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Seeing and Savoring JESUS CHRIST
By John Piper
CROSSWAY BOOKS
Copyright © 2001 John Piper.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-58134-265-9
Seeing and Savoring the Glory of God The Ultimate Aim of Jesus Christ
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The created universe is all about glory. The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God. The universe was made to show it, and we were made to see it and savor it. Nothing less will do. Which is why the world is as disordered and as dysfunctional as it is. We have exchanged the glory of God for other things (Romans 1:23).
"The heavens are telling of the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1). That is why all the universe exists. It's all about glory. The Hubble Space Telescope sends back infrared images of faint galaxies perhaps twelve billion light-years away (twelve billion times six trillion miles). Even within our Milky Way there are stars so great as to defy description, like Eta Carinae, which is five million times brighter than our sun.
Sometimes people stumble over this vastness in relation to the apparent insignificance of man. It does seem to make us infinitesimally small. But the meaning of this magnitude is not mainly about us. It's about God. "The heavens are telling of the glory of God," says the Scripture. The reason for "wasting" so much space on a universe to house a speck of humanity is to make apoint about our Maker, not us. "Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing" (Isaiah 40:26).
The deepest longing of the human heart is to know and enjoy the glory of God. We were made for this. "Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth ... whom I have created for My glory," says the Lord (Isaiah 43:6-7). To see it, to savor it, and to show it—that is why we exist. The untracked, unimaginable stretches of the created universe are a parable about the inexhaustible "riches of His glory" (Romans 9:23). The physical eye is meant to say to the spiritual eye, "Not this, but the Maker of this, is the Desire of your soul." Saint Paul said, "We exult in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2). Or, even more precisely, he said that we were "prepared beforehand for glory" (Romans 9:23). This is why we were created—that he might "make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy" (Romans 9:23).
The ache in every human heart is an ache for this. But we suppress it and do not see fit to have God in our knowledge (Romans 1:28). Therefore the entire creation has fallen into disorder. The most prominent example of this in the Bible is the disordering of our sexual lives. Paul says that the exchange of the glory of God for other things is the root cause for the homosexual (and heterosexual) disordering of our relationships. "Their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural ... the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another" (Romans 1:26-27). If we exchange God's glory for lesser things, he gives us up to lived-out parables of depravity—the other exchanges that mirror, in our misery, the ultimate sellout.
The point is this: We were made to know and treasure the glory of God above all things; and when we trade that treasure for images, everything is disordered. The sun of God's glory was made to shine at the center of the solar system of our soul. And when it does, all the planets of our life are held in their proper orbit. But when the sun is displaced, everything flies apart. The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attracting place at the center.
We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self. Indeed, what could be more ludicrous in a vast and glorious universe like this than a human being, on the speck called earth, standing in front of a mirror trying to find significance in his own self-image? It is a great sadness that this is the gospel of the modern world.
But it is not the Christian Gospel. Into the darkness of petty self-preoccupation has shone "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Christian Gospel is about "the glory of Christ," not about me. And when it is—in some measure—about me, it is not about my being made much of by God, but about God mercifully enabling me to enjoy making much of him forever.
What was the most loving thing Jesus could do for us? What was the endpoint, the highest good, of the Gospel? Redemption? Forgiveness? Justification? Reconciliation? Sanctification? Adoption? Are not all of these great wonders simply means to something greater? Something final? Something that Jesus asked his Father to give us? "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me" (John 17:24).
The Christian Gospel is "the gospel of the glory of Christ" because its final aim is that we would see and savor and show the glory of Christ. For this is none other than the glory of God. "He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Hebrews 1:3). "He is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). When the light of the Gospel shines in our hearts, it is "the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). And when we "exult in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2), that hope is "the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus" (Titus 2:13). The glory of Christ is the glory of God. (See Chapter Two.)
In one sense, Christ laid the glory of God aside when he came: "Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:5). But in another sense, Christ manifested the glory of God in his coming: "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Therefore, in the Gospel we see and savor "the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). And this kind of "seeing" is the healing of our disordered lives. "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18, RSV).
A PRAYER
O Father of glory, this is the cry of our hearts—to be changed from one degree of glory to another, until, in the resurrection, at the last trumpet, we are completely conformed to the image of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Until then, we long to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord, especially the knowledge of his glory. We want to see it as clearly as we see the sun, and to savor it as deeply as our most desired pleasure. O merciful God, incline our hearts to your Word and the wonders of your glory. Wean us from our obsession with trivial things. Open the eyes of our hearts to see each day what the created universe is telling about your glory. Enlighten our minds to see the glory of your Son in the Gospel. We believe that you are the All-glorious One, and that there is none like you. Help our unbelief. Forgive the wandering of our affections and the undue attention we give to lesser things. Have mercy on us for Christ's sake, and fulfill in us your great design to display the glory of your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Excerpted from Seeing and Savoring JESUS CHRIST by John Piper. Copyright © 2001 by John Piper. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
