John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

“Fly, you fools!” he cried, and was gone.

These are the last words of Gandalf before he slides into the abyss beneath the Bridge of Kahzad-Dum. In all my fourteen years, no words had ever pierced me so.

Our junior high teacher read The Hobbit to us as an after-lunch treat. We loved it. But he challenged us that the really good stuff was to be found in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In ninth grade, I took up his challenge. At first it was quite a slog. There were all those long songs, and so much talking! “The Council of Elrond” was the thickest chapter I had ever attempted. It took me days. But when at last the Fellowship engaged the quest to destroy the Ring, things picked up.

‘Fly, You Fools’

One Friday night, I skipped my usual ABC sitcoms and just read on the couch. The watcher in the water outside of the Mines of Moria terrified me. I had to read on.

I stayed with it all through “A Journey in the Dark.” It wasn’t a school night, so my parents didn’t send me to bed as I started one more chapter. The future writer in me was thrilled when the company finds a decaying book in which the deeds of the dwarves in Moria were recorded until their last hour. The scribe’s writing trails off with the ominous “They are coming . . .” My heart pounded as the Fellowship realizes they are trapped like the dwarves of old and will have to fight their way out.

Near disaster follows upon near disaster. Even Frodo is stabbed with a spear that should kill him. But his hidden shirt of mithril silver turns away the lethal point. This is how it’s supposed to go. Against impossible odds, heroes still triumph. So when Gandalf faces the demon Balrog on the last bridge out, I felt sure he would win. It seemed like he had. Three times the wizard commands, “You cannot pass.” Then Gandalf’s power breaks the bridge right where the Balrog stands, and the demon falls into the darkness below.

“Yes!” I shouted silently. Then, “Noooo!” For the plummeting Balrog swings its whip and snares Gandalf’s legs. Tolkien writes, “He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, then slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone.”

Wounded by a Sentence

I was totally shocked. Stabbed. My favorite character had died (so it seemed). It cut. It hurt more than I imagined a book, a single sentence, could make me feel. I wanted to howl. Yet, at the very same time, I loved it. I didn’t know one could experience this depth of emotion from reading. So terrible and so beautiful. Gandalf slid into the abyss. Gandalf was gone. I could hardly stand it.

I was only newly awake to Christ, so I felt, but did not consciously notice, the gospel implications in this scene. Through the following years, Tolkien himself would teach me some deeper meanings of this sentence.

Sorrow follows wherever sin remains.

In The Silmarillion, Tolkien laid the foundation for his entire legendarium. In this mythic world, the Creator, Ilúvatar, brings the world into being through themes of great music. But
one of the Creator’s angelic beings, Melkor, wants to create music of his own.

Seeking his own glory, Melkor begins to sing a theme contrary to the music of Ilúvatar. Discordant notes bring turbulence to the good creation. Ilúvatar allows this chaos to rage for a long time until it seems beyond repair. Then Ilúvatar rises and declares another theme of music. This new music is “deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came” (The Silmarillion, 1977, pp. 16–17). The Creator weaves disharmony into more wondrous music. The new song incorporates sadness.

“Sin sank the arrow of sadness into the very heart of all that is.”

We feel this sorrow underneath all the goodness we love in this present world. Sorrow flows through the deeps of creation because created beings sought glory of themselves over against the Creator. In short, sin sank the arrow of sadness into the very heart of all that is. I’m reminded of the days of Noah, when the Lord beheld the wickedness of man. “The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:6).

The sadness that struck me that night as I read of Gandalf’s fall partook of this primal sorrow. My heart cried first, It’s not supposed to be this way! The good and wise are not supposed to be overcome by evil. And second, It didn’t have to be this way! Gandalf had already defeated the Balrog. But evil never concedes. The Balrog’s whip could so easily have missed. Instead, evil once more begat sorrow.

Our freely chosen sin over time hardens into malice. The result is loss and harm that weaves a song of lament woven through everything. Even our God feels it. That night I tasted its bitterness.

Sacrifice often breeds redemption.

Gandalf descends into the abyss. Grief dismays the company. They don’t know how they can go on. But they do. The story does not end with this shocking loss.

The wizard’s gruff but affectionate final words rouse the Fellowship from the paralysis of horror. Even as they weep, they dash safely out of Moria. Gandalf’s sacrifice has opened the way for them to escape and to carry on the quest. But more: his gift now impels them to find courage beyond grief, to kindle hope in the darkness ahead and to hold to the cliff’s edge of faith until the very end. The remaining eight members go on to sacrifice mightily for one another.

“Suffering in love for another is redemptive. Evil does not have the last word.”

One’s giving his life for many is the heart of our faith: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This sacrifice is meant to change the course of our lives, for “he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Suffering in love for another is redemptive. Evil does not have the last word.

The evil chance of the Balrog’s whip snaring Gandalf does not void the wizard’s sacrifice. Gandalf’s giving of his life bears the immediate result of the Fellowship’s escape. But that leads to the whole redemptive resolution with which The Lord of the Rings concludes, a victory for which Tolkien would coin a beautiful word.

In the end, expect eucatastrophe.

I would have to read on to learn of Gandalf’s return. And go further still to see the Ring destroyed, the rightful king enthroned, and Middle-Earth restored. But the sacrifice of Gandalf, in all its shocking, piercing sadness, yet laid down a hope in me. This seed of love buried in Moria’s abyss would yield the fruit of life. I had to believe that.

Tolkien used the word eucatastrophe to express the sudden reversal in a story that leads to a longed-for but unexpected happy ending. This is the resolution against all odds that stirs hope in the human heart that the world’s destiny will not be the death and destruction toward which it appears to rush. Tolkien wrote in a letter to his son that the eucatastrophe in a story

pierces you with a joy that brings tears. . . . It produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature . . . feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives . . . that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our souls were made. . . . The Resurrection was the greatest eucatastrophe possible . . . and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one. (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1976, p. 100)

The hope I felt even as I was stabbed with grief at Gandalf’s fall foreshadowed the great reversal of the entire story.

Gandalf Rose and Laughed

Delightfully, we see this deepest truth in the humble simplicity of Sam Gamgee. After the Ring is destroyed, Sam awakes to see Gandalf smiling on him. He exclaims,

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land. (The Return of the King, 1976, p. 988)

Reading of Gandalf’s fall that night struck me with the full force of the deep truth in every story of redemption. Each one is a shadow of the one true Story. Christ died. He entered the full stop of being lost in the abyss. And then he rose, changing everything.

When Gandalf fell, though I could not say it then, my heart was struck with the sorrow of man in his death and ruin. But the Fellowship carried on. I would read on. The Quest was not thwarted. Gandalf would rise. So will we. In a world restored, where everything sad comes untrue.

Audio Transcript

We have eschatology questions today and on Monday. Here’s the first one: “Good morning, Pastor John. I am a high-school science teacher in Alabama. I love your passion and Christ-centered joy. I write because I recently had a student tell me that her church believes that the second coming of Jesus has already occurred. She said that they believe Revelation was written about the sacking of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70. I was caught off guard because I had never heard anyone say that Jesus had already returned. I believe the term for that belief is ‘preterist.’ Have you come across this position? And how do you respond to it?”

Yes, I have heard this position. But let me see if I can distinguish between a view that says the second coming of Christ has already happened and the view that sees some of the book of Revelation as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Types of Preterism

The view that you are referring to — namely, that the second coming has already happened — is a very rare view. I don’t think it has ever been considered orthodox. It is sometimes called full preterism or hyper-preterism. Now, preterism is the view of the book of Revelation that argues that much or all of it lies in the past from our perspective — not the future. Praeter is Latin for “past”; hence preterism. It was future from the standpoint of John’s writing, but now it has already happened.

So, full preterism, hyper-preterism — this rare and unorthodox view, I think — thinks that all of the book of Revelation, including the second coming, has already happened. The coming of Christ is interpreted in such a way that it refers only to his power being shown in various historical manifestations, like the sack of Jerusalem. He’s not hidden somewhere in the world — you can get that out of your mind; that’s not what they mean. He’s not hiding out somewhere in the world because he’s already come back; he’s in heaven and has “come back” in the sense that he showed up in judgment at the destruction of Jerusalem.

Now, what you might call partial preterism — that’s the more common and, I would say, orthodox kind — doesn’t think that the second coming of Christ has already happened, even though many of the events described in Revelation have already been fulfilled in history, including the destruction of Jerusalem.

End of History as We Know It

The question I’m being asked, however, by this teacher, is how I would respond to a student who says that her church believes that Jesus has already come back, and there’s no future hope of Christ coming on the clouds personally, bodily, to establish his kingdom. And the way I would respond is to say to her,

The book of Revelation has perplexed Christians for two thousand years, and I probably won’t be able to set you straight on this point from the book of Revelation alone. Instead, what I would like you to do with me is to look at a few passages of Scripture in the letters of Paul, which I think simply will not fit into the scheme that says there’s no future coming of Christ in judgment and salvation.

“The trumpet blast is not a point in history, like a battle against a city. It’s the end of history as we know it.”

And I would take her to 1 and 2 Thessalonians, probably — not only, but first. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, Paul is trying to comfort believers who have lost loved ones in death. And the way he encourages them is not by pointing to the fact that there’s going to be a sack of Jerusalem someday. His way of encouraging them is by showing that those who have died will not miss out on the coming of Christ because they’re going to be raised from the dead, so that, together with the living, they will meet the Lord in the air. He says,

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

Let me pause right there. This trumpet blast at the coming is the way Paul describes the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:52. It’s not a point in history, like a battle against a city. It’s the end of history as we know it, marked by the resurrection of all believers who have died. Now he goes on:

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Now, that’s the description of a decisive coming of Christ that gathers all believers, dead and alive, into one people under the reign of Christ. It simply will not do to say that this is somehow a reference to an unseen visitation of Christ at some point in the past.

King Jesus Revealed

And then he gets even more graphic in 2 Thessalonians, where he says in 1:7–10 that the Lord Jesus will be

revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

“Throughout the New Testament, the second coming of Christ is presented as a precious and blessed hope.”

Or as he says in verse 6, God will “repay with affliction those who afflict you” and “grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels” (verse 7). This is God’s judgment on all unbelievers, and his rescue of all Christ’s people. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 8, Paul argues that the day of the Lord cannot have already come like this. There are people in Thessalonica who were thinking, “It’s already here! It’s already here!” And he says,

For that day will not come unless . . . the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, . . . whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

And I would say to my young student, “I don’t think these and many other references to the second coming of Christ in the New Testament can be legitimately interpreted as somehow symbolic references to the destruction of Jerusalem two thousand years ago.”

Blessed Hope

Throughout the New Testament, the second coming of Christ is presented as a precious and blessed hope of resurrection for all believers and relief for all the living saints and rescue from the wrath to come. Over and over, the New Testament pictures the people of Christ waiting eagerly for what Christ will do for us at his second coming — not for something a long time ago, but what he will do for us at his second coming. And here’s an example I’ll close with:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:20–21)

And I would look at my student friend right in the eye and say, “Neither you nor I have such a glorious body yet, because the Savior has not yet returned. But he will. And that’s our hope.”

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14727450/we-have-a-father-over-all

When we stop to remember that God exists — that he created all that is from nothing; that he sustains everything we know, moment by moment, with just a word from his mouth; that he governs every government on earth; that he entered into his creation, taking on flesh, enduring weakness and temptation, suffering hostility to the point of death, even death on a cross, all to shower us with mercy, cleanse us of our sin, and secure our eternity with him in paradise — it is stunning, isn’t it, that we ignore and neglect him like we do.

Isn’t it amazing that God simply was before time began, and yet we sometimes struggle to find even ten minutes for him? Isn’t it perplexing, bordering on insanity, that we sometimes prefer distracting ourselves with our phones over taking advantage of our breathtaking access to his throne of grace in Christ? Isn’t it kind of unexplainable how we often live as if we do not have time to sit and enjoy God?

It is stunning, amazing, and perplexing, and yet so painfully familiar. Everyone who has followed Jesus knows what it is like to be distracted from following Jesus. That means we all, every one of us, can sympathize with anxious Martha.

Distracted by Fear

When Martha saw that Jesus had come to town, she welcomed him into the home where she and her sister lived (Luke 10:38). When Mary saw Jesus, she immediately sat down at his feet, and hung on his every word (Luke 10:39). “But Martha,” Luke tells us, “was distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40).

To her credit, she was not distracted with little serving, but with much serving. And it’s hard for some of us to be too hard on her. She was hosting the Messiah — Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace — and she alone was preparing the food. Mary realized who Jesus was, and sat down to listen. Martha realized who Jesus was, and ran to do all she could for him.

The serving itself was not the problem — or at least not the main problem — especially given the social expectations for hospitality in her day. What, then, was the problem? Anxiety was consuming Martha. When she complained to Jesus that Mary was not helping her, he responded, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). Her grumbling had opened wide a window into her heart. Love was not inspiring her to serve; anxiety was. Her turmoil was driven by misplaced fear. How often is this true of us?

And not just a fear, but many fears. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.” This wasn’t just about hospitality. Martha was distracted from Jesus because her mind was drowning in the cares of this world. And because she would not stop and listen to Jesus, she was forfeiting the calm she so desperately needed.

One Necessary Thing

Jesus knows how to still the raging waves of anxiety. Notice that he says her name not once, but twice: “Martha, Martha . . .” You can almost hear him slowing down the second time. He uses his voice, like a brake, to slowly quiet the turbulence in her heart. He knows how distracted she is, how wildly her mind is racing from one worry to another, and so he begins by helping her focus: “Martha, Martha . . .”

“You are anxious and troubled about many things,” he goes on to say, “but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41–42). In just two short sentences, he confronts her sinful anxiety — our sinful anxiety — with necessity, then felicity, and lastly security.

Necessity

“You are troubled about many things,” he says, “but one thing is necessary.” In other words, everything that feels so pressing, so critical, so overwhelming is ultimately unnecessary next to hearing and knowing Jesus. Her fears screamed the opposite: What will we serve him? What will he think about the food? How will this compare with other places he’s visited? Did the neighbors notice Jesus came to our house? Why isn’t Mary helping me? We don’t know what precise anxieties were harassing Martha, but we know they were many — and that each concern insisted it was essential and urgent. Only one thing, however, was truly necessary.

“Satan will try to make everything feel more urgent than sitting down to be with Jesus.”

Hundreds of years before Martha was born, King David had already learned this lesson: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). He said this while evildoers assailed him (verse 2), and armies encamped against him (verse 3), and lies and threats fell like arrows all around him (verse 12). In other words, he had every reason to fear, and yet even then, he knew the one thing he must do: seek the Lord.

Satan will try to make everything feel more urgent than sitting down to be with Jesus. But in the end, only one thing is truly necessary. And it’s not the hard conversation you’re dreading, or the pile of deadlines at work, or some distant drama on social media, or the exam you need to pass next week, or the debt you’re afraid you’ll never pay off. One thing is necessary — today, tomorrow, next Tuesday, and every day after — to know, obey, and enjoy Jesus.

Felicity

The necessity of this one pursuit, however, does not make it an unhappy pursuit. “One thing is necessary,” Jesus says. “Mary has chosen the good portion.” While it might seem like Mary had abandoned her responsibilities and left her sister out to dry, she actually had chosen wisely and lovingly.

For choosing the one necessary thing, Mary received the good portion. Necessary was no sacrifice for her; it was all gain. She was drinking from a well that would never run dry, feasting from an overflowing table, swimming in an ocean of hope and peace and joy. Because his presence was her portion, her portion was not just right, but good. Her sitting and listening said what the apostle Paul would one day say in Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

“One thing is necessary — today, tomorrow, next Tuesday, and every day after — to know, obey, and enjoy Jesus.”

Martha, meanwhile, was drinking from another well that day — one that left her even more thirsty. While the fountain of living water sat in her living room, she feverishly carved out cisterns for herself, “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). That’s how the fear of man oppresses us: it begs and pleads for our attention, but is never satisfied. Fear breeds fear breeds fear. But the good fountain — the good portion — breeds peace and contentment, quenches our thirsts, satisfies our longings, and gives our souls rest. Necessity, for Mary and for us, is also felicity.

Security

Lastly, this necessary and happy pursuit is also profoundly safe. “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Not only has Mary chosen wisely, sitting at his feet to receive his words, but she has chosen happiness. And not just any happiness, but a full and abundant happiness that no person or circumstance could ever take from her. Is there any better word to a heart distracted by worry? The good I will give you, you will never, ever lose.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . 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 8:35, 37–39)

Have the cares of this world distracted you from sitting at the feet of Jesus? Have your fears left you feeling restless, insecure, unstable? The God of the universe is still speaking, right now, in his word. Hear his voice calling your name today, bidding you to come and enjoy the one necessary thing, the one satisfying thing, the one safe thing. You have time to sit with God.

Not only do books change lives, but paragraphs do. And not only paragraphs, but even single sentences. “Paragraphs find their way to us through books,” John Piper writes, “and they often gain their peculiar power because of the context they have in the book. But the point remains: One sentence or paragraph may lodge itself so powerfully in our mind that its effect is enormous when all else is forgotten.”

In fact, we might even take it a step further, to particular phrases. That’s my story. It’s been a loaded phrase, but a single phrase nonetheless, penned by Jonathan Edwards and printed in a book by Piper, that has proved life-changing: “admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.”

Lionlike Lamb

As a sophomore in college (and with the help of some older students), I was becoming wise to the bigness and sovereignty of God, but I was still naïve about how it all related to Jesus. Help came when Piper published Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ.

At first, I read it too fast, and benefited little. But when I came back to it, and read each chapter devotionally (thirteen chapters plus the intro, so a reading a day for two weeks), it awakened in me a new love for and focus on Jesus.

The most transformative section of the book was chapter 3. The chapter begins like this, landing on the phrase from Edwards that lodged itself so powerfully in my mind:

A lion is admirable for its ferocious strength and imperial appearance. A lamb is admirable for its meekness and servant-like provision of wool for our clothing. But even more admirable is a lionlike lamb and a lamblike lion. What makes Christ glorious, as Jonathan Edwards observed over 250 years ago, is “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” (29)

No One Like Him

The life-changing phrase first appears in a sermon, “The Excellency of Christ,” preached under the banner of Revelation 5:5–6. Edwards says,

There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ. The lion and the lamb, though very diverse kinds of creatures, yet have each their peculiar excellencies. The lion excels in strength, and in the majesty of his appearance and voice: the lamb excels in meekness and patience, besides the excellent nature of the creature as good for food, and yielding that which is fit for our clothing and being suitable to be offered in sacrifice to God. But we see that Christ is in the text compared to both, because the diverse excellencies of both wonderfully meet in him.

I was captured by the thought, and reality, that Jesus brings together in one person what no other men or angels — or even the Father or the Spirit — unite in one person. Lionlike strength and lamblike gentleness.

“Unless we know Jesus specifically, and in greater detail over time, we will come to know him wrongly.”

What I began to see for myself in those days is that Jesus isn’t just the means for humans to get right with the Father. Christ, the God-man, is also the great end. He is the fullest and deepest revelation of God to mankind. To see him is to see the Father. And the Father means for us to see, and savor, his Son as the great treasure of surpassing value, as the pearl of greatest price.

Fresh and Holy Discontent

What Edwards’s well-crafted phrase, and Piper’s short book, did for me was to woo me into a lifelong hunt for details about Jesus. The line awakened a fresh and holy discontent for the popular vagueness about Christ’s person.

Years ago, I heard from a veteran at a Christian publisher that books on Jesus don’t typically sell well today. People want to read and learn about trending topics and life application. They think they already know about Jesus. Tragically, they are content with little knowledge (and often vague knowledge) about the most fascinating, mindboggling, profound subject in all the universe: God become man.

Edwards was not that way. He didn’t mention Jesus on his way to some other more popular topic; he focused on Jesus. He lingered on Jesus — in the case of this particular sermon, for 15,000 words (roughly two hours).

Seven Diversities in One Son

In the first part of the sermon, Edwards addresses the diversity of Christ’s excellencies: his infinite highness as God and his infinite condescension as man, alongside his infinite justice and infinite grace. Then, in part 2, he speaks to the conjunction of those excellencies, specifically the virtues in Christ which “seem incompatible otherwise in one person.” This is the heart of it — seven “admirable conjunctions” Edwards highlights in Christ:

Infinite glory, and lowest humility;
Infinite majesty, and transcendent meekness;
Deepest reverence toward God, and equality with God;
Infinite worthiness of good, and the greatest patience under sufferings of evil;
An exceeding spirit of obedience, with supreme dominion over heaven and earth;
Absolute sovereignty, and perfect resignation;
Self-sufficiency, and an entire trust and reliance on God.

As just one taste of the feast, consider what Edwards says about Jesus’s humility:

Humility is not properly predicable of God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, that exist only in the divine nature; because it is a proper excellency only of a created nature; for it consists radically in a sense of a comparative lowness and littleness before God, or the great distance between God and the subject of this virtue; but it would be a contradiction to suppose any such thing in God.

Yet in becoming man, Christ, without losing his highness or deity (as if that were possible), gained humanity and the ability to humble himself (Philippians 2:8). Jesus, the God-man, is “above all” as God, “yet lowest of all in humility.” Edwards continues,

There never was so great an instance of this virtue among either men or angels, as Jesus. None ever was so sensible of the distance between God and him, or had a heart so lowly before God, as the man Christ Jesus.

Precise, Extensive Glories

God the Father means for his people to treasure his Son, Jesus, not as a general concept, but through his particular, Scripture-revealed contours. God made us to know his Son in his precise and meticulous and extensive glories, not in mere generalities and nondescript statements. He made us to go further up and further in to the glories of Christ in all their detail and brilliance for all eternity.

If our knowledge of Jesus consists in mere generalities and nondescript statements, then we will be prone to embrace a misguided vision of Jesus. Unless we know him specifically, and in greater detail over time, we will come to know him wrongly. And we will not love the true Jesus deeply and fervently.

Which leads to one final truth about Jesus’s “admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” Jesus is not just the right answer to the problem of sin, but in his diverse excellencies, he satisfies the complex longings of the human soul.

He Satisfies the Complex Soul

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:16–19 that God’s people would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

“Jesus is not just the right answer to the problem of sin, but he satisfies the complex longings of the human soul.”

All the fullness of God is found in this man Jesus. Full humanity and the fullness of deity. We marvel at his bigness and might and omni-relevance, and we melt at his grace and mercy and meekness, and all that comes together in one spectacular person — all the fullness of God in this God-man — whom we will one day see face to face, where we will more fully know and enjoy him without obstruction for all eternity.

So, I finish, then, with one more quote from Seeing and Savoring, and the prayer that God might do for you what he did for me twenty years ago:

This glorious conjunction [of diverse excellencies in Christ] shines all the brighter because it corresponds perfectly with our personal weariness and our longing for greatness. . . . The lamblike gentleness and humility of this Lion woos us in our weariness. And we love him for it. . . . But this quality of meekness alone would not be glorious. The gentleness and humility of the lamblike Lion becomes brilliant alongside the limitless and everlasting authority of the lionlike Lamb. Only this fits our longing for greatness. . . .

We mere mortals are not simple either. We are pitiful, yet we have mighty passions. We are weak, yet we dream of doing wonders. We are transient, but eternity is written on our hearts. The glory of Christ shines all the brighter because the conjunction of his diverse excellencies corresponds perfectly to our complexity. (31–32)

Audio Transcript

We become like what we watch. The objects of our attention shape our becoming. Our potential as creatures is realized by what we behold. We are moldable creatures of clay, conforming to whatever most attracts our gaze. What we behold shapes us, for better or for worse. Obviously, this profound reality carries with it massive implications for our media diets in the digital age, as we will hear today from Pastor John, preaching long before the digital age. In this clip, over thirty years old, Pastor John is applying the glorious text of 2 Corinthians 3:18 to our media diets. Here’s Pastor John.

Focus your attention on the glory of God. Focus your attention on the glory of God. There’s a reason for this: you become what you behold.

Glory in Degrees

Now, that’s not just a nifty little saying. That’s a straight-out biblical paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed.” I’ll just stop right there. How do you get changed? Behold the glory of God. If you behold the glory of God and hold it in fixed view, you will become like that in your mind. You will think the way God thinks, see the way God sees, feel the way God feels, assess the way God assesses. You will be repelled by the things that repel God when you behold the glory of the Lord.

“Do you want to become holy? If you do, there is an agenda: watch Jesus — a lot.”

Let me finish reading: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” I just love that phrase. It’s so hope-giving because I know I’ve got such a long way to go: “one degree of glory to another.” It’s progressive. The holiness that comes by beholding the glory of God does not happen instantaneously. From one degree of glory to the next, we move toward the image of Christ.

What Do You Behold?

But the point I want to make here is that it happens by beholding him. If you’ve got your Bibles open to that text, you might want to just look a chapter later to 2 Corinthians 4:16. Listen to this awesome statement of the man, the old man. Paul’s getting old here: he’s got arthritis maybe, and his back aches, and his eyes are not so good anymore, and his hearing’s not so good. He can’t walk as far. He says, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” The word renewed here is the same word from Paul used in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” It’s being renewed every day.

Now, how? How Paul? How do you as an old man get new every day? The answer:

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

Now, here’s the key to being new, brothers and sisters. Do you want to be new in your mind as a young person, in your whole being and spirit as an old person? Do you want to be new? Stop watching the world — which very practically comes down to television. Stop watching the world. Why would we want to be entertained by the unbelieving so much? Why are we so hooked on videos and on television and on movies and on the radio? “World, tell me, show me, feed me, shape me, make me.” That’s what we’re doing. “Oh no, not really. I’m not the least affected when I watch.” You become what you behold.

Watch Jesus

I just ask you to compare in your life the degree to which you behold the Lord Jesus and the glory of our God, compared to the degree to which you behold the world. How do they compare? Might there not be some insight here as to why we live in weakness and failure in the temptations of our lives? Why we don’t have the effect in the world that we would like to have? Why can’t our relationships be fixed? Is there perhaps some correlation between the fact that we focus so much on the world? We live in the world, we ooze world, we watch world, we read world.

“How do you get changed? Behold the glory of God.”

How many of us read books that have spiritual wisdom? Look at television that has spiritual wisdom? Look at movies that have spiritual wisdom? Read the Bible with its spiritual wisdom? How much time do we devote to this biblical principle that is unassailable? You become what you behold.

I urge you to check out your lifestyle. Do you want to become holy? Do you want to become new so that you see like Jesus, think like Jesus, feel like Jesus, love like Jesus, care like Jesus, judge like Jesus? If you do, there is an agenda: watch Jesus — a lot.

Father, I just beg for the miracle of transformation in our lives. Would you come right now and just convict us and give us some choices about how we spend your Lord’s Day afternoon and evening? Are we really going to go home — are we going to spend more time tonight asking the world, without any God in it, to entertain us? Then we will reap what we sow. And I just pray, Father, that that not be so. In Jesus’s name, I ask it. Amen.

First among equals. In the panoply of church polity, this phrase — derived from the Latin primus inter pares and used to describe a local church’s lead or senior pastor — pokes a tender spot. After all, if someone is first, then we’re certainly not equal. Or are we? It just feels so out of step with our current climate, like lead pastors are going to wake up one morning on the wrong side of history.

But what if I told you that this role reflects a principle that can mark the difference between duty and delight for a church leadership team? For church leadership to flourish, the elder plurality must be led.

Elders Need a Leader

Throughout the Bible, when God chooses to execute his will upon the earth — when he reveals his redemptive purposes, forecasts the future, or frees his people from bondage — he begins with a leader. The Old Testament offers a gallery of names that remind us of God’s regular pattern of using one to influence many — Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, just to name a few.

In New Testament times, we’re told Christ chose the twelve (Luke 6:12–16), but Peter functioned as the leader among them. The early church enjoyed a similar plurality of leadership, yet it appears James exerted a unique role and influence as the key leader of the Jerusalem congregation (Acts 15:13; 21:18; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; 2:12). The same is true in the church today. An eldership, as a body, needs a leader.

“For church leadership to flourish, the elder plurality must be led.”

Now, I can almost hear you saying, “Where is there any reference to a lead or senior pastor in the Bible?” You’re right. There is no single, airtight Bible verse that decisively proves that pluralities should assign a lead pastor. But there is a broad pattern of order — a beautiful tapestry of leadership — that appears from the opening pages of Scripture to the final words in Revelation.

The necessity of a first among coequals in human economies is resonant with (though not equivalent to) the way the Son submits to his Father in the incarnation (Philippians 2:5–11), as well as in the order God ordains in the home (Ephesians 5:21–33). Leadership is not a consequence of the fall, but represents God’s good design for human flourishing in a well-ordered world.

Nineteenth-Century Perspective

Back in the mid-nineteenth century, Southern Baptist professor William Williams (1804–1885) offered a short historical survey on how the “first among equals” role developed (with quotes from historian Edward Gibbon):

“The want of united action among the different presbyters [elders] of the same church when they were all of equal authority,” and the order of public deliberations requiring that there should be someone “invested at least with the authority of collecting the sentiments and executing the resolutions” . . . of the church, led to the appointment of one of their number a permanent president or moderator. The title bishop, which was applied to all the elders, came after a while to be applied exclusively to the president — elder, as Justin in the middle of the second century still calls him, merely to distinguish him from his equal co-elders. He was not superior to them, but only “first among equals.” (Polity, 532; emphasis mine)

Williams gives us several gems in this little paragraph. He tells us both what a primus inter pares (“first among equals”) is not, and what it is.

He is not a command-and-control guy.

These days, Christian leaders often draw their model of leadership from sources outside of the Bible. Don’t get me wrong — it’s good to read broadly. You must read to lead. But church leadership literature and practice often draws heavily from the business world, which in turn borrows freely from the military.

In the military, particularly during warfare, command and control are a necessity. It’s never good to stop and question your commander when you’re taking fire. My son had six deployments in the Army, several of them in hot zones. When he was there, I wouldn’t have wanted his superior officer to stop and convene the group for some mid-assault collaboration. When you’re taking a hill, having a top-down, centralized authority structure is necessary. In wartime, you need a commander who compels compliance and disciplines anything less than complete obedience. Pity the poor platoon with a leader just “collecting the sentiments and executing the resolutions” of the group.

But we can’t import a command-and-control leadership model into a local church eldership, where the culture (as well as the means of doing ministry) should be defined by Scripture and the fruit of the Spirit. Whatever “first among equals” means, it does not mean absolute ruler over the team. As Williams says, “he was not superior to them.”

“Whatever ‘first among equals’ means, it does not mean absolute ruler over the team.”

In fact, it’s hazardous when pastors organize their vision of leadership around the word first in “first among equals” — when the lead pastor’s opinion is first, his preferences first, his sensitivities first, his entitlements first. A primus-driven team culture often incubates celebrity entitlements and leadership ecosystems grounded in power and authority. For the plurality, the church staff, or the congregation, this plays like a karaoke machine at a funeral — seriously misguided and hopelessly out of place.

Primus-driven leaders can be tempted to relegate godly character and humble service to the margins, sentencing fellow team members to a fear-based and unsafe culture. When that happens, guys know they serve at the pleasure of the senior leader, whose agenda defines direction and whose perspective dictates reality. No wonder staff turnover is common; team members leave because the senior leadership is no longer tolerable. Or worse, no longer respected.

He is not merely a moderator.

In our cynical culture, plurality is much easier to support than the guy who feels called to lead one. People love the democracy, co-equality, interchangeableness, and accountability implied in plurality. This pares-driven model feels extremely enlightened, remarkably fair. Suspicions are stirred by the misguided man who feels a distinct call to exercise the gift of leadership (Romans 12:8). It feels like a power-grabbing conspiracy against the laity. To center preaching and leadership in one is to diminish the strength of all.

I’ve known churches where the elderships were unadorned with senior leaders. Where you see this model working well, it’s typically due to some remarkably humble elders seeking to uphold a principled vision. But I believe it works against an order outlined in Scripture and applied throughout church history and human civilization. Where the leaderless-equals model seems to be working, chances are that someone is, in fact, the consistent initiator and buckstopper, the collector of sentiments, and the executor of the group’s resolutions. It’s just undercover — influence without a title.

For most elder teams, however, it actually prevents confusion and helps avoid misuses of authority to identify the real sources of leadership and power. And honestly, in many cases, the absence of this order brings the presence of chaos as conflicting visions, the want of elder care, and alignment complexities consistently tempt the unity of elder teams. In fact, Williams tells us that the “first among equals” role arose because of “want of united action.” At the end of the day, disunited action often has a dividing effect.

He is a leader from among.

These two errors — the error of overbearing primus-driven ministry and the error of egalitarian pares-driven ministry — highlight the truth that to be healthy, both the eldership and the senior leader must operate within a humility-empowered tension.

On the one side, the lead pastor advocates for the opinions and involvement of the team as a whole. As Williams observes, he must “collect the sentiments” of the elders, which requires listening well as he solicits their counsel, understands their thinking, and leans on their gifts.

On the other side, the plurality of elders creates space for the senior role to actually use his gifts to lead. Once again Williams is clear. He tells us that the “first among equals” is invested with authority to “execute the resolutions of the church.” This means the elders grant the senior leader latitude and followership to order and direct their efforts.

But don’t think battalion commander or CEO. As Andy Crouch once said, “Think of a symphony conductor!” The senior pastor’s leadership does not coerce toward action, but directs skillful people whose gifts need to be organized, prioritized, and united to produce magnificent music. The result is a beautiful blending of leadership and teamwork, where the elders remain jealous to be conducted by the senior leader, and the lead pastor knows he needs the gifts and unity of the whole team for the church to flourish. Why is this so crucial? For church leadership to flourish, the elder plurality must be led.

Call for Gospel Guts

A healthy plurality led by a humble leader is not accidental. It happens where men have the guts to apply the gospel. In a self-emptying display of humility (Philippians 2:5–11), the elders subordinate themselves and appoint a leader as “first among equals.” Through self-crucifying displays of love, the lead pastor embodies Christ’s application of “first” — among them as one who serves (Matthew 20:26–27). And within the exquisite torture of this tension between “first” and “equals,” the gospel grows more precious, and the humble leadership of one enhances the ministry joy for many.

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to a new week on the podcast. Last summer, in episode 1500, some of you may remember that we talked about personal productivity. And there, Pastor John, you said it was essential that we learn the difference between sloth and rest. You pointed us to your poem titled “Pilgrim’s Conflict with Sloth.” I commend the poem, and your reading of it. But in APJ 1500, you said that everyone knows “that there is a place — an absolutely crucial place” for rest and for leisure because “the Sabbath principle [still] holds.” But then you warned us that “we must know the difference between sloth and rest.” You didn’t really explain that difference there; you pointed us to the poem. I hate to say it, but I think a lot of listeners will resonate more with plainly stated principles. So can you, in principle, distinguish for us the indulgence of sinful sloth from the virtue of true rest?

Yes, I think we can, and that’s because the Bible does pretty clearly. So, let me use biblical terms.

Restful or Lazy?

Let’s use the terms sluggard and diligent, because those terms are used in Proverbs. For example, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Proverbs 13:4). The question we’re asking, then, is, What’s the difference between the restfulness of the diligent and the laziness of the sluggard? Because at any given moment, restfulness and laziness might look the same if you’re just looking at somebody sitting in a chair or lying in a bed or sleeping — but they’re not the same. So, what’s the difference?

“The restfulness of the diligent is received as a gracious reward for the gift of God-glorifying work.”

One other clarification before I state the difference: I’m not interested here in unbelieving diligence. The kind of diligence I care about is the kind that sees the cross of Christ as the ground of all grace, and the Holy Spirit as the key to all holiness, and the glory of God as the goal of all reality, which would include the goal of all diligence. I’m not just talking about any diligence, but the diligence rooted in the glory of God, the cross of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, let me state now my summary of the difference between laziness and the sluggard, and restfulness and the diligent, and then we’ll dig down into the roots. The laziness of the sluggard is owing to his overpowering aversion to work. And the restfulness of the diligent is received as a gracious reward for the gift of God-glorifying work and a pleasant preparation for renewed productivity. Or let me say it another way: The laziness of the sluggard is a capitulation to his disinclination to exertion. And the restfulness of the diligent is a sweet compensation for God-honoring exertion, and thankful renewal for more usefulness. Those are my summary statements.

Slaves to Sluggishness

Let’s go down now to the roots and take just a moment to focus on the problem of the sluggard, and then spend most of our time on the biblical vision of work that makes the restfulness of the diligence so sweet.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful” — that is, useful or beneficial to accomplish some good purpose. He continues, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated [mastered, controlled, ruled] by anything.” Now, there’s the test that the sluggard fails: You can devote your life to things that are helpful, useful, beneficial, accomplishing some good for the glory of God, or you can be mastered by bodily disinclination to work. That’s called laziness or sluggishness.

Paul says, “I will not be mastered, enslaved, dominated, ruled, by anything. I belong to Christ. He alone is my Master; therefore, I will put to death the bodily impulses that tend to enslave me, and I will walk as a free man, devoting myself to things that are helpful, useful, beneficial.” But the sluggard, not so. The sluggard is mastered by his bodily aversion to exertion. He’s a slave. Therefore, his rest is not the sweet reward for doing good; it is the selfish resistance to doing good.

Recover Work’s Reward

Let’s turn for a moment to the amazing roots of the diligent and the restfulness that they enjoy. At root, the basic difference between the sluggard and the diligent is that the sluggard feels work as a misery to be avoided, and the diligent sees work as a God-given, life-giving privilege.

Now, of course, it’s true that when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, one of the effects of sin was to infect work with futility and burdensomeness. God said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. . . . By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (Genesis 3:17, 19). That’s not a very positive view of work. There will always be some of that burden, some of that futility, in all of our work. As long as this sinful age lasts, there’ll be some of that — no matter what your work is — which is why the final rest that God offers in his kingdom is desired and longed for, even by those who find their work here rewarding.

“The sluggard feels work as a misery to be avoided, and the diligent sees work as a God-given, life-giving privilege.”

But the grace of God has penetrated this fallen world order and enables the children of God to recover, in part, the rewarding significance of work, which God intended from the beginning in creation. And that’s what I think the diligent perceive, even if they don’t articulate it. They sense it. Before the fall, God said to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion . . . over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). That subduing and having dominion over creation will not happen while you’re sitting in your lawn chair with your feet up.

In fact, in Genesis 2:15, before the fall, it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” In other words, the original plan was not laziness or sloth or inactivity or lack of productivity. Human beings are in the image of God. We are makers, like God. Whether we make a meal or make a bed or make a computer program or make a straight piece of wood or make a ditch or a wall of bricks or a school lesson or a sermon, we are makers by nature. The diligent have discovered this, and by grace, the fall does not prevent the recovery — by grace, in Christ — in some significant measure, of the God-glorified meaningfulness of work, so that rest can be experienced as a sweet reward for a day’s work and a pleasant renewal for a new day of purposefulness.

Sweet Diligence

Ecclesiastes 5:12 says, “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.” What makes the restfulness of the diligent sweet is the peaceful realization that the success of all their work depends finally on God, and not themselves.

Unless the Lord builds the house,     those who build it labor in vain. . . .It is in vain that you rise up early     and go late to rest,eating the bread of anxious toil;     for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:1–2)

It is the grace of God, pushing back the effects of the fall, that takes away anxiety and makes labor meaningful and sweet, and gives true restfulness. The New Testament adds to the motivations of the diligent that, when we work,

we will have something not only for ourselves but to give others (Ephesians 4:28),
we will not be a burden to others (2 Thessalonians 3:8),
we will be a good example to unbelievers (1 Thessalonians 4:12), and
we will let our light shine, so that people see our good deeds, our exertions, for the glory of God (Matthew 5:16).

The sluggard finds none of these motivations compelling.

So, let me give my summary once more: The laziness of the sluggard is owing to his overpowering aversion to work. And the restfulness of the diligent is received as a gracious reward for the gift of God-glorifying work and a pleasant preparation for renewed productivity.