John Piper, in his book Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, writes one of the most helpful set of paragraphs I have ever read. I go back to it over and over for direction, encouragement, and help. I believe it to be so biblical and so true about the gospel itself.
“What is the ultimate good in the good news? It all ends in one thing: God himself. All the words of the gospel lead to him, or they are not gospel. For example, salvation is not good news if it only saves from hell and not for God. Forgiveness is not good news it if only gives relief from guilt and doesn’t open the way to God. Justification is not good news if it only liberates us from bondage but doesn’t bring us to God. Adoption is not good news if it only puts us in the Father’s family but not in his arms.
This is crucial. Many people seem to embrace the good news without embracing God. There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart just because we want to escape hell. That is a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable without any spiritual change. You don’t need to be born again to want these things. The devils want them.
It is not wrong to want them. Indeed it is folly not to. But the evidence that we have been changed is that we want these things because they bring us to the enjoyment of God. This is the greatest thing Christ died for. ‘Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God’ (1 Peter 3:18).
Why is this the essence of the good news? Because we were made to experience full and lasting happiness from seeing and savoring the glory of God. If our best job comes form something less, we are idolaters and God is dishonored. He created us in such a way that his glory is displayed through our joy in it. The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy, namely, himself.
Long before Christ came, God revealed himself as the source of full and lasting pleasure. ‘You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore’ (Psalm 16:11). Then he sent Christ to suffer ‘that he might bring us to God.’ This means he sent Christ to bring us to the deepest, longest joy a human can have. Hear then the invitation: Turn from ‘the fleeting pleasures of sin’ (Hebrews 11:25) and come to ‘pleasures forevermore.’ Come to Christ.”
It is wonderfully true: “The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy, namely, himself.”
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Quote from John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006), 62-63.
