ABSTRACT: Since 1690, the history of Christianity in Scotland has been, by and large, a history of Presbyterianism. But beginning in 1750, and especially in the early nineteenth century, Baptist churches began spreading through the land of Knox. The movement multiplied under the leadership of brothers Robert and James Haldane, former Presbyterians who preached, evangelized, and sent pastors to plant Baptist churches across the country. In the time since the Haldanes, Scotland’s Baptist churches have labored for unity and resisted a compromised ecumenism, and today they look for renewal in the United Kingdom’s least religious nation.

For our ongoing series of feature articles, we asked Nick Needham (PhD, University of Edinburgh), lecturer in church history at Highland Theological College, to offer a brief history of Baptists in Scotland.

After the Scottish Reformation of 1560, Scotland’s national church embraced a form of incipient Presbyterianism. However, a battle between Presbyterians and Episcopalians followed for the next 130 years, as each faction strove to capture the national church. The battle was won by Presbyterians in 1690, when Scotland and England drove out their last Stuart king, James II, a Roman Catholic who had favored Episcopalians. Presbyterianism was then definitively established as the Scottish national church’s polity, with the Westminster Confession as its doctrinal standard.

What about Baptists? The first Baptist churches in Scotland were formed in the mid-seventeenth century by English soldiers in Oliver Cromwell’s army. The English army conquered and occupied Scotland in 1651–1652, and many of its Puritan warriors were devout Baptists. However, these Baptist churches did not survive the withdrawal of the English army in 1660.

Old Scotch Baptists

The first native Scottish Baptist church was founded in 1750 by Sir William Sinclair (1707–1768) at Keiss in the Highlands. Sinclair, a wealthy landowner, came to Baptist convictions through meeting Baptists either while serving in the British army or on a separate visit to London, where many Baptist churches existed. His preaching in the Highlands attracted enough interest for a congregation of thirty to be founded. That congregation still exists, although it has now united with the Baptist church in Wick.1

Shortly after Sinclair’s activities, another Scottish Baptist church was founded, in Edinburgh in 1765, led by Robert Carmichael (dates uncertain) and Archibald Maclean (1733–1812). This church adopted a distinctive church polity, with no paid pastor and government by elders who earned their livelihood “in the world.” Carmichael had been a Presbyterian minister, but he embraced first Congregationalist then Baptist views. Maclean, who helped Carmichael provide leadership in the church, became their foremost writer and publicist. History knows them as the “Old Scotch Baptists.”

Old Scotch Baptist congregations were also established in Dundee, Glasgow, Galashiels, Kirkcaldy, Paisley, Largo, Aberdeen, Perth, and Newburgh in Scotland, along with several in the north of England. In addition to their distinctive form of church government, they revived the patristic custom of the “love feast” and “kiss of peace” (2 Corinthians 13:12) and held to a Sandemanian view of saving faith. Named for Scottish Congregationalist theologian Robert Sandeman (1718–1771), this was the view that faith is rooted in the intellect, not the will, and consists in “pure passive conviction” of the gospel’s truth.

Apart from their doctrine of faith and Brethren-style polity, the Old Scotch Baptists followed the Reformed tradition. They formed the majority of Scottish Baptist churches for the next seventy years. However, their significance decreased over that period, and they underwent a steep numerical decline thereafter. This decline was owing to debilitating internal divisions and an inability to “compete” with the aggressive evangelistic outreach of a new generation of Scottish Baptists outside the Old Scotch tradition.

Haldanes: Brothers and Evangelists

A more vigorous and orthodox second wave of Scottish Baptist churches emerged in the early nineteenth century through the evangelistic labors of the Haldane brothers, Robert (1764–1842) and James (1768–1851).2 The Haldanes’ ministry was the Scottish equivalent of the Second Great Awakening. Their father, James Haldane, was a Scot with an ancestral estate at Airthrey Castle in Stirlingshire. A captain in the British army, he died of a fever in 1768, so Robert remembered little of him, and James nothing. Still, Captain Haldane seems to have been a Christian. His widow, Katherine, certainly tried to instill the Christian faith into Robert and James. Robert said of his mother, “She lived very near to God and much grace was given to her.” Sadly, Katherine died in 1774.

Having lost both their parents young, Robert (from the age of ten) and James (from the age of six) were brought up by two uncles. Their early instruction in Christianity now seems to have evaporated. By the time they reached adulthood, the brothers were both utterly unspiritual young men. Nominally, they attended the Church of Scotland, at a time when that was the accepted practice socially; but their hearts were in the world. Both embarked on naval careers — Robert in the Royal Navy, James in the East India merchant service.

Robert’s Conversion

As a young naval officer, Robert Haldane distinguished himself in action against the French. But very soon, Robert’s mind was beginning to remember the faith he had learned in his childhood. His ship was stationed at Gosport in the south of England, where there was a Congregational church, pastored by David Bogue. Bogue was an evangelical who had initially trained for the Church of Scotland ministry. Robert took every opportunity to attend Bogue’s ministry. Although it did not lead to his conversion, it seems to have made a serious impact on his thinking.

After brief but distinguished service, Robert left the Royal Navy in 1783. In 1785 he married Katherine Oswald, and the following year he and Katherine took up the life of a young country gentleman and lady on the ancestral Haldane estate of Airthrey.

The factor that finally aroused Robert Haldane to reclaim the faith of his childhood was, perhaps surprisingly, the French Revolution of 1789. That is, we may find it surprising; but the French Revolution had a cataclysmic effect on the minds and hearts of Europeans far beyond the borders of France. The middle classes of France organized a successful seizure of power from a bloated monarchy and aristocracy, destroyed the entrenched privileges of the Roman Catholic Church, and began transforming their country into a militant secular democracy. Europe’s conservative upper classes trembled; the young, the radical, fancied they saw the rebirth of humanity.

Robert Haldane was initially rapturous about the revolution. In his own words, he looked for

the universal abolition of slavery, of war, and of many other miseries that mankind were exposed to. I rejoiced in the experiment that was making in France of the construction of a government at once from its foundation upon a regular plan. In every company I delighted in discussing this favourite subject and endeavoured to point out the vast advantages that I thought might be expected as the result.3

However, among Robert’s friends were evangelical ministers who had a different attitude. Unlike Robert, they believed in original sin — the bondage of the natural heart to radical evil. A mere change of government, they argued, could not change the heart. “Wait and see,” they said. “The revolution in France will produce misery and bloodshed.” They were proved tragically right.

The impact of the French Revolution led Robert to consider everything afresh. This, coupled with Robert’s friendship with evangelical ministers, prompted him to study the Bible, beginning in January 1794. The question now gripped him: Was Christianity actually true? In pursuit of answers, he read all the classic eighteenth-century works of apologetics, by such acute thinkers as Bishop Joseph Butler and William Paley. As Robert undertook these studies, he gradually passed from unbelief to faith. By 1795, at the age of thirty, he had emerged from his quest for truth as a convinced evangelical Christian.

James’s Conversion

What about Robert’s younger brother, James? Remarkably, his thoughts were also turning anew to Christianity. James had thus far lived a very worldly life in the East India merchant service. He drank too much; he took part in deadly duels to satisfy his sense of honor. James married his first wife in 1793 after being appointed as captain of the merchant ship Melville Castle. This was Mary Joass, only daughter of Major Alexander Joass. (After her death in 1819, James married in 1822 Margaret, daughter of Dr. Daniel Rutherford, the maternal uncle of the great novelist Sir Walter Scott.)

James’s marriage to Mary seems to have had a stabilizing effect on him. In his spare time on board ship, he soon began reading his Bible. Like Robert, he studied the question of Christianity’s evidence. In James’s own words:

I had a book by me, which, from prejudice of education, and not from any rational conviction, I called the Word of God. I never went so far as to profess infidelity [atheism], but I was a more inconsistent character — I said that I believed a book to be a revelation from God, whilst I treated it with the greatest neglect, living in direct opposition to all its precepts, and seldom taking the trouble to look into it, or if I did, it was to perform a task — a kind of atonement for my sins. I went on in this course till, whilst the Melville Castle was detained at the Motherbank by contrary winds, and having abundance of leisure for reflection, I began to think that I would pay a little more attention to this book. The more I read it, the more worthy it appeared of God; and after examining the evidences with which Christianity is supported, I became fully persuaded of its truth.4

James resigned from his naval command and settled in Edinburgh in 1795, aged 27. Shortly afterward, his newfound belief in Christianity blossomed into an authentic personal faith. Interestingly, in this process the Reformed doctrine of election was a key factor in accomplishing James’s conversion. Acts 13:48 had a great impact on him: “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” James commented,

My whole system as to free will was overturned. I saw that being ordained to eternal life was not the consequence of faith, but that the children of God believed because they were ordained. This gave a considerable blow to my self-righteousness, and henceforth I read the Scriptures more in a childlike spirit.5

Mission Scotland

The two brothers were now reunited in the faith their mother had taught them. Their converted minds naturally turned to what they could do to help advance Christ’s kingdom on earth. The true hope of humanity, Robert now believed, did not lie in French revolutionary politics, but in the transforming effect of the gospel. Robert was deeply stirred by accounts of William Carey’s missionary work in India. Inspired by this, he planned a mission to Bengal in 1796–1797.

But the scheme ground to a halt with invincible opposition from the East India Company, which virtually controlled India. One of the company’s directors is reputed to have said, “I would rather see a band of devils in India than a band of missionaries.” The East India Company feared that Christian missionaries would cause major social upheaval in India, antagonizing Muslims and Hindus, which would hamper the Company’s operations. So, Robert was frustrated and defeated in his impulse to be an Indian missionary. But this frustration led to an unexpected new vision. Were there not masses of unconverted people in the Haldanes’ own homeland? The conviction now gripped Robert and James that their true work was in their native country.

“The Haldanes’ ministry was the Scottish equivalent of the Second Great Awakening.”

This new vision of “Mission Scotland” won over James first. He resolved to make the experiment of evangelizing in public. His first sermon was delivered at the mining village of Gilmerton, near Crieff, on May 6, 1797. Emboldened by his brother’s example, Robert followed suit. His first sermon was preached at Weem, near Aberfeldy, in April 1798. Here was a novelty: two laymen of the Church of Scotland, without formal theological education, rich and respectable members of the gentry — and they had become itinerant preachers!

The Haldanes’ denomination, the Church of Scotland, was not impressed by what they were doing. The national church at that time was dominated by the Moderate party, who leaned to rationalism in their theology. In particular, Moderates opposed evangelicals, who were a growing force in the Church of Scotland as a result of Britain’s evangelical revival in the 1740s. The dominant Moderate party regarded evangelicals as religious fanatics and, therefore, did not look kindly on the lay evangelism of the Haldanes. This resulted in the church’s General Assembly of 1799 issuing an infamous pastoral admonition against unqualified preachers. The assembly decreed that this admonition must be read from every Church of Scotland pulpit in the land, warning congregations against the “evils” of what men like the Haldanes were doing.

The Haldanes were committed not only to itinerant preaching. They also formed the Edinburgh Tract Society for printing and distributing evangelistic literature, and they set up Sabbath Evening Schools. In July 1797, James began his celebrated evangelistic tour of the north of Scotland, stretching from Perth to the Orkneys. This Highland preaching tour was the first in a series of ten, from 1797–1807. In January 1798, the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home was founded, with Robert Haldane as its directing mind. The Society sent out itinerant evangelists, catechists, and schoolteachers. Most of finance came from Robert, who was in modern terms a millionaire. He sold his estate in Airthrey to finance the activities. Between 1799 and 1810, he spent around £70,000 on the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home (that would be millions of dollars in present-day currency).

For ten years, Robert trained the evangelists in a seminary; classes were held in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Elgin, and Grantown. The students learned Hebrew, Greek, Latin, systematic theology, rhetoric, and homiletics. Good libraries for the students were established. Some three hundred preachers were trained and sent out. Gaelic speakers were enlisted for the Highlands — this became an important factor for the spread of evangelicalism there.

Alongside these efforts, the Haldanes also set up preaching centers (“tabernacles”) where visiting preachers proclaimed the gospel. Robert, once more, financed the tabernacles, which were built in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Perth, Thurso, Elgin, Wick, Dunkeld, and Dumfries. The greatest of the Haldane tabernacles was in Edinburgh. The Haldanes at this time had no thought of establishing a new denomination; the tabernacles were purely mission centers for evangelizing the unchurched. Robert and James still took holy communion regularly in the Church of Scotland.

Haldane Baptists and English Baptists

However, Robert and James broke with the national church in late 1798. They had a change of mind about New Testament teaching on church government, becoming convinced Congregationalists. Thereupon a new Congregational church was founded, in January 1799, meeting in the Edinburgh Tabernacle with James as pastor (although he continued to evangelize on a wide geographical basis). There were only twelve members in the new congregation when it was formed; but it soon grew, and the numbers topped the three hundred mark.

Scottish Congregationalism thus received a new lease of life from the Haldane movement. After a decade, however, in 1808, the Haldanes had another change of mind. They now renounced their belief in infant baptism and became Baptists. This change divided their movement. For example, in the Edinburgh tabernacle, a majority of James Haldane’s congregation followed him, reconstituting themselves as a Baptist church, but a minority withdrew and formed a new Congregational paedobaptist church. James Haldane wrote an important account of his change of mind that same year, entitled Reasons of a change of sentiment and practice on the subject of baptism — a classic of Scottish Baptist theology. The Haldane Baptist churches were theologically distinct from the Old Scotch Baptists; the Haldanes accepted the idea of a single full-time pastor and rejected the Sandemanianism of the Old Scotch Baptists. This put the “Haldane Baptists” entirely in the historic mainstream of Reformed theology.

The Haldane revival spread a new wave of Reformed Congregational and Baptist churches across Scotland. Prior to this, Scotland had few Congregational and Baptist churches. From 1798 to 1807, no fewer than eighty-five Congregational churches were planted throughout Scotland by Haldane preachers; many of these churches then became Baptist. In a real sense, then, Robert and James Haldane were the founding fathers of Scottish Congregational and Baptist church life. These churches were committed to evangelical Calvinism, which gave a fresh impetus to the renewal of Reformed theology in Scotland.

Somewhat distinct from the Haldane Baptist churches was a parallel movement known as the “English Baptist churches.”6 The name is confusing since they were on Scottish soil. What the name signified was their adoption of the church polity practiced by English Baptists — a paid pastor — in opposition to the Old Scotch Baptists with their Brethren-like leadership by lay elders. They also opposed the Old Scotch Baptists’ Sandemanianism, confessing the traditional Reformed view of faith as rooted in the affections and will, not the intellect alone. This position aligned them theologically with the Haldane Baptists; but there were differences, since the English Baptist churches originated some years prior to the Haldanes’ acceptance of Baptist views. They looked more decidedly to the long-established Reformed Baptists of England, rather than to the Haldanes, for guidance and support. Still, one cannot too sharply separate the English Baptist churches of Scotland from the Haldane movement. Some of the English Baptist leaders in Scotland received their training in the Haldanes’ seminary. The boundary between Scotland’s English Baptists and Haldane Baptists was open and fluid.

The first English Baptist church in Scotland was the congregation at Kilwinning, formed in 1803 under the pastoral leadership of George Barclay (1774–1838). Barclay had been trained by the Haldanes, but they at this point were still Congregationalists. Barclay’s Kilwinning church thus preceded the embrace of Baptist views by his Haldane mentors. Another English Baptist church was established in Edinburgh in January 1808, led by Christopher Anderson (1782–1852) — once again before the Haldanes became Baptists. This was Charlotte Chapel, which would become the twentieth century’s largest and best-known Baptist church in Scotland. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Scottish Baptist churches that followed the “English” model of a single full-time pastor (whether they were Haldane Baptists or from the English Baptist movement) had come greatly to outnumber the Old Scotch Baptists.

Toward a Baptist Union

The next major phase in Scottish Baptist life was the attempt to found a Baptist Union — a federation of Scottish Baptist congregations, united for common prayer and cooperative endeavor.7 The first attempt was made in 1827, comprising an entirely Reformed body of churches. However, it did not prosper owing to internal dissensions. A second attempt was made in 1835; this endured until 1842, sputtering into failure due to lack of widespread support (it involved only Highland congregations). It had a different theological orientation from the first Union, since the 1835 body did not insist on Reformed theology — evangelical Arminians were eligible to belong.

The third attempt to form a Baptist Union came in 1843–1849. This attempt was dominated by the Arminian Francis Johnston, a disciple of Charles Finney. Although at first Johnston continued the inclusive Calvinist-Arminian policy of the 1835 union, his Arminianism became increasingly militant, so that in 1850 he reorganized the union into an exclusively Arminian body. This exclusivism caused its implosion.

The fourth attempt to form a Baptist Union, from 1856–1869, reverted to the older inclusive approach. Almost all the Scottish pastors of the 1856 Scottish Baptist Association were Calvinists, but they prioritized evangelical catholicity over Reformed confessionalism. Arminians, as long as they were evangelical, were welcome to join. The association was then reorganized at Glasgow’s Hope Street Chapel in 1869 as the Baptist Union of Scotland, a body that has endured to the present day. It stated at its founding,

That a Union of Evangelical Baptist churches of Scotland is desirable and practicable, and that its objects should be to promote Evangelical religion in connection with the Baptist denomination in Scotland, to cultivate brotherly affection and to secure co-operation in everything related to the interests of the associated churches.8

More than half Scotland’s Baptist churches joined the 1869 Baptist Union — fifty-one congregations, representing roughly four thousand church members. The union strove to affirm the principle of evangelical catholicity in continuity with the Scottish Baptist Association, and (equally) in line with a far broader trend among British evangelicals to unite across old confessional divides. This pursuit of evangelical catholicity was in response to the challenges of a resurgent Roman Catholicism in Britain and a growing secular liberalism in British culture.

Persistence Without Spectacle

The story of Scottish Baptist churches in the twentieth century, and on into the twenty-first, has little spectacular about it, although lack of spectacle does not diminish its significance. The Baptist Union of Scotland outshone all its predecessors by surviving, growing, and perpetuating itself with considerable vigor. One of its most notable institutions to that end was the Scottish Baptist College, founded in 1894 to train men for ministry. The college met in a succession of places in Glasgow, finally in large premises in Aytoun Road. In 2001, the college relocated to the Paisley campus of the University of the West of Scotland. The Baptist Union of Scotland today comprises 156 congregations with almost ten thousand members. The Union is broadly evangelical in outlook, with some churches holding to a Reformed theology in their preaching and teaching.

Some moments of drama marked the relationship between the Baptist Union of Scotland and the ecumenical movement.9 The union was a founding member of the British Council of Churches in 1942, a body that involved Unitarians but not Roman Catholics. In 1948, the union joined the World Council of Churches. This led to energetic dissent from some churches, especially the largest Baptist church in Scotland, Charlotte Chapel (at the time a member of the Baptist Union). In fact, Charlotte Chapel withdrew from the Baptist Union in protest. After some controversy, the Baptist Union reversed its decision and came out of the World Council in 1955. But Charlotte Chapel did not rejoin the Baptist Union, unhappy at the union’s continued membership in the British Council of Churches. So began Charlotte Chapel’s history as an independent church.

There was another twist in 1989, when the Scottish branch of the British Council morphed into ACTS (Action of Churches Together in Scotland), effectively the Scottish expression of the World Council of Churches. The Baptist Union of Scotland voted on a series of possible attitudes to ACTS, ranging from full membership to total rejection. It voted for total rejection. This remains the case today.

Outside the Baptist Union, the tradition of independent Baptist church life continued. The most well-known of the independent Baptist churches is Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh, which (as we saw) left the Baptist Union in 1955. A very large congregation, especially after the impactful evangelistic ministry of Joseph Kemp (1902–1915), it had a succession of influential and eminent pastors — Graham Scroggie (pastor 1916–1933), Sidlow Baxter (1935–1953), Gerald Griffiths (1954–1962), Alan Redpath (1962–1966), and Derek Prime (1969–1987). These men were all widely recognized in the evangelical community for their preaching and writing.

Two other forms of Scotland’s Baptist life are the small Scottish branch of the Grace Baptist network of churches — whose congregations subscribe either to the historic 1689 Confession of Faith or the very similar 1966 Baptist Affirmation of Faith — and Baptist churches belonging to the UK-wide Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).

Today, Baptists are an entrenched part of Scotland’s religious life. They are not united in a single denomination, but spread across the Baptist Union, the Grace Baptists, the FIEC, and a significant number of unaffiliated congregations. Some from all these categories belong to Affinity, the name now given to the British Evangelical Council founded in 1952, partly under the inspiration of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The great majority of Scottish Baptist churches are evangelical, but only a minority are Reformed. Over the past decade, the Reformed Baptist churches have found a new sense of connection in the annual Scottish Reformed Baptist conference held at Pitlochry.

Worship in Secular Scotland

Scottish Baptist churches, in common with all evangelical churches in Scotland, face a challenge previously unknown in Scottish Protestant history. The secularization of Scottish society has been swift and far-reaching. Of the four nations making up the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland), Scotland is now the least religious. Gone are the romantic days of Christian Scotland, whether we contemplate the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the era of the Covenanters in the seventeenth, the blessings of the evangelical revival in the eighteenth, or the time of the Haldanes in the nineteenth. Baptist churches are now tiny oases of spiritual life in a vast surrounding desert of religious apathy or scornful hostility. Therefore, “brothers, pray for us” (1 Thessalonians 5:25).

Audio Transcript

We talked about Christian Hedonism last week. And we’re back to it today. We are pleasure-seekers. We are in pursuit of our own highest happiness. Or as you said it last time, Pastor John, “We zealously seek to maximize, in every way we can, our joy in God now and forever.” And such a zealous commitment to our own joy raises an objection for many people. Does that mean Christian Hedonists deny self-denial? In an email from Erin, a young woman who listens to the podcast, comes this question: “Hello, Pastor John! How does self-denial fit with Christian Hedonism, the endless pursuit of our greatest happiness?”

Well, my mind just explodes with things to say. But before I say half a dozen crazy wonderful things about the eternal benefits of self-denial, I have to nail down something with absolute clarity. If we don’t get this, everything I say about self-denial will not be biblical. When I speak of the pursuit of our greatest and longest happiness, I am speaking of God himself being that happiness, not primarily his gifts. His gifts are wonderful, but they’re not primary. Psalm 16:11 is essential here: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

God’s Gifts Lead Us to God

The difference between Christian Hedonism and the prosperity gospel is that the prosperity gospel downplays suffering and foregrounds material blessing. Christian Hedonism says, “God makes no promises of earthly material prosperity to his children.” None. On the contrary, he promises them again and again that the path that leads to heaven is the path of sacrifice and often suffering. The goal of Christian Hedonism is to attain final, full, eternal happiness in God, not prosperity on earth.

As wonderful as his gifts are — and they are infinitely wonderful — they are all designed to remove barriers or build bridges to God himself as our supreme enjoyment. First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ . . . suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” — and he does not expect us to be disappointed when we get there.

Propitiation removes the wrath of God so that we can enjoy him as our friend.
Regeneration takes away the deadness of our hearts so that we can be alive to delight in God.
God’s effectual calling is a calling into the fellowship and the delights of his beloved Son.
Justification puts us in the right standing with God so that we don’t have to be afraid anymore of condemnation in the presence of our all-satisfying Judge.
Forgiveness of sins removes the barrier of guilt between us and our enjoyment of the infinitely holy Maker.
Eternal life is defined as knowing God and his Son in the most intimate fellowship (John 17:3).

All the gifts of God are designed to enable us to enjoy God. That’s the aim of creation; that’s the aim of redemption: the magnifying of the worth and beauty and greatness of God through the satisfying of the human soul with the friendship and the glory of God. So, that’s fundamental. That’s the beginning of any talk about self-denial.

Why We Deny Ourselves

What then is biblical self-denial and its biblical role in the Christian life? Biblical self-denial is the sacrifice of any earthly pleasures for the sake of gaining greater pleasure in God, both in this life and especially in the next.

1. For example, Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” So, the aim of loss, the aim of self-denial is gain, gain, gain — and not the gain of worldly pleasures, but the gain of more Christ, more of Christ.

2. 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.” So, selling, losing, forfeiting, denying all that we have is for the purpose of gaining the greatest treasure in the universe: King Jesus. So, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy.” Why? “Provide yourselves with . . . treasure in the heavens” — namely, the enjoyments of Christ (Luke 12:33).

3. Mark 8:34–35: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For” — here’s the reason you should — “whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Save it — that’s your goal. Save it. Save it for what? For Christ, for the enjoyments of Christ.

4. Here’s the way Jesus clarifies that saying in John 12:25: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” You hate your life in this world and you gain it forever. And what is that eternal life that you gain by losing your life? John 17:3 says, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” We lose our lives to gain our lives — namely, knowing God forever.

5. Hebrews 12:2: “[Look] to Jesus . . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” The greatest act of self-denial that has ever been performed in the history of the world was performed and sustained by joy — “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross.” He gave himself to the worst suffering to gain for himself the worship of millions.

“Biblical self-denial is the sacrifice of any earthly pleasures for the sake of gaining greater pleasure in God.”

6. Luke 6:35 — and this text combines the shocking no reward, full reward: “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great.” I love the way Jesus shocks us again and again with the way he puts words together. So, let the satisfaction of your reward from God in heaven be so deep that you don’t need any rewards here. Oh, what a countercultural, counterintuitive life that would be, right? We don’t need any rewards here. We can deny ourselves whatever love requires that we deny because he has promised us such a reward. That’s exactly the way Jesus argues in Luke 6:35.

7. Luke 14:13–14: “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” There it is again. “For” — here’s the reason — “you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” In other words, be so confident and so satisfied with the joy of what is coming to you at the resurrection in your fellowship with Jesus forever that you can make sacrifices. You can make whatever self-denial payments or sacrifices are needed to serve the poor and invite people over who cannot pay you back.

The Blasphemy of Ultimate Self-Denial

Now, those are seven passages, and I think I could add a dozen more to those texts. If someone should say to me, “Now, Piper, you don’t really believe in self-denial. You don’t, because all of your illustrations of self-denial are really aimed at satisfying the self,” my response would be, “Oh, I believe in biblical self-denial. I believe in self-denial on earth. I believe in martyrdom. I believe in sacrifice. I believe in love. But I do not believe in ultimate self-denial, because ultimate self-denial is blasphemy.”

Let me illustrate. Suppose I stand at the pearly gates and God holds out his hands to me and says, “Here I am, John — your lifelong desire, your great reward. I am your God, and in my presence is fullness of joy, and there are pleasures at my right hand. Enter, John, my son. Enter into the joy of your master.” If my response to that welcome would be, “Thank you anyway. I did not come here for delights. I did not come here for satisfaction. I did not come here for the rewards of your presence and your beauty and your worth and your greatness. I intend to deny myself all those pleasures forever.” That, Tony — that, listeners — is blasphemy. The only way to glorify God at that moment is to say, “Yes, Lord. This is what I have longed for all my life” — and then enter.

My evening reading that night was Romans 1–8. As the final page fell, sleep seized me, and I drifted into a dream.

I stood outside of a courtroom called Judgment Seat. August and austere, that courthouse appeared to me as the one great destination of all the earth. I entered willingly, though I later wondered if I had any choice.

Inside, demons and angels swarmed. “Judgment,” I overheard one angel say to another, “must begin at the house of God.” I took my seat in the courtroom, although some eyes rested upon me as though I did not truly belong.

Before I could spare the matter another thought, the doors flung open, and silence grabbed each creature by the tongue. Even the malevolent ones, those gods of the nations, were reduced to muffled sneers. The man entered enchained, head fallen, Amartōlos1 his name — though he shuddered to own it. He moved, so it seemed, like a man to his execution. He sat down in his seat — called Shame — with strange willingness, judging by the surprise of one angel behind me, who claimed that most sat down only after a great struggle.

“Holy, holy, holy” shook the courtroom as the Judge took his seat, a sight that I can only now liken to the sun ascending his throne at high noon. The proceeding commenced, and the prosecution began their case by calling one Spirit of the Age to bear his testimony on behalf of his business partner, World.

First Witness: Spirit of the Age

“Judge and jury and good spirits among us,” the spirit began, “I wonder if you have not realized already one who has no true place among the congregation of the righteous.”

At this, I swallowed so hard I thought I heard it echo.

“This man” — pointing at the man they nicknamed Tolos — “oh, how reluctantly do I bear my witness to his disgrace before you, Great and Holy One! I wonder, did you not say in your great book of law that this man ought not to love the world or the things in the world? Indeed, you did. I have it here: ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world’ — and note this next part, good Judge and jury — ‘the love of the Father is not in him.’2 Or, if you’d rather, ‘You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.’3

“The precept is unmistakable, but did this poor villain transgress it? I submit as evidence the first two decades of his life — for the tree must be known by its fruit. Look with the eye of justice, not mercy — ‘Your eye shall not pity him’4 — and you will see ample proof in every word and deed. His whole life flows from one foul source. Unmistakably, he has served a willing slave to the lust of his eyes, the lust of his flesh, and the pride of life.5

“Consider how many varieties of sin lie before you now, sins cataloged by the apostle under divine inspiration: gossip, slander, hating of God, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, disobedience to parents, and even new inventions of evil.6 Look at the criminal — faithless, foolish, heartless, ruthless!7 What could be known about the Most High was plain to him — he knew well enough his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature — but the man neither honored God nor gave him any thanks.8 Instead, he exchanged the glory of the Most High for created things and went into partnership with me and my esteemed colleague here.9 He knew the truth but suppressed it in unrighteousness. Does the defendant deny any of these charges? Should he be true and God a liar?10 Is he not left ‘without excuse’?”11

The eyes of that other world focused on the man, who to them was no older than a boy. Without lifting his head, he stammered, “I have no defense, your Honor. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.”12

Second: Accuser of the Brethren

At this, the proceedings might have ended, but the examination continued with a most adept prosecutor given the title Accuser of the Brethren.

“Excellent start, great Spirit. Now, I must state my relations to the defendant from the onset so as not to indulge unjust scales. The man before you is my son; from birth he has been mine, and I most fraternally his. We have the case clearly given in the eternal decrees: ‘Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.’13 Or, a few verses further, the dividing line is drawn even plainer, the chasm more manifest — phanera, if I may quote the original. ‘By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.’14

“Now, though I do not mean to inconvenience the cosmos with family matters, note that he is not merely guilty, but in fact he is my son and no son of the Most High. He is mine and shall share in my inheritance, come what may. Did not the Most High swear that the woman’s offspring and mine shall have ‘enmity’?15 And while I will not dispute the fact here, let it be known that in identifying with me, in following my course and my way, in producing my works, he cannot but share my fate — as the great laws clearly teach. If some form of justice should prosecute me, then justice, by that same principle, must prosecute mine. Equal scales, I now ask of the court.

“If the dead dog desires to refute my claim over him or deny his service to me, then I shall forgo my gracious manner in this assembly and hail accusations violent — and most true — upon him, my own son. Jealousy for his soul, you see, would drive me to it. He already admitted to sinning not just against law, but against you, the Most High — and the villain now attempts, I fear, to do the same to me. If I be his father, where, dear assembly, is my honor?”16

At this the man stirred not. Only a groan was heard: “Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”17

Third: Conscience

Finally — and this witness was, in my opinion, as damning as the last — the man’s conscience spoke forth a fiery testimony against him, as though he had only this opportunity to speak after many years. Oh, how lengthy and eloquent and exact this witness! He read aloud numberless trespasses, many of which he had been present for, giving his most ardent protest, only to be harshly dispensed with, laughed at, mocked, and finally silenced. These deep secrets of the soul were stripped bare for the rest of us to see — of such an exhaustive nature that the Great Accuser himself recorded new evidence with smiling satisfaction. Rather would I live in a sewer, with most loathsome rats chewing my flesh and disease gnawing at my bones, than ever subject myself to such a precise and detailed record of my sins.

Tolos’s Plea

Finally, the man himself responded.

“I never knew to hate myself as I do at this moment,” Tolos replied, scanning the evidence. “What a villain I have been. My great pleasures have but stored up wrath for myself.18 My throat is an open grave, full of curses and bitterness.19 I have chosen ruin and misery and lived without the fear of God, not deeming it worthwhile to acknowledge him in my thoughts. My mouth is stopped. I am accountable to God. I stand condemned — and this by my own testimony.20 I plead guilty, guilty, guilty on all counts. If you have only justice to give, my due is wrath and fury unending.21

“But this is why I have come.” He finally lifted his head. “I have come to be tried before my time because I have read more in your Book than of law and my sin. ‘Righteousness apart from law’ — ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.’22 All seems a wide word to awaken my hope.

“I can be declared not guilty, legally innocent, and even positively righteous ‘by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.’23 When I, who am evil, give my children gifts, I do not expect them to pay me for it. An open hand is all I require. So, here is my hand — empty of its own merits, stained, tinctured with sin, culprit to countless crimes — yet open to receive mercy from nail-pierced hands. For as plainly as I’ve read the record of my crimes, I’ve read the record of my Savior’s merits. How he fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law. How he was sent ‘for sin’ to ‘condemn sin in the flesh’24 — condemning what stood to condemn me. Wretched man that I am, but wretched man was he made for me, ‘whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.’25 I do receive him!

“The book says — and I faint to believe it — that to all who believe, the verdict upon a whole life of carnal wickedness has been punished at the tree. There you proved that God is ‘just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.’26 My plea is the same as Abraham’s, who ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’27 This is the faith to justify and bequeath ‘peace with God.’28

“So, I bear witness against myself, yes, and plead most certainly and horribly guilty. But next, I draw the court’s full attention to the finished work of Jesus Christ on my behalf. By his blood, I am justified — and much more, he saves me from the wrath of God.29 I believe with my heart and am made righteous; I confess him and am promised salvation.30 I appeal not to the law of works — ‘for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.’31 I appeal to the law of faith, the law of the Spirit of life that sets me free from the law of sin and death.32 I hold, I can only hold, that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.33 I draw your attention to the gospel decree:

To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing [my blessing!] of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,     and whose sins are covered;blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’34

“So, I have come of my own accord before being summoned by death, believing, simply believing. I have pled guilty; I am worthy of eternal death. But you, O Judge, have promised life to those who come, and you promise them a spotless righteousness, my Savior’s righteousness. He shall deliver me from this seat of shame, for I am promised, ‘Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’35 He bore my sin, wore my wrath, ‘was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.’36 He is all my plea. If I be damned, come pry my arms from his feet, for there alone I cling.”

Verdict

A silence, a moment when even the gods are stilled, filled the courthouse. Then, a voice like the roar of many waters spoke from the throne words that shall be etched into my mind forever:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”37

At this, the foundations of the courtroom rocked, shaken by howls quickly drowned in song. The small host of hellish spirits shrieked and shrank in fury while the mighty host burst into a new song to the Judge:

“Worthy are you to take the scroll     and to open its seals,for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God     from every tribe and language and people and nation,and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,     and they shall reign on the earth.”38

And the Judge, looking rather annoyed by the blasphemous rage, cut short the cries of the fiends, exclaiming,

“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? I am he who justifies. Who is to condemn? I am the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who sits at the right hand of power, who indeed is interceding for my people.”39

As the Judge closed the Book, I thought I glimpsed scars upon his hands and a name graven upon his palms: Amartōlos.

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

One of the great gifts of living past middle age has been the opportunity for meaningful connections with younger women. Through conversations about faith, parenting, or the challenges of ministry, I hear their hopes for stronger marriages and sympathize with their sleep-deprived discouragement over whatever discipline challenges their kids are dishing out. I’m thankful when they challenge me with their deep desire to become more confident Christ-followers and students of God’s word.

As we visit, whether in living rooms or church parking lots, I also notice myself examining my response to their unlined faces, perfect nails, and wardrobe choices so different from my own. I’m grateful that none of the packaging gets in my way now, but there was a time when it would have. Sadly, my twentysomething self would have been intimidated by the beauty and accomplishments of these dear women — and I would have missed out on the gift of their friendship!

Mommy Wars

Second-wave feminism may have played an important role in bringing equity to the workplace and educational spaces, but it also fostered a spirit of competition among women who were coming of age in the seventies and early eighties. Competing for the same small pool of jobs and opportunities did little to encourage collaboration and mutual support, leaving a generation of women friendless, lonely, and unwilling to trust the only people in the room who could understand and sympathize with their challenges.

I’m embarrassed to admit that even after I became a mother at the age of 31 and left the workforce behind, I brought that insecurity into my relationships with other mothers. The world has changed in many ways since then, but the Mommy Wars rage on. While God has always intended for us to support and encourage one another as sisters in Christ, sadly, we sometimes act like the factional church at Corinth with divisions among us, divisions that grow into walls of separation.

Even in the local church, conflict flares unseen in the minds of mothers who allow their choices to become their identity. And with so many choices available, there are infinite ways for us to be divided. Working moms feel judged by stay-at-home moms, while stay-at-home moms feel scorned. What’s the “right” way to feed a baby? To have a baby? Should one opt for the epidural or soldier on unaided through labor? Should we all homeschool our children to shield them from ungodly influences, or should we send our children to be salt and light in the public-school system? Even within the homeschooling camp, there are subdivisions, and if you want to start a spirited conversation, just mention sleeping arrangements or methods of discipline.

When we link our identity and our value to our parenting decisions, we reveal an insufficient understanding of our humanity and a diminished view of the gospel.

Saved by Grace, Not Mothering

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers women a more healthful alternative to this path of loneliness, friendlessness, and anxiety: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

In the kingdom of God, where right actions for right reasons are the goal, where we consider others better than ourselves, we expand our sight beyond what we wish others would do for us. We go first in doing good. When considering the mother in your Bible study, in your neighborhood, or even in your extended family, how would your attitude toward her change if you assumed that, like you, she loves her child and is doing what she thinks is best for him? The waving white flag that will end the Mommy Wars starts with a heart that assumes of others what you wish others would assume of you.

“Conflict flares unseen in the minds of mothers who allow their choices to become their identity.”

How liberating to realize that our parenting choices do not define us! As women, we bear the image of the Creator of the universe. Our identity is not tied up in our motherhood — and our decisions about how to raise our children need not put us in a particular camp or category. It’s a form of works righteousness when we imagine that our healthy snacks, consistent bedtime practices, and amount of time spent reading aloud to our kids stack up to make us more righteous than the gummy snacks mom who lets her kids have lots of screen time.

Our value has been settled for all eternity in the work of Christ on our behalf (Ephesians 1:3–4). As a child of God, you are not less than if your child doesn’t rise at dawn to practice the cello while you grind the grain to make her breakfast cereal.

Moms of all ages and stages can fall off Luther’s horse on both insidious sides — either with prideful certainty that we’ve nailed motherhood or with shame-filled fear that we’ve almost ruined our kids. (I can remember experiencing both emotions as a young mother — and often on the same day!)

Measure with Grace and Gratitude

Sadly, when we insist on comparing our mothering, ministry, appearance, or career choices with other women, we come up short every single time because we are holding ourselves to an unrealistic standard. Our imaginations create a situation in which it feels impossible to be content because we are continually striving to measure up on every front with the imaginary “perfect” mother on Instagram. Social media hands women a broken yardstick for measuring our performance and our worth. Real life is gritty and imperfect. Unlike the glowing images on our phones that feed discontentment, it requires lots of grace.

We need to measure ourselves and others — with grace and gratitude — against the standard of wisdom in God’s word. Jesus talked about this measuring in his Sermon on the Mount. He cautioned, “With the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2). How might our mother-measuring be more gracious if we stuck to the standards of God’s word and allowed freedom of choice where he does? And how might gratitude for God’s work in and through other women (and in and through ourselves) temper our critical comparisons?

Identity-by-comparison is a no-win game, but it’s a habit many of us take for granted. It may have become our method for measuring our worth in the world, our contribution to the body of Christ, and even our role as wives and moms in our families. If, as Theodore Roosevelt supposedly said, “Comparison is the thief of contentment,” the apostle Paul successfully wrestled the thief to the ground: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Philippians 4:11).

In the same letter, Paul addresses a conflict between Euodia and Syntyche, two prominent women of the church at loggerheads. He entreats the two to be of the same mind in the Lord, to “stand firm” (Philippians 4:1–2). We can only imagine what was behind their conflict, but Paul’s admonition to unity encouraged them to value their relationship as colleagues in ministry and to learn from one another in humility. Like them, we are one in the Lord and one with each other. Our names are listed together “in the book of life.” We are called to “labor side by side in the gospel,” not to divide and compete over our insecurities (Philippians 4:3).

Lay Down Your Arms

If you’re wondering how to lay down your arms and stop fighting the Mommy Wars yourself, here’s a searching question to help you begin: When was the last time you walked into a room full of women and enjoyed everyone? The talkative and the more reticent? The take-charge leader and the sweetheart with the gift of helps? The carefully coiffed and manicured and the all-natural girl without a speck of makeup?

Overcoming our natural tendency to compare, contrast, and find ourselves (or others) lacking requires a sinewy commitment to the truth that God formed each of us uniquely before we were born (Jeremiah 1:5). Overcoming envy and competition calls for fierce gratitude for our own God-given set of physical, intellectual, and spiritual equipment, as well as those of our sisters.

Older moms, by grace we can model healthy collegiality. We can unlearn old, unhelpful habits of competition or comparison as we learn to trust other women and to thank God for the gift of female friendship. Women of all ages can learn to foster a spirit of contentment by being careful of social media consumption and by bravely stepping into spaces where women become acquainted in face-to-face conversations or side-by-side ministry. We can commit ourselves to the healthful practice of celebrating the decisions and the accomplishments of other women as they fulfill their unique purpose in God’s kingdom.

Amid the hardest, most grueling trial I have endured, prayer became my lifeline. During that time, a friend sent me a prayer that I ended up pinning to my bulletin board: “Lord, please lighten my load or strengthen my back.” These became the words I whispered to God throughout the day. I needed God to either lighten the burdens I was carrying or give me strength to endure them. God had to bring change, though I didn’t know in what form. I only knew I couldn’t continue the way things were.

I didn’t often pray “lighten my load or strengthen my back” in one sentence. I usually left a large pause after begging God to lighten my load, since that was what I wanted most. I specifically and directly asked for relief — for healing and deliverance, changed circumstances, divine rescue. But if God chose not to heal me, I needed him to strengthen my back so I wouldn’t collapse under the weight of the burden I was carrying. Since I could never be strong enough to hold the heaviness of my trial, I would need to rely on God’s strength.

Lighten My Load

When I scanned the Internet to find a source for my bulletin-board quote, I found no definitive attribution, but I did find many who suggested that it was better not to ask God to lighten our loads. Instead, they said we should just ask him to strengthen our backs. That was an interesting twist on my original quote, and at first it seemed like a more pious request. I wondered if that should have been my prayer.

Yet as I considered that recommendation, it seemed unrealistic and overly spiritual; we don’t often see people in the Bible asking for strength instead of deliverance. Job begged for help (Job 20:20–21). Jeremiah cried out for relief (Jeremiah 14:19–22). David pleaded for rescue (Psalm 69:1–3). Paul persistently asked for his thorn to be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8–9). And Jesus himself entreated the Father to let the cup pass him by (Matthew 26:39). God knows we are dust, and he created us to look to him for everything. So we shouldn’t consider it less spiritual to ask God to lighten our loads. Such a prayer shows we are trusting God with our deep desires, not offering religious words with distant hearts. God knows how great our suffering is.

God wants to relieve our burdens and bids us to give them to him. We are to cast all our burdens and anxieties on him, for he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). We can come to him when we are weary, and he will take our heavy loads (Matthew 11:28–30). God told the Israelites, “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you” (Psalm 81:6–7).

“Even in our anguish, we can be assured that if God denies our request, he intends to give us something better.”

Though God knows exactly what we need, he tells us to bring our requests to him. Jesus bids us to ask, seek, and knock. To ask and keep asking. To go to our heavenly Father just as children go to their earthly fathers and ask him for what we want (Matthew 7:7–11). People fell at Jesus’s feet, begging for mercy, throughout the Gospels. Even before they came, Jesus knew what they needed, yet he still asked what they wanted (Mark 10:51). We too can ask specifically for what we want, knowing that God not only hears our prayers but also acts upon them. We are not just offering careless words in case they might help.

So, the prayer “lighten my load” is not a perfunctory one but an earnest desire for God to change our situation. We are bringing him our need, which is all we have to offer. He will do the rest. And when we ask for deliverance and he brings it, we bring glory to God, as he himself declares: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15).

Strengthen My Back

Yet sometimes there is no deliverance, and God says no. He doesn’t heal our loved one, restore our relationship, or keep us from excruciating pain. We must go through the trial, grieve the loss, and endure the bitter aftereffects. But even in our anguish, we can be sure that if God denies our request, he intends to give us something better. God never asks anything of his people that is not for our best, assuring us that every sorrow will result in our future gain. Nothing that we lose or don’t have could have ultimately been a blessing to us.

This trial we are enduring must have a great blessing for us. Among the many blessings God offers, the most beautiful is keeping us close to Jesus. To that end, God will provide the strength we need in every trial: strength for the battle (Psalm 18:39), strength when we are afraid (Isaiah 41:10), strength when we are exhausted (Isaiah 40:29–30), and strength to be content whatever the result (Philippians 4:13).

Yet strengthening our back does not necessarily make us physically stronger or able to withstand the next trial on our own without God’s help. The strength God provides doesn’t make us self-sufficient but rather enables us to see how much we need God. When God strengthens our back, we know how and where to get help. Our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121:2). As opposed to physical muscles, the strength we receive can be compared to muscle memory, reminding us to cry out to our God. We seek the Lord and his strength rather than depending on our own (Psalm 105:4).

Strong in Weakness

The apostle Paul recounted several trials in which he cried out to God for relief. An affliction in Asia laid such a staggering burden on Paul and his companions they thought they were going to die. But rather than destroying them, this trial taught them to rely not on themselves and their strength but on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:8–9).

Paul struggled with a thorn in his flesh that he pleaded with God to remove. Rather than taking it away, God answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When Paul saw that God’s power intensified in his weakness, he declared, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Like Paul, we learn that having the grace to endure our afflictions can be a greater gift than having our afflictions removed. Once we’ve seen and experienced the immense power of God in suffering, we know that God will unfailingly provide all we need, regardless of what happens. With that assurance, we can find joy either in extraordinary deliverance from our trials or in greater dependence on God through them.

God encourages us to cry out to him for whatever we need; he wants us to bring our troubles to him. He may lighten our load and miraculously deliver us, bringing long-prayed-for rescue and relief. Or he may strengthen us in the battle, offering his sustaining grace, the grace that draws us back to him. Both answers turn us to God and deepen our faith, teaching us to trust him through affliction and to glorify him through whatever comes.

Audio Transcript

Welcome to October. This month we’re celebrating the Reformation together — Martin Luther’s great stand against the pope and against Rome’s spiritual abuses and theological errors. Luther did not stand alone, of course. Other men stood for this same cause, before and after him — people like John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, and John Calvin. And many other lesser-known names paid the ultimate price in the Reformation — men and women, even teenagers, who stood against Rome, and who bled and were burned and drowned for it. These stories of sacrifice are our focus in the month ahead, in a 31-day tour you can complete in just 5–7 minutes each day. It’s called Here We Stand. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the email journey today, online at desiringGod.org/stand. Or just go to desiringGod.org and click on the link on the top of the website. I hope you’ll join us in remembering the price paid for the spiritual blessings and religious liberties we enjoy today.

Speaking of church history, again, the birthday of Jonathan Edwards falls on Saturday, October 5. Pastor John, on Monday we talked about Christian zeal — an old-fashioned word, but an important one. You called zeal an “essential virtue” to Christian obedience. To make the case, you quoted Paul’s biblical exhortations, like in Romans 12:11: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” And in Titus 2:14: “[Christ] gave himself for us . . . to purify for himself a people . . . who are zealous for good works.” Then you brought up Jonathan Edwards and his seventy resolutions that he made as a young man, especially the one you can recite from memory after almost fifty years since you first read them — namely, number 6: “Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.”

But here’s today’s question. Both you and Edwards are Christian Hedonists. And he is a major source of your own understanding of Christian Hedonism. A point that was not made clear last time, as you were talking about zeal: Does Edwards see a connection between zeal and delight in God? Do you? Do you see a connection between zeal to live with all our might for the glory of God and the Christian Hedonist’s passion to maximize his joy in God?

Yes, and the best way I think to see it is to follow a certain sequence of thought in Edwards’s mind and my mind that moves from (1) zeal for the glory of God to (2) zeal for good deeds to (3) the inner motivation of those deeds in love for God or delight in God or treasuring God (different ways to say the same thing) to (4) the Christian Hedonist principle that we should seek to maximize — zealously seek to maximize in every way we can — our joy in God now and forever.

Christian Hedonist Zeal

Let’s try to follow that sequence of thought. And we’re going to bump into another amazing resolution of Edwards that really brings clarity to his Christian Hedonism.

1. Zeal for God’s Glory

Remember, in Romans 12:11, Paul said, “Never flag in zeal, serve the Lord.” So, clearly, Christian zeal is directed toward serving the Lord. And since the Lord is not needy — he doesn’t need any servants to make up for any lack in himself — what that means is that we should avail ourselves of his power to do his bidding to make him look great. I think that’s what “serve the Lord” means.

“We must pursue joy with zeal, with passion, with all our might.”

The apostle Paul said, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Everything in our lives should be calculated to make God look more glorious than people think he is. Edwards defines Christian zeal as “a fervent disposition or affection of mind in pursuing the glory of God.” That’s step one.

2. Zeal for Good Deeds

This zeal for God’s glory implies being zealous for good deeds — good deeds to people — because this is one crucial way God is glorified. Titus 2:14 says that Christ died to create a people “who are zealous for good [deeds].” Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” So, that’s step two. Zeal for God’s glory implies zeal for good deeds since that’s how Jesus said we will glorify the Father. Or as Edwards says, Christian zeal is a “fervency of spirit that good may be done for God’s and Christ’s sake.”

3. Zeal from New Hearts

Step three is to realize that good deeds toward man and outward acts of worship toward God are of no spiritual value without a new heart that loves God, values God, delights in God, treasures God above all else. Jesus said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain [emptiness] do they worship me” (Matthew 15:8–9). Outward acts of worship without inward affections of love are worthless. Jesus speaks of moral acts of good deeds in the same way: “You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (Matthew 23:26). They did all kinds of good deeds, the Pharisees did, but were hypocrites, because those deeds were not coming from the right kind of heart. They just wanted to be seen by men.

So, if we want our zeal for the glory of God to be real, and we want our zeal for good deeds to be morally significant in God’s sight, we must be changed on the inside, so that we value and treasure God above all things. Or to say it another way, we must delight in God, be glad in God, find God to be our superior satisfaction so that our outward acts of worship are authentic and our good deeds toward people serve to glorify the value of God and not ourselves. Psalm 16:11: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Tasting that right now — tasting that in the heart — is the heart of worship.

And at the horizontal level of good deeds, Jesus said, “It is more blessed” — more glad, more happy, more satisfying — “to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). We should find more gladness in good deeds than in having security and comfort and riches. That’s true now, in measure, and he says it’s true lavishly in the future. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for great” — that’s an understatement! — “great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:11–12). Which leads to step four.

4. Zeal to Maximize Joy in God

If this is true, if worship is authentic because our hearts are treasuring and delighting in and being satisfied with God above all things, and if good deeds are morally significant because of the present experience of gladness and blessedness and because of a future hope or reward in God, then we simply cannot be indifferent to the pursuit of joy in God himself and the joy that comes from the overflow of that Godward joy into the lives of other people through good deeds. We can’t be indifferent to that joy. We must pursue it with zeal, with passion, with all our might — which is what makes us Christian Hedonists.

Edwards on Zeal and Joy

Now, that was a long argument to get to the point that, yes, there’s a connection between zeal for God’s glory and being a Christian Hedonist. Here’s the amazing way Edwards connected zeal with the pursuit of this joy in God. This just boggled my mind when I first read it. Number 22: “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world” — that is, in God, in heaven, or in the age to come, not in earthly ease — “as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.” That’s just off the charts. Zealous for joy. Zealous for happiness with God in heaven forever. That’s like saying, “Resolved, to live with all my might while I do live.”

There’s the connection between Christian Hedonism and zeal in his own resolution language. “To live with all my might while I do live” — namely, in the pursuit of maximum joy in God, with him, forever, by whatever means on earth I can. Of course, that means by doing as many good deeds as I can, even if it costs me my violent death. That’s the point of referring to violence. It’s not violence against others he’s talking about, but the kind of violence that cuts off your hand or tears out your own eye if it would diminish your doing of good and your avoidance of sin and your experience of joy in God through loving other people.

So, my conclusion, Tony, is yes, there is a powerful connection in Edwards’s mind — there certainly is in my mind — between zeal to live with all our might for the glory of God and the Christian Hedonist passion to maximize our joy in God. They come together as our joy in God extends itself to make God look great through deeds of love. We pursue our joy in the joy of others in God because zeal for his glory and for their good impels us in the Christian Hedonist pursuit of maximum joy in God forever.

In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, we meet a man named “Formalist.” As Bunyan describes elsewhere,

Formalist . . . is a man that has lost all but the shell of religion. He is hot, indeed, for his form; and no marvel, for that is his all to contend for. But his form being without the power and spirit of godliness, it will leave him in his sins; nay, he stands now in them in the sight of God (2 Timothy 3:5), and is one of the many that “will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” (The Strait Gate, 85)

Bunyan assumes this man is unregenerate, and there is reason enough to think so. Notice: this man is not without some fervency, but the object of his heat is merely forms, traditions, and rituals. He is passionate about the husk or scaffolding of religion, but not about God himself. If one has the correct forms or doctrine, it is enough. If one’s church attendance is consistent, he is good to go. So he thinks.

Formalism in the Old Testament

Formalists believe that a right show of religion merits favor in the eyes of God. They are deceived into thinking that God is impressed with the externals even when there is no heart of worship within — an error that many prophets in the Old Testament denounced. In Hosea, God tells the people, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). The problem is even more pronounced in Isaiah:

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?     says the Lord;I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams     and the fat of well-fed beasts;I do not delight in the blood of bulls,     or of lambs, or of goats.When you come to appear before me,     who has required of you     this trampling of my courts?Bring no more vain offerings;     incense is an abomination to me.New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations —     I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.Your new moons and your appointed feasts     my soul hates;they have become a burden to me;     I am weary of bearing them. (Isaiah 1:11–17)

Such language may seem severe, and it is. God is speaking to a very formally religious people. They consistently bring their offerings. They appear before God on a regular basis. They observe the Sabbath, convocations, new moons, and feasts. But something has gone terribly wrong. They are doing the right activities, but God is outraged.

Why? Their religion is just a shell. It is what Jesus calls a whitewashed tomb (Matthew 23:27). The outside looks ritzy, but inside are bones and cobwebs. There is no life, no desire for God. They are walking in dead orthodoxy.

Formalism in the New Testament

Formalists worshiped freely in the temple during the days of Christ. The temple was one of the wonders of the world. Its exterior was made of marble and gold. The Middle Eastern sun radiated off its walls, causing it to shine for miles around. At one time, as many as eighty thousand people worked on the temple complex day and night. When complete (after decades of construction), the full grounds spanned the length of about eight football fields. Inside the temple was the treasury, holding the equivalent in our day of more than two billion dollars.

The temple was magnificent. It was flashy. It was religious. Sacrifices were performed around the clock. Josephus estimates that, during Passover week alone, there would be 250,000 lambs sacrificed. It was regularly thronged with pilgrims. It was dotted with priests, scribes, and religious teachers at all hours of the day.

“How often do people go through the motions in their Christian lives, including on Sundays?”

But how did Jesus react to it all? “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). In AD 70, this is exactly what happened. The Roman army burned the city to the ground, including the temple, and put an end to the priesthood and sacrifices. It was all gone. Jesus explains that the judgment resulted from this exceedingly religious people rejecting their Messiah. They had a form of godliness, clearly. They burned with zeal concerning the law and its performances. They grew exacting in their rituals. But their religion was dead. It was a shell. So God ended it.

Formalism Today

What of our forms, traditions, and religion today? How often do people go through the motions in their Christian lives, including on Sundays? The practices of the Christian faith are not bad in themselves, of course, but if they do not stir up our affections for Christ, they become not only bad but damnable.

J.C. Ryle described formalism as “when a man is a Christian in name only, and not in reality — in outward things only, and not in his inward feelings — in profession only, and not in practice — when his Christianity, in short, is a mere matter of form, or fashion, or custom, without any influence on his heart or life.”

In The Pilgrim’s Progress, what surprises Christian most about Formalist is not his disdain for the gospel in preference to custom and tradition, but that he refuses to accept Christian’s counsel about his soul. Formalist tells Christian to “look to himself.” Don’t trouble your head about it, he tells him. Like so many, the formalist doesn’t like to be corrected. His doctrine is precise; his church attendance impeccable. Who are you to tell him he doesn’t have the real thing?

I am not encouraging us to call out every person who is not as warm or zealous as they should be. I am encouraging us to examine our own hearts and to consider the counsel we have received regarding our own souls. We pastors might also consider our own churches. Both individuals and churches can both get to a place where — because we have correct doctrine, an order of worship regulated by the Scriptures, God-exalting music, and expository preaching — we think we have everything we need. But without the Spirit of God, the best outward forms are only a husk.

How many churches today are looking to pageantry, liturgy, pragmatism, and other outward forms of religion to juice up their congregations and fill the spiritual void in their worship? Others lean upon traditions and rituals. But it would be better to have a church that sings out of tune from the heart than one that sings in tune for the sake of self-glory. The same is true of sermons or prayers or any other practice in the church. When it comes to the Christian religion, externals are not everything — not even close.

Form and Power

Every Christian experiences drought and deadness from time to time. I’m not speaking of that common grief. Formalism is more deep-seated, more insidious. Are there any readers who go to church, read their Bible, catechize their children, know plenty of doctrine, are exact in their duties, but have never been born again? Some do these activities simply because they were raised to do so, or because they want to stay out of hell.

Do you know your confessions and creeds but refuse to forgive your enemies or spend time in secret prayer? Are you an expert in theology but a stranger to what Paul means when he says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5)? We’re told in Psalm 34:8 to “taste and see that the Lord is good!” Have you tasted this?

The person and work of Jesus is the only way we are made right with God. He is the only road that leads to life. In The Pilgrim’s Progress, before Formalist goes off to his destruction, Christian warns him, “You come in by yourselves, without his direction; and shall go out by yourselves, without his mercy.”

Has Christ shown you what real, living, experiential Christianity is? If not, ask him to take out your stony heart and give you a heart of flesh, one alive and sensitive to the things of God, sin, and your neighbor. He is the one who gives sight to the blind. He is the friend of sinners. He is the one who came to seek and to save those who are lost. Go to him today. Call on him now, without waiting. Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Jesus has been saving formalists for centuries, and for those who turn to him in faith, today is no exception!

I love Reformed theology (the doctrines of grace, the five points of Calvinism) the way I love a cherished picture of my wife. If I said, “I love that picture,” would you say to me, “But that’s not your wife. That’s a picture. You shouldn’t love a picture. You should love your wife”? If you said that to me, I would say, “I know it’s only a picture. I don’t love the picture instead of her; I love the picture because of her. I know the difference. She is precious in herself. The picture is not. It is precious only because she is.” The picture is precious because it reveals her. It does the best a picture can do.

That’s the way Reformed theology is precious. God is valuable in himself. Theology is not valuable in itself. It is valuable as a picture, a portrait, a window, a telescope. So, I love Reformed theology because I love God. I love Reformed soteriology because I love the sovereign Savior. Reformed theology makes me happy because God makes me happy. I find in Reformed theology a vast Lake Superior in which to paddle around and make thrilling discoveries because Reformed theology is a lake-sized picture of an ocean without bottom and without shores. And that ocean is God.

Few people have helped me go deeper or farther in that ocean than Jonathan Edwards. He wrote,

The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2:244).

The truths of Reformed theology are shadows; God is the substance, the reality. The beauties of Reformed theology are beams; God is the sun. The depths of Reformed theology are the streams; God is the ocean. The delights of Reformed theology are sweet, but in God’s presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). Reformed theology is beautiful because God is beautiful.

Reformed Theology and the Centrality of God

The portrait of God in Reformed theology is beautiful first because it relentlessly foregrounds the greatness of God, the supremacy of God, the centrality of God, or — the word most often used in Scripture — the glory of God. Geerhardus Vos, a Dutch-American theologian who died in 1949, captured the central theme of Reformed theology when he wrote,

Reformed theology took hold of the Scriptures in their deepest root idea. . . . The root idea which served as the key to unlock the rich treasuries of the Scriptures was the preeminence of God’s glory in the consideration of all that has been created. . . . [Reformed theology] begins with God. God does not exist because of man, but man because of God. This is what is written at the entrance of the temple of Reformed theology. (Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, 241–42)

When we tried to formulate a mission statement for our church in 1995, which is still on the wall in our sanctuary today, we said, “We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” That was our effort to give expression to what Reformed theology saw in the Bible — namely, that God is first. God is supreme. God is central.

Or to put it more accurately, God is not just the first reality, the supreme reality, or the central reality; he is Reality. He is the only reality that absolutely is. When God identified himself and gave himself a name in Exodus 3:14, he said, “I am who I am.” He simply and absolutely is. He never came into being. When there was no universe, and no space or time, there was God.

“Reformed theology is beautiful because God is beautiful.”

This is an electrifying truth! God simply is. Explosive. Wild. Untamable. It changes absolutely everything to know this. To foreground this and make it the bedrock, the capstone, and the all-pervasive reality of your theology will shape all thought, all feeling, and all of life and ministry.

Jonathan Edwards captured the supremacy and centrality of God like this:

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. . . . The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, 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, and the middle, and end [in this affair]. (God’s Passion for His Glory, 242, 247)

That’s a beautiful rendering of the truth and sentiment of the apostle Paul in Romans 11:33–36:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Antidote for Pragmatism

I remember ten years into my pastorate reading this terrible indictment of Christian pastors from Albert Einstein, and resolving, God helping me, never to be guilty of this. Charles Misner wrote,

I do see the design of the universe as essentially a religious question. That is, one should have some kind of respect and awe for the whole business. . . . It’s very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing.

Reformed theology is beautiful because it is a great antidote to a kind of pragmatic, managerial, therapeutic dumbing down of the glory of God and the central reality of the universe and the Bible and life and ministry.

God’s Commitment to His Glory

One of the ways that Reformed theology portrays the glory of God and the centrality of God is by drawing attention not just to the God-centeredness of the Bible, but to the God-centeredness of God. God’s commitment to his own self-exaltation — his God-centeredness — permeates the Bible from cover to cover. And Reformed theology holds the great honor, the great beauty, of reveling in God’s God-centeredness. Listen to this litany of God’s God-centeredness — God’s zeal to see his own glory, his own name, exalted:

“He predestined us for adoption . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Ephesians 1:5–6 my translation). God planned his praise.
“The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalms 19:1). He designed it that way.
“You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isaiah 49:3). That’s why he chose them.
“He saved them [at the Red Sea] for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power” (Psalm 106:8).
“I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations” (Ezekiel 20:14).
“Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name. . . . And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name . . . and the nations will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 36:22–23).
“For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you. . . . For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:9–11).
“I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake” (Isaiah 43:25).
“[Jesus comes] on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:10).
Jesus prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24). He’s saying, “I died for this — that my people would see my glory. I will be central and supreme among my people.”

I know that a lot of people, thousands of people, do not at first regard God’s God-centeredness as beautiful and, therefore, they don’t regard Reformed theology as beautiful. As far as they’re concerned, what I just described is megalomania. Before C.S. Lewis was a Christian, he said he read texts like these and they sounded to him “like a vain woman wanting compliments” (Reflections on the Psalms, 109). When Oprah Winfrey was 27, she heard a sermon on God’s jealousy for his name and said, “Something about that didn’t feel right in my spirit because I believe that God is love, and that God is in all things,” and she walked away from biblical Christianity. Brad Pitt grew up in a Southern Baptist church but turned away because he said,

I didn’t understand this idea of a God who says, “You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I’m the best, and then I’ll give you eternal happiness. If you won’t, then you don’t get it!” It seemed to be about ego. I can’t see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

So, it’s pretty clear that many people do not find God’s God-centeredness — God’s self-exaltation — beautiful and, therefore, turn away from him and from Reformed theology. It’s like George MacDonald (one of C.S. Lewis’s heroes), who said (to my utter dismay so many decades ago), “From all copies of Jonathan Edwards’s portrait of God, however faded by time . . . I turn with loathing” (Creation in Christ, 81). That was like a gut punch to me as a young man, as I was falling in love with the God of Jonathan Edwards and this portrait of him called Reformed theology. I have spent the lion’s share of my thinking in the last fifty years trying to show that baked into the biblical portrait of God’s God-centeredness is a beautiful answer to the accusation of megalomania.

Answering the Objection

The answer goes like this: God’s commitment to making himself supreme and glorious and central is not megalomania, because unlike our self-exaltation, God’s self-exaltation draws attention to what gives us the greatest and longest joy — namely, himself. It doesn’t work that way with us. That’s why we don’t like human beings who exalt themselves. Our self-exaltation draws people away from the one thing that can satisfy their souls: the infinite worth and beauty of God in Christ.

If I say, “Look at me,” I’m your enemy. If God says, “Look at me,” he’s your friend. If you obey me when I say, “Come, drink at the fountain of my resourcefulness,” you will die. If you obey God when he says, “Come, drink at the fountain of my infinite resourcefulness,” you will live. When God exalts himself, he is loving us. He is showing and offering the one thing that can satisfy our souls forever — namely, God. If Psalm 16:11 is true (“In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore”), what should he do to love you?

He should stand on every mountain and in every church, and say, “I am that great. I am that great. I will satisfy.” In our very experience of supreme satisfaction in him, his ultimate purpose is fulfilled — namely, the magnifying of his own all-sufficient, all-satisfying glory, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. This is the answer to the accusation of God’s megalomania: when he offers us himself at the cost of his Son’s life, he is both magnifying his own worth and satisfying our souls forever. There is a name for this, and it is not megalomania. It is love.

Reformed theology is beautiful because it foregrounds the centrality of the glory of God and, therefore, provides the deepest and longest satisfaction to the human soul. But neither C.S. Lewis, nor Brad Pitt, nor Oprah Winfrey, nor that precious prodigal for whom you would lay down your life will ever see this beauty, unless God, by omnipotent sovereign grace, rescues them from the blindness of our spiritual depravity and death, which is the second thing that makes Reformed theology beautiful. The first was that Reformed theology foregrounds the centrality of God. The second is that Reformed theology exalts the sovereignty of God’s grace in saving sinners.

Reformed Theology and Sovereign Grace

Reformed theology takes seriously, with blood-earnest seriousness, the beauty-destroying, hopeless condition of human beings under the wrath of God and on our way to eternal punishment — if God himself doesn’t intervene. “For we have already charged,” Paul said, “that all . . . are under sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one’” (Romans 3:9–10).

The Bible describes us as spiritually dead and unresponsive to God (Ephesians 2:1), hardened in our hearts against spiritual reality (Ephesians 4:18), utterly unable to change ourselves: “The mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7–8 my translation). We are, therefore, according to Romans 6:17, “slaves of sin.” And all of this is a depravity that makes us blind to the glory of Christ — the beauty of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). To the natural human heart, Christ appears as foolish, or legendary, or mythological, or just boring and irrelevant. Without a miracle, a work of omnipotent grace, we are all hopeless in our alienation from God. No theology takes this miserable condition more seriously than Reformed theology, which is why no other theology can portray salvation by sovereign grace more beautifully.

God’s Will, Not Man’s

Reformed theology not only takes this hopeless condition seriously. It also takes sovereign grace seriously. Oh, the beauty of sovereign grace — the beauty-restoring power of sovereign grace! This means that our rescue from the deadness, blindness, and ugliness of depravity into the life and beauty of salvation is found in God’s sovereign will, not man’s free will. Reformed theology does not believe in the existence of human free will — not if you define it as the power of ultimate self-determination. Left to our so-called “free will,” we die, because by nature we love and choose sin. The freedom to be the master of our own fate means death. If there is any hope for us in our rebellion against God, the hope will be in God’s sovereign, total rescue. Reformed theology does not believe that God contributes a helpful 99 percent and we contribute the decisive 1 percent to our conversion.

When we all get to heaven and lay our crowns before the feet of Jesus, no one is going to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for the 99 percent that you contributed to my conversion, but there is one crown I’m not going to lay down at your feet — namely, the decisive 1 percent that I, by my free, self-determining will, provided; that crown belongs to my final, decisive spiritual discernment.” No one is going to talk like that. Because that’s not the way it happened — not for one person in this room.

Purchased, Called, Kept

Reformed theology bows to the beautiful, humbling, precious reality that the blood of Christ — the blood of the new covenant (Luke 22:20) — purchased a new heart for his bride: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19). Do you have the new heart that believes in Christ? That’s how it happened. Your new heart was bought with the blood of the covenant (1 Corinthians 6:20).

Then, on the basis of that bloody purchase in history, God actually did it in your life. He took away the blindness, and caused you to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4–6). He caused you to see the spiritual beauty of Christ crucified as compelling. Christ became your supreme treasure (Matthew 13:44). You experienced the gift of faith (Ephesians 2:5–10). And then he gave you the Holy Spirit as a down payment, a guarantee, a seal (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:14). And he speaks these words over every one of his blood-bought, believing children: “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:40–41).

Are there any more beautiful words for a 78-year-old sinner to hear (or an 18-year-old sinner) than this: “You are mine. I will keep you. You will not make shipwreck of your faith. No one can snatch you out of my hand. I bought you, I called you, I own you, and I will keep you”? Is there anything more firm, more beautiful than that?

Yes. There is one more brushstroke to add to this canvas of beautiful, sovereign salvation from the ugliness of total deadness and blindness and depravity. And that brushstroke makes the firmness of sovereign grace as deep as it can possibly be. I will read it to you from 2 Timothy 1:9: “[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” You will never love him, worship him, obey him, or enjoy him the way you ought until your heart leaps up with this reality: God gave me saving, sovereign grace in Christ Jesus before the creation of the universe. He chose me. He predestined me to believe, to be his child — “to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Ephesians 1:6 KJV) — before the foundation of the world.

Depraved, chosen, purchased, called, and kept (T.U.L.I.P.). We are saved by sovereign grace, infinitely beautiful sovereign grace. Reformed theology is beautiful because the God of sovereign grace is beautiful. Oh, that this sovereign God would look with such favor on the Acts 29 movement that nothing could move you from holding and heralding this beautiful and beautifying Reformed theology.

Last year, eighteen more people died climbing Mount Everest, the most lives the great mountain has taken in a single year. The eighteen brought the tragic total to more than 340 in the last century — and the death toll is manifestly rising. Climbers die from falls, from avalanches, from frostbite and other health crises, from serac collapses (a house-sized block of ice that breaks off from a glacier). The dangers are every bit as enormous as the peaks.

So, why are more people dying now than ever before? Well, because so many more are climbing. In the nineties, less than a hundred brave souls reached the summit each year. Today, the number has crested six times that figure — even while the deaths multiply. Why would that be? Why would someone pay $100,000 to spend two whole months climbing this mountain of death? Because the human soul is inescapably drawn to grandeur. Call it “adventure” or “challenge” or “triumph” — I call it glory, and Everest threatens us with 29,000 feet of it.

J.I. Packer once called Romans 8 “the Everest of the New Testament and a high peak of all biblical writing” (Atonement, 2). John Piper climbs up alongside Packer and says,

Romans chapter 8 is so dense and so constant with good news, good news that is so great and so glorious and so vastly superior to all the good news in this world — whether health good news, or family good news, or church good news, or job good news, or political good news, or international good news, or financial good news — so vastly superior to all earthly good news and so relentless, that you can scarcely feel the full force of it until you take virtually every verse and restate it as the good news that it is.

This October, our team at Desiring God will be your happy sherpas, leading you up the cliffs and around the turns to the breathtaking views in this greatest of all chapters. The journey weaves through eight articles spread throughout the month.

Mountain Climbing with Desiring God

At Desiring God, our team of teachers — John Piper, David Mathis, Tony Reinke, Jon Bloom, Greg Morse, Scott Hubbard, and myself — think, pray, and work hard together to craft our teaching strategy across all our channels. All of that dreaming and planning is shaped by our mission:

As a Christian Hedonist publishing platform, persuaded by the indispensable biblical reality that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, we exist to move people to live for the glory of God, by helping them be satisfied in God above all else, especially in their suffering, by communicating the truth, and beauty, and worth of all God is for us in Christ, grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures.

That sentence (one of my favorite sentences in all the world) is the highway that guides all we say and do as a ministry — and I’m so eager to spend my life on that highway.

“Our suffering, even severe suffering, will not and cannot sever us from the promises we enjoy.”

At the center of our article strategy, in particular, is a monthly theme — an issue, topic, biblical chapter, or doctrine that we take up as a team and attempt to cover more thoroughly. Months in advance, we brainstorm the persistent needs we see and what we might tackle next. In that triage, we gladly and heavily lean on our Desiring God Affirmation of Faith. We prayerfully choose a theme for each month, and then we sketch out articles to cover that theme (we usually develop thirty to forty ideas and then select eight to ten to prioritize from that larger group).

For the next several months, we’ve lined up themes on the local church, the names of Christ (for Advent), and practical helps for prayer. For this month, we’re strapping on our harnesses and braving that great mountain of sovereign grace, Romans 8.

Peeks Inside the Peak

When you begin scaling this chapter, you don’t have to go far to see serious glory. In fact, the first six words explode with majesty: “There is therefore now no condemnation” (Romans 8:1). Later this week, our first leg of the climb will focus on the wonders of our justification in Christ. Believers still experience painful discipline from our Father this side of heaven, but we will never taste a drop of divine judgment.

Further into the month, we’ll be reminded that Christ himself lives in us by his Spirit. What does that indwelling mean, and how does it transform our ordinary, difficult lives? We’ll also look at how to walk by that Spirit who lives in us, putting to death the deeds of the body with supernatural power and resolve. Jon Bloom will take on the groaning of verses 17–25, showing us how our suffering, in God’s gracious hands, leads to our exaltation in the end, a future glory we cannot now imagine. At the end of the month, we’ll spend an article looking at the ways Romans 8 has been misunderstood and misapplied, including that most famous promise: “All things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

In addition to our teaching team, we’ve asked Joni Eareckson Tada, Joshua Greever (associate professor of New Testament at Bethlehem College and Seminary), and Clinton Manley (the latest addition to our editorial team) to take the climb with us and serve as fellow guides, so you’ll see new articles by each of them along the way.

Costly Climbing

The glories of Romans 8 are obvious when you see them, but they’re not all easy to see or understand. No one tries to climb Everest without the right gear and a good guide, and that’s the kind of help we hope to provide in this series: to give you better sight lines into the life-changing, soul-stabilizing, joy-inflaming realities rising out of these 39 verses.

Like the Christian life, this climb won’t be easy. Paul asks at one point, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Romans 8:35). And why does he ask that? Because Christians suffer and even die from each of those afflictions. If we follow Christ, we will suffer trials of various and serious kinds. But our suffering, even severe suffering, will not and cannot sever us from the promises we enjoy.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37–39)

Come along with us if you dare, and see again what glory this great Everest holds.