Audio Transcript

Part of mature Bible reading is the willingness to stop and ponder the hardest realities that God reveals to us in his word. We don’t skim over hard texts. We press in with questions, seeking understanding.

So this summer we’re addressing three sobering questions inspired by serious Bible readers working through the first two chapters of 2 Thessalonians. Namely, is God present or is he absent in his eternal judgment? Second Thessalonians 1:9 seems to say he’s absent. On Monday we addressed that in APJ 1801. Next, many of you have written us asking Pastor John to identify the mysterious “man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2. Who is he? That’s today. And then a question about God sending strong delusions into the world. Does he still do something like that today? And if so, what is that? This third question, on 2 Thessalonians 2:11, is on the table in a week — next Friday in APJ 1806.

So today, we approach this topic of the man of lawlessness. Here’s one representative email from many: “Pastor John, my name is Jared, and I live in San Jose, California. I was reading through my Bible and recently came across the section about ‘the man of lawlessness’ in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12. At first, I assumed this man was Satan himself. But it becomes clear in verse 9 that this ‘lawless one’ is ‘by the activity of Satan.’ So, it’s not Satan. In your estimation, who is this lawless man?”

I don’t usually read twelve verses of Scripture when we do an APJ. But Jared’s question can only be answered by specifics from the text of 2 Thessalonians. So, let me read the first twelve verses of 2 Thessalonians. I think people will find it riveting, frankly. This is the sort of Scripture people hang on. They say, “Whoa! What’s that talking about?”

Hysteria in Thessalonica

The situation is that some kind of rumor is going around in Thessalonica to the effect that Paul has taught, by some letter or some revelation, that the day of the Lord has come — meaning that Jesus is going to show up in the clouds any day. People were quitting their jobs and mooching off of others, and Paul had to handle this feeling that was running through the church. And here’s how he did it. These are the first verses of 2 Thessalonians 2:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the rebellion [apostasy or falling away] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:1–12)

So Paul says that the day of the second coming cannot have arrived and will not arrive until the great apostasy happens and the man of lawlessness is revealed. That’s his basic answer to the hysteria in Thessalonica.

Who Is This Man?

Here’s my summary, then, from that text of what we can say about the man of lawlessness. There are questions that are left unanswered, but we can say something.

1. He’s a man — a human, not an angel, not a demon. A “man of lawlessness.”

2. He is quintessentially lawless. That is, he’s called a man of lawlessness. He considers himself absolutely above law. He is lawless in considering himself subject to no law and no lawgiver and no authority.

3. Since there’s only one person who’s above law — namely, God, who writes it — the man of lawlessness claims to be God. He says so explicitly. Verse 4: “. . . who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”

“This man of lawlessness claims to be the final climactic antichrist.”

So, this man of lawlessness claims to be the final climactic antichrist. “I am a man. I am God. But I’m not Jesus. And I don’t believe in Jesus. I’m against Jesus.” That’s the ultimate expression of antichrist. “Many antichrists have come,” John says (1 John 2:18). And this one is the last. He’s going to be destroyed by the mouth of Jesus, and the fire of heaven, when he comes.

4. He’s born for destruction. Paul calls him “the son of destruction” in verse 3. His DNA, so to speak, is from his satanic father, so he’s going to be destroyed. That’s what his DNA is. He is going to be destroyed. He has no future. He is quintessentially lawless and doomed.

5. As a man, he is coming, nevertheless, by the power of Satan. Verse 9: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan.” He’s not Satan. Jared got that exactly right. He is empowered and driven by Satan, animated by Satan, serving Satan, accomplishing Satan’s purposes in vain.

6. Therefore, as a man, he will nevertheless have supernatural power. Paul calls it “all power” in verse 9. And he will work signs and wonders. And when the ESV translates verse 9 and calls them false signs and wonders, be careful. We should not read that to mean “They don’t really happen; they’re really not supernatural. This is cloak and dagger. This is the rabbit out of a hat.”

No, no, no. It’s not. It means they really do happen. Satanic power really is at work in them, but they happen in the service of falsehood. That’s what it means by calling them false signs and wonders. They serve a lie. They are signs and wonders in the service of a great lie, but the satanic supernatural power is real. That’s why it’s going to be so deceptive.

7. Therefore, the man of lawlessness will be unparalleled in his ability to deceive. Verse 10 says he comes “with all wicked deception for those who are perishing” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Literally, it reads, “in all deception of unrighteousness,” because two verses later, we see that the way he deceives is by making unrighteousness seem pleasurable. They found “pleasure in unrighteousness” (verse 12).

Still Waiting

Now I would argue that Paul is unpacking in these words the prophecies of Jesus. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24:10–13:

And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another [these are Christians; this is a great apostasy]. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

“This man of lawlessness is going to be destroyed by the final fiery second coming.”

So Jesus foresaw a great deception, betrayal — a great betrayal, a great apostasy. And he foresaw a horrible season of lawlessness in which the love of many grows cold. So no matter how many forerunners of this man of lawlessness there have been in history, we know that none of them is what Paul is talking about.

I think some people try to get around this text by saying, “Oh, there’ve been lots of men of lawlessness. They’ve cropped up in all kinds of seasons of history.” Well, that’s true, but it’s irrelevant because this man of lawlessness is going to be destroyed by the final fiery second coming. Verse 8: “Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

This is it. It’s over — end of the age. This is the coming of verse 1, when Christ gathers his elect from the four winds. It’s the coming of 2 Thessalonians 1:7, when he comes with his mighty angels in flaming fire. It’s the coming of 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15, when the saints will be raised from the dead to meet the Lord in the air. In other words, the great apostasy and this man of lawlessness are at the climactic end of the age. They are brought to an end by the glorious appearing of the coming of the Lord. This is what we hope for. This is what we pray for. Come, Lord Jesus.

Patience is a virtue we admire, and even aspire to, from afar. The closer it comes to us, however — the more it invades our schedule, our plans, our comfort — the more uncomfortable it becomes.

Patience exists only in a world of disruption, delays, and disappointment. It grows only on the battlefield. We cannot practice patience unless our circumstances call for it — and the circumstances that call for it are the kinds of circumstances we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. We would choose convenience, speed, efficiency, fulfillment. God often chooses circumstances that call for patience. And he never chooses wrongly.

Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives. Impatience is a war for control. Patience, on the other hand, springs from different soil — from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control, from a deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on all of his promises, from a heart that is profoundly happy to have him.

“The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God.”

In other words, the deepest patience comes from a humble and hopeful joy in God above all else. That means that real patience is not only inconvenient, difficult, and wearying, but, humanly speaking, impossible. The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God. It grows only where the Spirit lives (Galatians 5:22–23).

Many Shades of Patience

What might we say, then, practically speaking, about real patience in real life? Where could we look in Scripture to see some of the colors and texture of patience in action? One verse, in particular, humbles me and bursts with lessons for everyday patience:

We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

The ways we approach each group — the idle, the fainthearted, the weak — are different, but we’re called to patience with them all. Which means we’re likely going to experience temptation to be impatient with them all (and many more besides them). So what might patience look like in each case?

Help the Weak

The weak test our patience because they need more from us than most. Many of us have an impulse, at least in the moment, to step in when we see a weak person in need, whether that person is young, or old, or sick, or emotionally or spiritually vulnerable. But weakness, we all know from personal experience, rarely stays contained within a moment, which means the weak need more than in-the-moment help; they need for-the-long-haul help — and for-the-long-haul help requires patience.

Paul does not charge the church to admonish the weak, but to help them, and the word for help here can also mean to hold firm or be devoted. There’s a tenaciousness in this help, a clinging to the weak, even after months or years of inconvenience and sacrifice. Where does that kind of patience come from? From knowing that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) — in other words, he died for us. And that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) — in other words, he chose us.

Those who know how painfully and helplessly weak they are apart from God are more ready to endure the weaknesses of others. They don’t resent helping for the hundredth time, because they gladly trust and submit to God’s plans, including the weaknesses he has placed around them.

Encourage the Fainthearted

The fainthearted test our patience because they get more easily discouraged than most. Among the Thessalonians, some were beginning to wither while they grieved the loss of loved ones (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11). Discouragement was drying up their spiritual strength and resolve — and so they needed more from others (who were also likely grieving).

The fainthearted lack the strength or stamina others have in relationships and ministry. They bring burdens they cannot carry by themselves. They often despair of their burdens, struggling to see how life will ever be more bearable. And we all already have our own burdens to bear, so regularly speaking grace into someone else’s emotional and spiritual needs can feel especially taxing over time. The ministry of encouragement often requires unusual endurance.

Those who keep walking with the fainthearted, even when the path is slow and winding, demonstrate the strength of a supernatural patience. They have discovered, first for themselves, and then through themselves for others, that

[God] gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)

Anyone who has experienced the gift of strength and renewal longs for other fainthearted people to experience the same. And how much sweeter when God strengthens and renews someone through us?

Every Christian experiences discouragement, which means every Christian needs a steady stream of courage to endure suffering, to reject temptation, to sacrifice in love, to embrace discipline, to persevere in ministry, to trust and obey God. And those streams run low or even dry in churches when we lack the patience needed to persevere in encouraging one another.

Rebuke the Idle

It’s not hard to see how the idle test our patience. In the case of the Thessalonians, it seems, some thought Jesus was returning imminently, and so they started shirking their work and leaving it to others (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2; 3:6).

The idle test our patience because they refuse to take responsibility and initiative. They could do more, help more, carry more, contribute in more significant ways, but they’re content to do just enough (or less), which means someone else has to do more. And when we are that someone, we understandably grow impatient.

But Paul doesn’t let the impatient off the hook, even with the idle. He does say admonish them — warn them, exhort them, wake them up — even if you have to withhold food for a time (2 Thessalonians 3:10–11) or remove them from fellowship (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Nevertheless, he says to do so with patience. Be patient with them all. What might that mean? We don’t usually associate hard words or painful consequences with patience.

Why of Patience

First, we might ask, Why are we patient, even as we admonish the idle? We’re patient with sinners, in part, because we still are one. The idleness of others — or the greed of others, or the lust of others, or the anger of others, or the vanity of others — is never so evil that we cannot see something of their sin in ourselves. It takes very little imagination for us to see that, apart from an undeserved miracle, we would be them — and perhaps far worse.

Impatience with sinners betrays a small view of God’s mercy toward us. The same apostle that says we should rebuke the idle also says,

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)

Even our rebukes should be seasoned with a humble awareness of our own sinfulness — of just how wicked we would be without the grace of God.

How of Patience

Knowing why we are patient, even with those we need to rebuke, how do we rebuke with patience? First, it probably needs to be said that good rebuke itself is an evidence of patience. It’s easy to give up on sinners. It’s easy to lash out and tear down someone who has sinned against us. Those who rebuke well — who aim to restore someone through honest and gentle confrontation and correction — demonstrate that they haven’t given up, and that they still have hope that God will grant conviction, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation.

Patience in rebuke, though, will also mean a willingness to wait for change. Sanctification can be painfully, sometimes excruciatingly, slow. We shouldn’t expect the slothful to become immediately diligent — or, for that matter, for the proud to become immediately humble, the angry to become immediately kind, the lustful to become immediately pure. We don’t overlook patterns of sin in those we love, or make excuses for their sin. We go to them, we warn them, we implore them, we even rebuke them sharply, if necessary — and we keep doing so — but we do so knowing, again firsthand, that change often comes slowly. We plant seeds knowing that they may need time to take hold, mature, and eventually blossom.

Patient God for Impatient People

We might welcome the opportunity to rebuke the lazy and negligent, but can we do so with patience? If we can’t, it’s likely because we haven’t meditated enough on the patience of God toward sinners like us — sinners like me.

“God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.”

When Moses pleaded to see God’s glory, what did God reveal about himself? “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). He has every reason and right to get angry with us, and yet he’s slow to anger. He’s patient with us, 2 Peter 3:9 says, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.

That doesn’t mean patience isn’t hard. It is. Whether in traffic on the way to work, or in a season of significant transition or uncertainty, or beside the hospital bed of someone we love, patience can require uncomfortable sacrifice and surrender. In the Father’s patience, after all, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us. As it was at the cross, so it is with us. The painfulness of our patience serves its hidden but beautiful purpose: to call attention to the beauty and power of God’s love.

The subordinate goal of this message is to explain and defend the claim that truth triumphs through pleasure. The ultimate goal of this message is that you, and your people through your ministry, would feel — and forever feel — the greatest pleasure in God through Jesus Christ.

To say that the ultimate goal of this message is a heart-experience — an enjoyment, a spiritual emotion — in you and your people is not a contradiction of the universal biblical teaching that the ultimate goal of all things (including this message!) is the fullest exhibition of the glory of God, filling the new creation without rival. And the reason it’s not a contradiction is because God’s ultimate goal for all things will not be reached until the bride of Christ experiences her fullest possible pleasure in her beloved Jesus Christ, who is God, blessed forever. Amen (Romans 9:5).

I’m an Edwardsean lover of the glory of God down to my toes. When Edwards speaks of
God’s glory as the goal of all things, my heart soars:

It appears that all that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works is included in that one phrase, “the glory of God”; . . . In the creature’s knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged; his fullness is received and returned. Here is both emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair. (The End for Which God Created the World, 526, 531)

Amen. Could anything be more God-centered, God-exalting, God-entranced! And yet tucked away in that God-besotted paragraph is an explosive statement worth giving your life to: “In the creature’s . . . rejoicing in . . . God, the glory of God is exhibited.” That is, “In the creature’s pleasure in God, the glory of God is exhibited.” If that is true, then truth triumphs through pleasure. And for you and your people to attain that pleasure is to share in the triumph.

So, to explain and defend this claim from Scripture, I will try to clarify four connections.

The connection between truth and ultimate reality
The connection between ultimate reality and God
The connection between God and preciousness
The connection between preciousness and pleasure

1. The Connection Between Truth and Ultimate Reality

The biblical words for “truth” (emet and amunah in Hebrew and alētheia in Greek) are used with many different connotations and nuances. When you preach, you don’t take a definition from Piper or MacArthur at a conference and lay it on that text. You pay close attention to the peculiar usage of the word true or truth in that text to see that it carries its own weight.

What I’m going to do here is take hold of two of those many connotations in order to draw out the point that’s relevant for this message, especially the connection between truth and ultimate reality.

First, then, most commonly we speak, and the Bible often speaks, of “truth” as a characteristic of things we say, a characteristic of assertions or statements or propositions. For example, Proverbs 12:17: “Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.” When we think of truth in this way, it means that our statements correspond to reality. If I say, “My wife is 5 feet, 7 inches tall,” that would be true. But if the reality is that she is 6 feet tall, that statement would not be true. It would not correspond to the reality.

But, second, what is not as common in our speech, but is also a view of “truth” in the Bible, is that the reality to which true statements correspond is called “truth.” For example, when Peter was being delivered by the angel from prison in Acts 12, Luke writes, “[Peter] went out and followed [the angel]. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real [or true], but thought he was seeing a vision” (Acts 12:9). Or Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:8, “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true.” Meaning: We are not fake apostles. We are real.

This is the meaning of truth that I want to take hold of and press into. Truth not only states reality; it is reality. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). “I am . . . the truth.” And Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” — the real God, the God who is reality. And Jesus Christ is the truth not only because he speaks the truth, but because the ultimate reality about which he speaks is himself.

So, two things have become clear. One is that the Bible uses the word truth or true to refer to what is real, not just statements about what is real. What is real? Truth refers to reality. Truth is not just the opposite of a lie; it is the opposite of an illusion, the opposite of the unreal.

And the second thing that has become clear is that we are confronted with the question of ultimate reality, that is, ultimate truth. When Jesus said, “I am . . . the truth,” and Paul said you serve “the . . . true God,” both are pointing us to the fact that there is such a thing as ultimate reality.

So, we turn to our second point.

2. The Connection Between Ultimate Reality and God

This is the most obvious. But we need to see it and say it to get us where we are going — to preciousness and pleasure. What is ultimate reality? Which we have seen is the same as asking, What is ultimate truth? I think the most fundamental response that God ever gave to that question is found in Exodus 3:13–14.

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

The very least God intends to communicate when he says, “I am,” is “I! A personal being! I am talking to you. I am a person. This is not wind. Or thunder. Or an earthquake. Or a waterfall. I am talking to you. And I am about to electrify you with this truth, this reality: ‘I am who I am.’”

And the next most obvious thing he means is, “I exist. I am real. I am not a myth. I am not imagined. I am not an opiate for the masses. I am not a Freudian projection of wish-fulfillment. I am real. I am more real than the ground you stand on, more real than the sun in your solar system, the skin on your bones, the galaxies at the end of the universe. And the reason I am more real than they are is because their reality is dependent on my reality. Their being depends on my being. Only I can say, ‘I am who I am.’ Everything else must say, ‘I am because he is.’”

This is the way ultimate truth talks: “I am who I am.” Ultimate truth says,

Nobody made me this way. I simply am. I never had a beginning. I never became. I simply was, from all eternity. Nor will I ever end. I depend on nothing to be what I am — no cause, no support, no counsel. Instead, everything depends absolutely on me. Everything is secondary to me. The universe is infinitesimal to me. I carry it in my pocket like a peanut. I never develop, and I cannot be improved. I am absolute fullness, perfection. I conform to nothing outside myself, and therefore I am the standard and measure of all truth and goodness and beauty. There are no constraints from outside me to prevent me from doing what I please. My actions are always free, never dictated from outside. The good pleasure of my will always holds sway. I always act in perfect conformity to the infinite value of my inexhaustible fullness. I am who I am.

For many years I have circled back to this text like a lightning bug staring at the sun and have found it to be electrifying — that God simply is. Explosive. Wild. Untamable. A brightness that changes absolutely everything. God is ultimate reality. That is, ultimate Truth.

Which brings me now to the third point.

3. The Connection Between God and Preciousness

So, step one was that one biblical facet of truth is that it refers to reality, and we are led to see that there is an ultimate reality. And the second step was that this ultimate reality is God, absolute reality, “I am who I am.” And now step three: the connection between God (reality, truth!) and preciousness.

Is ultimate reality ultimately valuable? Is ultimate reality of infinite worth? Is ultimate reality ultimately precious? Let me ask the questions in another way (and then tell you why I’m doing it): Is ultimate reality ultimate value? Is ultimate reality infinite worth? Is ultimate reality ultimate preciousness? Perhaps you see what I’ve done. I’m going beyond saying God has value, has worth, has preciousness, and I’m pushing it further to say that God is value, and God is worth, and God is preciousness. Worth and value and preciousness are intrinsic to God. They are aspects of who he is.

Here’s why I go there. The vast majority of human beings are not born again. Our calling is to do what we can to win them. They are perishing. And we do not want them to perish. “Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. . . . I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19, 22).

But if we ask any of those people, before they are born again, whether ultimate reality (God) is valuable, the only categories they have in their minds (the mind of the flesh) for assessing value are the categories that make themselves the measure of God’s value. So, they might say, “Well, if there is ultimate reality, I would hope that he or she or it would help me with my marriage, or my job, or my health, or my children, or my finances. That would be valuable.” In other words, the measure of God’s value would be the measure of his usefulness in helping them attain the pleasures that this world provides.

“If the kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure, it’s because the King is a treasure.”

Some of those people come to your church. And many of your people are talking to them every week. I’m suggesting that this new set of questions might jar them loose from the limits of their categories. (It might jar you loose!) Is God ultimate value? Is God infinite worth? Is God ultimate preciousness? Not just, Does God become useful to me? but, Is God in himself infinite worth and value and preciousness?

I think if we don’t answer that question with a resounding yes, either explicitly or implicitly, our theology, our worship, and our obedience tend to go off the rails. Profound things are at stake here in the way we live, in the way we do ministry.

So, let’s look at some Scriptures to see whether or not we have biblical warrant for giving that resounding yes.

Matthew 13:44

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

If the kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure, it’s because the King is a treasure. Heaven will be heaven because God is there. That is the ultimate promise: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). That’s the consummation of the kingdom, and that is ultimately why the kingdom is a treasure. God is a treasure. God is infinite preciousness.

2 Corinthians 4:6–7

God . . . has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

The glory of God in the face of Christ is treasure in the jar of clay. The presence of God is the presence of infinite preciousness.

2 Peter 1:3–4

[By God’s] glory and excellence . . . [God] has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

The promises of God are precious, because they ultimately hold out to us the presence of God, the presence of Christ. Here’s what I lay myself down to sleep with each night: “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10). The end and goal of all the promises is “live with him.” We know that “in [his] presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

1 Peter 1:18–19

You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

The blood of Jesus is not precious because it saved us. It saved us because it’s precious. And it’s precious because he’s precious.

1 Peter 2:4–6

You come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious. . . . It stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,     a cornerstone chosen and precious.”

This is God’s evaluation, not man’s: in God’s sight God the Son is precious.

Revelation 21:10–11

He . . . showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare [precious] jewel.

The glory of God filling the city is the city’s preciousness.

Revelation 5:12

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,to receive power and wealth and wisdom and mightand honor and glory and blessing!

To be sure, the creative power of the Lord and the saving deeds of the Lord are sometimes given as reasons for why we praise him as worthy. But oh, how artificial it would be, especially in view of this text, to abstract the deeds from the Person, and to say that his actions create his worthiness, rather than that his worthiness is being shown through his actions. No. No. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” means worthy is the Lamb, and therefore he was slain, and accomplished everything, because he is infinitely precious.

“The promises of God are precious because they ultimately hold out to us the presence of God.”

From these texts and many others, I can conclude infinite worth, and infinite value, and infinite preciousness are in God. God the Father enjoys God the Son as infinitely precious (1 Peter 2:4–6). Preciousness is in the Trinity. Preciousness is from eternity. It belongs to the nature of God.

Which brings us now to our fourth and final connection.

4. The Connection Between Preciousness and Pleasure

So, the first point was that one biblical facet of truth is that it refers to reality (not just statements about reality), and we are led by Scripture to see that there is an ultimate reality, ultimate Truth. Second, this ultimate reality is God. Absolute personal reality. “I am who I am.” Third, this God is infinite worth. He is in his very nature infinite preciousness.

Now, how does pleasure connect to this preciousness and bring about the triumph of truth? We see the answer when we ask the Bible, “What is the fitting response of a human soul to infinite preciousness?”
You decide what the answer is from four clusters of biblical texts.

Matthew and Hebrews

First, we go back to Matthew 13:44.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field [a very precious discovery], which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

The human response that correlates with treasure is joy. A joy that is so deep and comprehensive that it prompts one to happily lose everything to get the treasure — to get the preciousness.

Then we see this lived out in Hebrews 10:34 with a beautiful sacrifice of love:

You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one [more precious, more lasting].

And the human response that correlates with that more precious, more lasting possession was joy: “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.”

Philippians and Habakkuk

The second cluster of texts is from Philippians and Habakkuk. Twice in Philippians Paul says to rejoice: “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 3:1), and then doubly, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Why is that so fitting? Why joy?

He answers in Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Joy in the Lord is fitting because the Lord has surpassing worth. He is infinitely precious.

He is more precious than food, and life itself, as Psalm 63:3 says, “Your steadfast love is better than life.” But this is most graphic in Habakkuk 3:17–18:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,     nor fruit be on the vines,the produce of the olive fail     and the fields yield no food,the flock be cut off from the fold     and there be no herd in the stalls,yet I will rejoice in the Lord;     I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

In other words, God himself is so precious in himself that when life has become impossible, and starvation is imminent, this man of God will rejoice. Because the proper and fitting response of the human soul to infinite preciousness is joy.

Hebrews and Psalms

The third cluster of texts is from Hebrews and Psalms. When Moses faced the choice of whether to remain in the riches and comforts and securities and pleasures of Pharaoh’s house, or lead God’s people through the wilderness at great cost to himself, here’s what happened in his soul according to Hebrews 11:25–26.

[Moses chose] rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

On the one hand I have pleasures, so goes Moses’s logic, in the land of Egypt that are fleeting. And on the other hand, I have greater wealth, greater preciousness, than all the treasures of Egypt, in the reward that is coming to me in the presence of God. The pleasures with God are greater and longer than the pleasures of Egypt, because God is a greater reward, a greater preciousness.

And David in Psalm 16 has no hesitancy to call our experiences in God’s presence pleasures.

My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. . . .

You make known to me the path of life;     in your presence there is fullness of joy;     at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (verses 9, 11)

The gladness of the heart now is a foretaste of those pleasures, as we taste and see even now the preciousness of the Lord.

Matthew and 2 Thessalonians

The final cluster of texts to show us which human response is fitting to God’s preciousness are texts that call this response love, and bring us finally to the triumph of truth.

Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 10:37,

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

What makes this text so relevant and so radical is that the kind of love he’s talking about is not the kind of love we have for our enemies. This is not blessing those who curse us or doing good to those who hate us (Luke 6:27–28). This is the love we have for our children and our parents. It is the kind of love we have for those who are especially precious to us. To paraphrase: “Whoever loves their most precious human relationship more than Jesus is not worthy of him — won’t have him.”

We are not talking about peripheral or secondary or optional affections here. This is life and death. And the response that corresponds to the superior preciousness of God in Christ over our most precious human possessions and relations is love — the kind of love that finds greatest pleasure in the Beloved. The kind of love that says,

I love your commandments     above gold, above fine gold. (Psalm 119:127)

More to be desired are they than gold,     even much fine gold;sweeter also than honey     and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:10)

This is delight, enjoyment, pleasure. It is the fitting human counterpart to infinite preciousness.

Which brings us finally to a text that connects this pleasure with the triumph of truth.

Beloved Truth Is Triumphant Truth

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9–12 Paul is describing the final appearance of the lawless one whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth.

The coming of the lawless one is . . . with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth [the same kind of love we were just talking about] and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

They did not love the truth. They didn’t treasure the truth. They didn’t find pleasure in the truth as precious. And so, they did not believe the truth, but instead had pleasure in unrighteousness. “The truth” — here it is the word of truth, the gospel of the glory of Christ. This truth is to be loved supremely. We are to find supreme pleasure in the truth because it is the revelation of supreme preciousness.

When, in the final glorification of the saints, the bride of Christ experiences her supreme pleasure in the infinite preciousness that God is in Christ, then the supreme worth, the ultimate value, the infinite preciousness that God is will be fully exhibited in the new creation, and truth — ultimate reality, God himself, infinite preciousness — will be vindicated. Truth will triumph through the pleasure of God’s people in God. Not without it.