Why I Love the Apostle Paul by John Piper

Author:John Piper [Piper, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL006040/REL006130/REL012020
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2019-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

16

Reveling in God’s Power in and through Ours

Paul combined a passion for God’s pervasive, providential rule over the whole world with a deep commitment to human action and responsibility.

Thinking seriously about the sheer reality of God raises questions about the extent of his power and the reality of human freedom. Of course, if you don’t believe in God, you have the same kinds of questions, only they are not as personal. If there is no intelligent being behind the cosmos, then the question is not whether God governs the will of man, but whether the will of man has any meaning beyond the mere movements of molecules.

Absolute, Trinitarian Reality—God

But Paul believes in God and that all things are “from him and through him and to him” (Rom. 11:36). He believes that God has from all eternity existed as the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three are one God—one divine essence, but three persons. The Trinity may be a great mystery, but it is inescapable from what Paul teaches in his letters.

God the Son is the very image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. . . . In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 1:19; 2:9). God the Spirit is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9). Through the Son all things were created and all things hold together.

By [the Son] all things were created, in heaven and on earth. . . . All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col. 1:16–17)

So, in Paul’s understanding, the universe is created and held in being by a personal God. There is no whiff of materialistic fatalism—as if the cosmos were an infinite expanse of nothing but matter and energy and time. For him the universe is radiant with an intelligent Person’s handiwork. It is telling the glory of God (Rom. 1:20).

All Things according to His Will

The question arises, then, of how this pervasive creating and sustaining activity of God relates to human beings. We are not surprised when Paul says, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).

For Paul, this sweeping sovereignty of God is the foundation of the best news in the world—namely, that in a world of relentless calamity and tragedy and pain and death, God turns all events for the good of those who love him. If he were not sovereign over all things, he could not turn all things for our good. Thus, Paul says, amazingly, “For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

God’s Power Does Not Paralyze, but Impels

But what makes Paul’s vision of the sovereignty of God so beautiful is that it does not contradict the reality and significance of our wills, but coheres perfectly in ways that astonish and empower us.

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