman authority nor prophetic ecstasy adds to or deletes from the external record of the incarnate Word.12

Why is the Spirit so silent about the incarnate Word after the age of the New Testament—even among those who encroach on the authority of the book? The answer seems to be that it pleased God 11

Pope Pius IX announced the doctrine on December 8, 1854, with these words: “That the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin” (Schaff, ed., Religious Encyclopedia, vol. 2, p. 1064).

12

Critical historians do this. They use various historical criteria to deny that such and such a saying of Jesus was really said by him, or that such and such a miracle was really done by him.

But none of these historians claims that they are retelling the story of the incarnate Word because of the inspiration of the Spirit. In other words, my point here is not that there are no attacks on the historical Jesus, but that the role of the Spirit is not to replace the role of the book, and that the true incarnate Word is not revealed by the Spirit apart from the external Word.

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