Missiology
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 49, No. 2 – Spring 2007
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By John Piper. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005. 185 pages. Hardcover, $17.99.
In this brief, popular work, John Piper, Senior Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, argues that “the final” and “supreme good” of the gospel “is God himself seen and savored in all his glory (37).” Although some readers will disagree with Piper’s Calvinist emphases, he correctly insists that God ought to be every believer’s all-satisfying treasure.
The gospel is good news.1 Corinthians 1:3–4 highlights the “indispensable deeds” of this news (67) and, in chapter two, Piper elucidates fifteen specific aspects that make it “good.” Yet none of these “facets of the gospel-diamond is the chief good or highest goal of the gospel” (45). Not even justification, which is “the sustaining source of all the other benefits of the gospel” (44), because it addresses the most fundamental need of humanity by removing sin and imputing righteousness, can be labeled the greatest good of the gospel. That honor belongs to God himself.
My point in this book is that all the saving events and saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully. 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 (47).
God Himself is the gospel. The heart of the gospel is not what He accomplishes in Jesus Christ for humanity’s sake but rather the purpose for which it is accomplished—bringing believers to God (1 Peter 3:18). The former makes much of humanity; the latter allows believers to make much of God.
In order to be truly converted, a person must love God for Himself, not merely for the magnificent gifts He provides. Fallen humans, for in- stance, naturally desire to avoid punishment and pain. Therefore, humans naturally desire to avoid hell; likewise, the appreciation for the one who provides such an escape is natural (121). By contrast, fallen human beings do not naturally love God for himself. Doing so is a supernatural act accomplished via the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers (79, 90–97). Rest assured, Piper does not want to belittle the gifts of God (117) for he too loves them, but he insists that their purpose is to point away from themselves and to the one great gift of the gospel, God himself (118).
The question driving this discourse appears to be the same one that impelled Piper’s historical mentor, Jonathan Edwards, to pen The Religious Affections: Why do so many who seem to have embraced the gospel fall away? Piper suggests that loving God for something other than himself, i.e. His gifts, misses the heart of the gospel; people who do this have not truly embraced the gospel at all (37–38, 47) and do not possess “the kind of faith that survives torture” (88). Such faith is incapable of persevering through persecution, something 1 Peter views as a gift from God (127). Here, Piper challenges a comfortable American Christianity, which knows little of real persecution except through The Voice of the Martyrs.
Piper also challenges a cultural milieu in which many equate believing the facts about Jesus with conversion. As Piper points out, even Satan believes in this manner (62). Like Jonathan Edwards, he insists that true conversion comes when believing the facts is accompanied by true spiritual sight granted by the Holy Spirit as a person embraces God himself through the gospel (62, 81–85).
Three problems pepper the pages of this book. First, the incarnation deserves more lengthy treatment in any book that emphasizes God’s gift of Himself. Piper touches on the incarnation but views it almost exclusively as a means to the cross, not considering its radical implications in light of his own theme (e.g. 118–19). Second, Piper’s interpretive method of filtering every biblical passage and understanding all of life through the hermeneutical lens of the “glory of God” seems contrived. Some non- Calvinists will find this approach deeply offensive, as they do much of Piper’s work. Finally, Piper presents an inadequate Christology, deemphasizing the radical nature of Christ’s divine-human person as Christ himself acts as a means to God’s glory.
This volume is well-written, biblically-oriented, and worth reading if only because it raises the kind of questions that American Christians need to consider in order to follow Paul’s admonition to self-testing (2 Cor 13:15). My greater hope, however, is that God is the Gospel might serve as a segue into reading and appreciating the works of America’s greatest theologian, the paradigmatic pastor-theologian and reformed-revivalist— Jonathan Edwards.
