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.

Some milestones in our children’s lives stick with us. I cannot forget teaching our children to read — a pleasure that continues as I help our youngest son.

I remember the weight of my charge to help my young children’s developing minds grasp written language! This skill enables them to read God’s word for themselves. What could be more motivating for me as their mom and teacher? Yet the process of training them to read started long before they turned four or five or six or seven. It started when they were babies being read board books by Mom and Dad.

Cultivate the Right Tastes Together

Reading doesn’t begin as an activity your child does by himself. It begins with fathers and mothers. It begins with us reading aloud. We increase our kid’s appetite by narrating books that they enjoy and understand. These books are not the books you would choose to read in your alone time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy them together.

This is a benefit of being a mom — getting to find joy and delight in the things that our children find joy and delight in. We get to reexperience every stage of childhood, which means we get to reexperience every stage of reading. Are there moments when this is more duty than delight? Of course! But not often if you’ve taken care to put off that sinful sort of adulthood that can’t enjoy the childlikeness that marks the very kingdom of God.

I have memorized many books over the years (even longer ones!) simply because my young children wanted to hear the book over and over, day after day, night after night. This sort of repetition is good for them and us. We often benefit more from knowing one good book inside and out than we would from barely knowing ten books, so welcome your child’s love of repetition.

Discipling Readers

From the earliest books you read to your children, remember that you’re cultivating tastes — tastes for rhyme, rhythm, and cadence; tastes for artwork, color, and illustrations; tastes for themes, plots, and morals.

Books are not inherently virtuous. Books can have good content and bad content. The cadence can be off, the themes can be foolish, the illustrations can be gaudy. As mom, you get to help weed out the bad and offer up the good. It won’t do to send young sons or daughters to peruse the aisles of the children’s section at the public library or bookstore without your steady hand to guide them.

“From the earliest books you read to your children, remember that you’re cultivating tastes.”

Books can teach and catechize all sorts of ungodly ideologies, but thankfully, that’s why children have a mom — so that she can help to discern between books that are junk food, books that are snack food, books that are poison, and books that are healthy. And, as a Christian, it’s perfectly acceptable to avoid the public library altogether if you find it unhelpful. That was my approach. Instead, we started our own home library — a decision I’ve never regretted.

The Good, the True, the Beautiful

One of our favorite family pastimes has been to listen to books together while in the car — either a lengthy book series over a long trip, or shorter books on the way to weekly activities. We made the decision early on to avoid screens for our kids in the car, but instead to listen to books and music, and talk to each other.

Once we were driving a fifteen-hour trek from Montana home to Minnesota in one day, and we had been listening to The Chronicles of Narnia. It was our first time listening to the whole series as a family, and our five children ranged from infant to grade school. We finally arrived home late at night, but we still had about fifteen minutes left of The Last Battle. So, at the older kids’ request, we parked the car in the garage and sat for fifteen more minutes going further up and further into True Narnia, as tears streamed down my face at the wonder of it all.

But why do we encourage our kids to read? I’ve noticed that there is a sort of strange pride we moms can have about our children being “readers,” as though a child with his head in a book must be a good kid, or at the very least, a smart one. But we moms need to know better. Reading is a means, not an end. And it ought to be a means to Christian virtue — to the good, the true, and the beautiful — and to help sharpen or challenge thinking, to inspire courage, and glean insight. If reading is desirable merely because it’s better than the TV or iPad, then we should probably raise the bar.

“God knows how to write the best stories. We want our children to read of him, trust him, and enjoy him forever.”

Just as we must be discerning readers and help our children develop into discerning readers, we also must be discerning moms — seeing clearly whether our children’s reading habit is cultivating virtue or suppressing it. As our children have grown to love reading, I have frequently confiscated (good!) books, and reminded them they have stories of their own to be living. Get outside, solve a problem, talk to people, do your chores, tell some jokes, make music. Do I want them to be “readers”? Yes, inasmuch as reading cultivates virtue, not a malformed introversion.

Expect the Eucatastrophe

When our oldest daughter, Eliza, was ten, she was finishing up a book in the back seat of our minivan. Seth, her younger brother, was reading the last chapter along with her, not having read the rest of the book. He commented to her, “It looks like it’s going to be a happy ending.” She responded, “Oh, I don’t like happy endings. That means the book is over.” Then she gave this insight, “But when things are scary or sad at the end, you know there will be another chapter or book coming.”

Haven’t you known the sinking feeling of ending a book that you love? J.R.R. Tolkien said that the best kind of stories (which he calls fairy-tales) don’t have an ending. But what they do have is the eucatastrophe, which Tolkien describes in one of his letters:

I coined the word eucatastrophe: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, 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 nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest eucatastrophe possible. (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 100)

Perhaps the greatest virtue we aim to instill in our children through reading is to recognize the eucatastrophe, and learn to expect it — which is integral to the Christian faith and story. This reality is why we would have them daily become acquainted with the stories and rhythms and plots and cadence and themes of the Scriptures through reading.

The Best of Stories

The great Eucatastrophe has happened — God the Son was crucified and buried, then raised to life on the third day. But there are more eucatastrophes to come for those who are in Christ.

That is why the chief book we encourage our kids to read is Scripture. The God who brought his people through the Red Sea as they were pressed by Pharoah’s army, and who toppled the walls of Jericho with trumpets and shouts, and who used a young shepherd to take down Goliath, and who kept Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego unsinged in the hottest fire, and who rescued his people with a beautiful young woman turned Queen Esther — he knows how to rescue the godly when all seems lost. He knows how to write the best stories. We want our children to read of him, trust him, and enjoy him forever.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to this new week on the podcast. Well, the Bible says Christians have been saved in the past. And it says we will be saved in the future. And it says we are being saved right now — being saved. We’re going to look at that last one, the present-tense one, today, in a question from a listener named Jessica.

“Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for answering so many questions on this podcast! Here’s mine: I recently read 1 Corinthians 1:18 with new eyes. I noticed that the word ‘saved’ in my KJV is translated as ‘being saved’ in many other versions. I have heard this explained by teachers with the following rationale for ‘being saved.’ (1) We are eternally saved from judgment of our sins, as Jesus paid it all on the cross — past tense. (2) We are presently being saved from behaving sinfully by walking in the Spirit. And (3) we will be saved from a world filled with sin after our life on earth is over, and we are given our glorified bodies. The church mainly addresses the fact that we have been saved — past tense (1). But can you explain to me (2), and 1 Corinthians 1:18, that we are being saved right now?”

Let’s nail down past salvation and future salvation, and then focus on what the Bible means by our “being saved” in between those two acts of salvation. But let’s be clear from the beginning that all three stages of salvation were secured, purchased, by the decisive act of God in Christ on the cross — all three, not just the past.

“Because of the cross, every aspect of salvation will most certainly come to God’s people — past, present, future.”

Here’s the utterly glorious foundation for that statement (maybe my favorite verse in the Bible): “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Now, here’s the meaning: Because of the cross, every aspect of salvation will most certainly come to God’s people — past, present, future. So, whether past, present, or future, we are not talking about three different foundations of salvation, but the different applications of the one achieved foundation: Jesus Christ crucified for sinners.

Past and Future Salvation

So first, past salvation.

By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created [that’s past; you’re a new creation] in Christ Jesus for good works [that’s ongoing], which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8–10)

So, the decisive work is done. The moment we believed, we were united to Christ, were justified in him, were forgiven, adopted; we became new creatures and were once for all saved — “to the uttermost” as Hebrews 7:25 says.

Now, that past salvation, Paul says, is the absolute guarantee of our future salvation. And that future salvation is usually spoken of as a rescue from the future wrath of God. Here’s Romans 5:9–10:

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood [that’s past], much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

And there are numerous other texts speaking in that way (Romans 13:11; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9–10; 2 Timothy 4:18; Hebrews 9:28).

Present Salvation

Now, what about the words “are being saved” in 1 Corinthians 1:18? That’s what Jessica’s asking about. “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” We find the same wording in Acts 2:47, “The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Likewise in 2 Corinthians 2:15: “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved.”

In what sense is God saving us now, between the past salvation of the new birth and redemption and justification and forgiveness of sins and adoption — which are all fixed and firm and unchangeable — and the future salvation of deliverance from the wrath of God in judgment and, as she said, complete eradication of sin and the transformation of our bodies into glorious bodies like Christ’s? What is God doing now that qualifies as part of this salvation?

Sanctified Through the Spirit

I think the key verse that launches us into our right understanding of this question is 2 Thessalonians 2:13: “God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” “Saved through sanctification by the Spirit” — that is what God is doing now: he’s sanctifying us. And that is salvation, a necessary part of salvation, for three reasons.

First, it says right here in this text that we are saved “through sanctification.” Sanctification is the work of God through which we make it to final salvation. Second, Hebrews 12:14 says there’s a holiness, a sanctification, “without which [we will not] see the Lord.” So, God is at work saving us now by seeing to it that we attain the holiness without which we won’t see the Lord. And third, 2 Peter 1:10 says, “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities” — that is, if you’re sanctified, as Paul said — “you will never fall.”

So, I conclude that Christians are being saved now by God in that he’s sanctifying us as the necessary confirmation of our election through lives of sanctification.

God is doing that saving work in two senses. First, he’s keeping us back from soul-destroying patterns of sin, as it says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that no test, no temptation will overcome us to destroy us. Or Jude 24: “[He will] keep you from stumbling and . . . present you blameless” to God. And second, the other sense in which God is doing that sanctifying work, that saving work, is by causing us to positively walk in paths of righteousness. As Hebrews 13:21 says, “[He is] working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.”

Living on the Word

Now, if we ask how God is saving us in this sanctifying way, the answer given over and over is this: by the word of God, by the gospel. Jesus prayed, “[Father,] sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). So, God sanctifies by the truth. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:1–2, “I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.” In other words, God uses the words of God, the gospel, in an ongoing, present, saving, sanctifying work in believers — he keeps us, holds us, saves us by the gospel. By trusting the promises of the gospel day by day, the power of sin is broken, and we walk in the freedom of holiness.

“Daily welcoming, daily embracing the word of God is the ongoing way that God keeps us from destruction.”

James puts it like this: he says to Christians, “Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). So, daily welcoming, receiving, daily embracing the word of God is the ongoing way that God keeps us from destruction and saves us. Peter puts it like this in 1 Peter 2:2. After saying that we are born again by “the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23), he says to new Christians, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk” — I take that to be the word — “that by it you may grow up into salvation.” We grow into final salvation by living on the Word of God. That’s how the gospel goes on saving.

As Secure as the Past

That leaves us now with one final question: Can we count on God’s present saving work to be as infallible and as sure as our past salvation is? The past seems so firm, so fixed, so finished. It’s wonderful to dwell on the past thought, I am justified. The past can’t be changed. But what about the present, ongoing work of God to save us through sanctification? And here’s Paul’s answer in 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24:

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

So yes, it is sure. Present salvation is as sure as the past because the past is in fact what secures it.

Let’s end where we began, with the spectacular logic of heaven in Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all [that’s past], how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” So yes, our present and future salvation is as sure as God’s commitment to the worth of his Son’s death, which is infinite.

Many of us see and hear more information in a day than we can possibly manage. Over time, this consistent overload dulls our senses — in particular, our spiritual senses.

Numbness affects more than just our thumbs, which scroll endlessly past trends and trivialities. Our hearts grow cold. We come across a natural disaster or terrible tragedy in one post, only to scroll on to a new life hack for improving our health and wellness, before encountering someone’s commentary on politics or a hilarious video with kids or animals. The result? A blur. A noisy background filled with so much information and so little wisdom.

I give time to social media every day, probably too much sometimes. I also listen to a variety of podcasts that keep me informed of various trends or topics in theology, politics, and cultural analysis. I’m obviously not opposed to these media or channels. I’m grateful for the good I glean from them. But even when we look for what’s good on social media or subscribe to informative and educational podcasts — even when we look for what’s edifying — we still encounter challenges.

For instance, many of us are tempted to think we must always be up-to-date, tightly tethered to the “Listen Now” of our podcast feeds. We run relentlessly after the feeling of being caught up on the latest, or on the cutting edge of whatever’s happening online. We love being in the know. And our devotion to now comes with deep and subtle consequences.

Losing Our Appetite for God

Sometimes the desire to stay on top of online trends and issues leads us to devote too much attention to the present, at the expense of the past — or worse, the eternal. That’s why we do well to look below what’s happening right now, to the foundations of the faith that help us maintain clear perspective on the current debates and controversies of our time.

If we’re to be faithful, we cannot settle for simply skimming the surface of today’s breaking news or this week’s topic of conversation and debate. Faithfulness requires digging, returning to the bedrock of the faith so that we have somewhere to stand. We need roots that go deep so that we can stand tall like a tree, firmly rooted, no matter how hard the cultural winds blow. Without roots, we’re just debris, tossed by the wind, dizzied by swirling news and information.

“The church faces her biggest challenge not when new errors start to win, but when old truths no longer wow.”

In The Thrill of Orthodoxy, my goal is to awaken Christians to the exhilarating beauty of the historic Christian faith. The church faces her biggest challenge not when new errors start to win, but when old truths no longer wow. Our online habits often lead to a mind-numbing and heart-shriveling state in which the deep and rich truths of the Bible no longer startle us. We lose our appetite for the things of God because we’ve stuffed ourselves so full of information about whatever’s now.

Worn Paths to Shallow

We really do not need to stay on top of everything. It’s better to dig beneath the surface of current events and root ourselves in the great story of the world as it’s unfolded in the Scriptures. What do we believe? Why are we here? Where are we going? What is all this world about in the end? Without firm and constant reminders of the truth of Christianity and the ultimate glory of God, we’re likely to be shallow and double-minded, unstable in all our ways (James 1:8), without the wisdom necessary to discern the faithful path today.

The challenge of distraction is not new. Blaise Pascal once remarked on the problems of humanity that stem from our “inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” We seek out distraction and stimulation, and avoid both solitude and introspection. Christianity withers without the two. We regularly need enough space and focus to savor the truths of Scripture — to taste their sweetness, and find nourishment through their sustaining power.

Alongside the Scriptures, we also find joy and stability in a (perhaps) unlikely place: the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church.

Creed over Podcast?

Three creeds in particular stand out: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. These statements describe who God is and what he has done, according to the Scriptures. They point to the Trinitarian core of Christianity. The historic confessions, many of which appeared during and after the Reformation, are beautifully crafted, detailed descriptions of more of the fullness of the faith. The creeds provide a superstructure, a blueprint, while the confessions fill in the details and give greater clarity to the Christian life.

Biblical and systematic theologies go even further, examining the truth about the world and our place in it, in thousands of pages of prose. Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). All Christian theology is, in a sense, our attempt to answer that question with accuracy, to confess with confidence the identity of the One whose name we bear. Theology is about encountering God as he truly is and basking in the excellencies of his righteous character and saving acts.

Ancient creeds may seem a long way off from today’s online world — the endless debates on social media or the constant chatter of podcasts. But that’s exactly why the creeds matter. If they seem distant and dusty, that says more about us and our mindset than it does about the documents themselves. They describe the foundations of our faith. They are guardrails of orthodoxy. They give voice to the testimony of the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). They keep us stable through stormy seasons in every age.

Strategies Against the Noise

So, in light of all the noise, how do we cultivate wisdom in a digital age? We implement practices that guard us from the shallowness of “the now” and immerse us in the wells of what’s always been true.

“We seek out distraction and stimulation, and avoid both solitude and introspection.”

First, I urge believers to follow the “Scripture before phone” rule each morning. If you need to get an old-fashioned alarm clock (so that your phone is kept in another room), do it. Have your Bible or prayer guide ready to go somewhere close by. How different might your life be if you committed to spending time hearing from God before the world’s noise could intrude? (I often follow a structured prayer journey through the Psalms in 30 Days to aid me in this process.)

Second, I recommend turning certain technologies to your own advantage. Follow social media accounts that are edifying (voices steeped in the Scriptures, organizations grounded in creedal orthodoxy). Incorporate into your podcast feed some trustworthy men and women who care about church history or who seek to explore the great truths of Christianity.

Third, switch up scrolling for studying. You do this by setting limits on how much you will take in online, and then replacing some of that intake with more substantive theology. You can set your phone to alert you after you’ve been on an app for more than fifteen or twenty minutes in a day. And if you want to switch from a mindless habit to a mind-stretching one, commit to matching your social media time with reading time. Pick up a hefty book of theology, one that goes through the basics of Christian theology. Even the biggest systematic theology textbooks or books on church history can be read within a year if you read just two or three pages a day.

Fourth, don’t go it alone. Find friends in the faith who, like you, want to prioritize enduring truth over the latest news. The creeds are statements of what we believe, not what I believe on my own. Even the Apostles’ Creed, which starts with a statement of personal belief, developed as a baptismal ritual, and the whole church was present to celebrate the convert’s good confession.

Steady and Fruitful in the Storm

The answer to mindless scrolling is more mindful lingering. Studying the Scriptures and pondering the ancient creeds and confessions gives us the opportunity to grow in our knowledge and wisdom, so that we are better equipped to follow Jesus. In a world where people are tossed and turned by all the latest developments, it’s more important than ever to be rooted in something that can sustain us, something that can transform us, something that doesn’t change with the news.

May the Lord reawaken in us an appreciation for biblical and historic Christianity, so that we will be steady and fruitful in turbulent days to come.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which — if you saw it now — you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. —C.S. Lewis

When I’ve read or heard these words over the years, I’ve typically thought of strangers. “It’s a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses” — standing at the bus stop, waiting in line at the grocery store, walking by on the street (all the people I’m tempted to see but never notice). We’re surrounded by immortal souls, all the time — but we’re often tempted to treat them like houseplants. Like nice houseplants, beautiful even, but not like humans — not like eternal souls who will stand before the living God and be ushered into a perpetual, untouchable paradise or a terrifying home of never-ending torment.

Wake up! Lewis says. You’ve never met a mere mortal. Those strangers walking by are not houseplants; they’re wonders wrapped in flesh and blood and need. That’s a good application. Every “random” person you encounter is an eternal marvel — a miracle in the making, or a nightmare, an immortal life worthy of your attention, concern, respect, love.

The quote took on even more meaning, though, when I realized that Lewis doesn’t limit the point to strangers.

No Ordinary Spouses

Keep reading, and the spectacular reality comes uncomfortably close to home:

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another — all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, 45–46)

“All friendships, all loves . . .” he says. “It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry . . . immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” Eternal miracles or nightmares. What dawned on me is that I’m not only tempted to overlook the spiritual potential and destiny of strangers; I’m tempted to do so even with my closest relationships — my friends, my family, my bride, my kids.

Sometimes it’s the people we know the best that we most struggle to see in the light of spiritual reality. They’re almost too familiar, too predictable — too, well, ordinary. But there are no ordinary friends. There are no ordinary classmates or roommates. There are no ordinary students or teachers. There are no ordinary boyfriends or girlfriends, husbands or wives. It is a serious thing to live beside immortals.

Miracles in the Making

Where would Lewis get an idea like everlasting splendors? From verses like Romans 8:16–17:

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

If the Spirit dwells in you, by faith, then you are a child of God. And if you’re a child of God, you will be glorified with God. Have you realized that? You will be like him. God will glorify “ordinary” people like you and me — to the glory of God.

“Sometimes it’s the people we know the best that we most struggle to see in the light of spiritual reality.”

Next verses, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for —” For what? For the appearing of Christ? For the new heavens and new earth? That’s not what Paul mentions here. “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:18–19). The creation wants to see us — what we will become. Are you hearing Lewis yet? And we won’t be God-like splendors for mere centuries or millennia, but forever. “I give them eternal life,” Jesus says, “and they will never perish” (John 10:28).

We are miracles in the making. The oceans, mountains, and stars are lined up outside to get a glimpse of what we’ll become. If you love and follow Jesus, that’s true of you. And here’s the critical turn that Lewis takes: if the dull, uninteresting, ordinary persons you live with (or work with, or coach soccer with, or go to church with) love and follow Jesus, it’ll be true of them too. If you could see what they will be in 150 years, you would see them differently. You would treat them differently. Wouldn’t you?

Nightmares in the Making

Lewis didn’t only say everlasting splendors, though — everlasting splendors or immortal horrors, future miracles or nightmares. Have you reckoned recently with the never-ending destiny of those in your life who will not love Jesus?

For as little as we might think about the blinding glory coming to those who believe, we might think even less about the awful terror awaiting those who don’t. “As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars” — that is, those who won’t bow and follow Jesus — “their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). One purpose of the vivid imagination and visions of Revelation is to make the depths of hell feel more real. They force us to imagine real people in fire and sulfur and torture, because people we know will really suffer like that, and worse, forever.

Even among those who currently profess faith, we can’t take their future splendor for granted. Hebrews 3:12–13 warns us, “Take care, brothers” — he’s writing to the church, to those who claim to love Jesus now —

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Part of being awake to one another’s immortality is to remember that any of us could be deceived and hardened and destroyed by sin. And if we let sin have its way in us, it will mutilate us. It will make us hideous — “a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.” If we could see what sin does to a person — for now, on the inside, but one day, for all to see — we would pursue and exhort one another more than we do. We’d exhort one another every day.

How to Love Immortals

The truth is that Lewis exposes us. We often live and work and study and play and date functionally oblivious to both heaven and hell — as if we didn’t know that everyone we meet, everyone we love, will spend eternity in one or the other. But there’s no “spiritual Midwest” lying out there between paradise and agony, between the everlasting splendors and the immortal horrors — just heaven and hell, forever.

So, what might all of this mean for our closest relationships? What might this mean for a home, like mine, with a wife and three small kids? First, and perhaps most humbling, it reminds us to pray. Their immortality reminds us how painfully little we control in our relationships. All the things we want most for our spouse, our children, our extended family and friends are things God must do. That doesn’t mean, as we often assume, that there’s nothing we can do. There’s just nothing we can do without God.

Having first prayed, though, what else can we do? We could use more of our interactions to remind loved ones of their immortality. For those who do not yet believe in Jesus, these will likely be unnatural and awkward conversations. How they feel about the conversation doesn’t change the truth. One day soon, they will be an everlasting splendor or an immortal horror. Immortality is worth an enormous amount of awkwardness and friction.

“Christians who sense the reality and urgency of eternity don’t tolerate patterns of sinfulness in one another.”

Even those who do believe in Jesus, though, still need regular, sometimes forceful reminders of their immortality. “Exhort one another every day.” Christians who sense the reality and urgency of eternity don’t tolerate patterns of sinfulness in one another. The love of Christ controls them, so they speak up when others wouldn’t. They seek the sweet and lasting fruit of some relational discomfort. They’re also often unusually faithful encouragers. They know when to warn the wayward, and they know when to lift and strengthen and focus the weary. Every everlasting splendor is the product of consistent, meaningful encouragement.

Perhaps the simplest way, then, to apply the prospect of these two mouth-stopping eternities — future miracles and future nightmares — would be to seek to be (and stay) uncomfortably Christian. Modern life, at least in America, resists this kind of Godwardness. We quietly agree to keep our conversations to what we can see and hear and touch, but everything we can now see and hear and touch will pass away. And when it does, you and everyone you know will become the wonder or horror you will forever be.

That Sunday evening, between the hours of 7:00 and 9:15, is permanently etched into my memory banks. I was 17 and had just arrived in Aberdeen, “The Granite City” (as it has long been known because so many of its buildings and houses are constructed of gray granite).

I was there to begin my studies at the university. I had never seen it before and knew almost nothing about it. But my first duty was already on my mind: “When Sinclair goes to Aberdeen,” an acquaintance of my father had said to him, “tell him to go to hear Willie Still of Gilcomston South Church — he gives great Bible readings.” Following up on that suggestion has left a permanent mark on my life and, I trust, on my ministry.

First Service at the ‘Gilc’

I had never heard of Willie Still and had no idea where Gilcomston South Church might be — “Gilc,” as I later discovered people referred to it. And as for “Bible readings” — I had no real concept of what they were. But having attended morning worship at the college chapel, I walked into the town center to find out where “Gilc” was, came back to my residence for a meal, and returned at the stated hour of 7:00 for the evening service.

Around 7:25, after singing and two prayers, a seemingly elderly, balding figure in the distant pulpit began to read from the Old Testament. He took around half an hour to read through two chapters, interspersing the reading with a variety of fascinating comments (he did not know then, I suspect, that the Westminster Assembly’s Directory for Public Worship frowned on such interruptions to the reading of the sacred text!).

Then we sang a hymn. I stood standing at the end of the last verse, but realized everyone else was sitting down. Assuming this was a signal that instead of a benediction there would be a closing prayer, I bowed my head and closed my eyes. It took only a second or two, however, to realize that the words I was hearing were not the opening words of a prayer but the first words of a sermon. An hour and fifteen minutes later, he pronounced a vigorous “Amen! Let us sing hymn number . . .” — and then, at last, the benediction.

A “Bible Reading,” I realized after a few weeks, was not what Mr. Still had done earlier in the service. It was evangelical speak for systematic exposition, what is traditionally referred to as the lectio continua approach to biblical exposition. That approach is now so common that many have little idea how novel it seemed in the post-war English-speaking world.

I was shy and socially a little awkward (only a little?). It was another eighteen months before I spoke to him for the first time.

Meeting Mr. Still

Born in 1911, Mr. Still became minister of Gilcomston South Church in 1945. He remained there for over fifty years. He was my minister for six years and remained a mentor and friend until his death in 1997.

It would be difficult to calculate what I owe to Mr. Still. We were very differently wired. His preaching style was not one I could have or should have imitated — perhaps mercifully. Because of illness, he had received little or no formal education between his early teens and his mid-twenties. That lacuna left its mark on the way he thought — rarely, it seemed, in a straight logical line, although on many occasions he would follow a biblical-theological line through the whole Bible in order to bring depth to the passage from which he was preaching. I often thought that listening to him was like watching a deep-sea diver disappear into the water, eventually surfacing with a precious pearl in hand.

His conduct of worship was one of his spiritual gifts — “bathed in prayer,” as he often said. The church met for prayer on Saturday evenings, summoned by the weekly Lord’s Day announcement, “The elders will meet for prayer at 7:00 and the congregation at 7:30.” The meeting usually concluded just before ten o’clock in the evening — but in those hours it was often difficult to get a word in edgeways, such was the flow of prayer.

I have sometimes likened that gathering to a helicopter ride round the globe, dropping down in places I had never heard of to intercede for the advance of the kingdom and people of God there. To be in the services the following morning and evening was evidence enough of God drawing near to those who draw near to him. We were, as young students, often bowed down in “wonder, love, and praise” at the end of the services.

“Mr. Still delighted to bring out new treasures, and he never tired of putting again on display treasures that were old.”

It is not possible in brief compass to describe Mr. Still’s ministry in detail. His approach is well summarized in his little book The Work of the Pastor. I have heard numbers of men who never met or heard him comment on this book’s impact on their own ministries. Some of the recurring themes in his preaching are expressed in his Towards Spiritual Maturity, not least what he often referred to as “the three dimensions of the Cross” — Christ’s atoning work dealing with sins (plural), sin (its reign), and Satan (our ultimate enemy). As he liked occasionally to put it, Christ dealt with “the root, the fruit, and the Brute!”

Somehow — I think under the earlier influence of authors probably more pietistic than Reformed — he had grasped the Pauline emphasis on the death and resurrection of Christ as not only the foundation for our justification, but the ground plan and pattern for the whole of the Christian life (“Many deaths and resurrections for us,” as he would have put it). Significantly, his brief autobiographical book is entitled Dying to Live.

Poring Over, Pouring Out

Here there is space to reflect on only one particular lesson that I hope I learned from him — although I should emphasize that this was not because he spoke to me about it with any frequency (he “mentored” not in the modern vogue of “discipling,” but — at least in my own view — in a more biblical pattern of friendship). He modeled for us what it means to pour the word of God into people’s lives. This was the focus of his whole ministry — feeding the flock of God whether in his preaching, pastoral visiting, pastoral counseling, or pastoral writing to and for them.

This last dimension he developed in the congregation’s Monthly Record, which included an extensive pastoral letter, news of the congregation and the much larger “congregation” beyond who were upheld in prayer, and Daily Bible Reading Notes that he wrote himself. By the end of a ministry that extended through six decades, he had probably preached and written his way through the entire Bible three times.

I use the word pour deliberately here. It actually began with his own poring over God’s word. He loved it deeply and obviously. And the poring over of his own study and meditation (never one without the other) emerged in his pouring out what he had learned for himself. In that respect, he was a “scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven,” who “is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). He delighted to bring out new treasures, and he never tired of putting again on display treasures that were old. But what struck me preeminently was the sense that the poring over and the pouring out were conveyed by what I can describe only as a pouring in of God’s word — into the minds and hearts of the congregation he served.

He certainly loved the word and studying it. I think that he did indeed love to preach. We are accustomed to seeing both of these characteristics in many preachers. But on their own, they do not constitute the same quality of pouring in. They lack a third essential ingredient for true ministry — namely, pouring into the people to whom one preaches “the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8) in the understanding that “the aim of our charge is love,” not merely knowledge (1 Timothy 1:5).

Preaching with Depth

Mr. Still had come to recognize long before I met him that what is requisite for such a ministry is sharing the Pauline experience of being among the people “in weakness and in fear and much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3) — a profound, sometimes almost debilitating consciousness of one’s own inadequacies. Paul later calls this experience being “weak in him” (2 Corinthians 13:4) — being weak not apart from him, but precisely because of our union with him. When up close and personal with Mr. Still, this deep costliness of the ministry of the Word was self-evident.

“Mr. Still’s preaching became the chariot on which the presence of the blessed Trinity was carried into our hearts.”

It was this element in ministry, it seems to me, that Paul was describing when he told the Thessalonians that “being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). And it was this element that took Mr. Still’s preaching beyond the level of surface exegesis and analysis of passages of Scripture to evoke the living realities of which they spoke. There was in his exposition of the word of God a manifestation of the truth and a manifestation to the conscience (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:2).

This gave a kind of emotional and affectional depth to his preaching. But more than that, it brought a sense of God himself, of his worshipfulness, into the preaching. The late Jim Packer used to say about Martyn Lloyd-Jones that he had never heard preaching that had “so much of God about it.” What I am describing here belonged to that same order of reality. Mr. Still certainly honored Calvin’s dictum that we give the same reverence to Scripture as we give to God because it is his word.

But (if one may put it this way without being misunderstood) while that was true, he never lost sight of the fact that God himself is not to be reduced to words to be analyzed and discussed in their interrelations, plotlines, and literary structures. He is the One whose throne is in heaven and whose footstool is the earth, the One whose greatness none can fathom, the One whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain — and yet is willing to look to him “who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

Mr. Still longed for this reality himself and for the congregation to experience it in worship and under the ministry of the word. And thus his preaching became the chariot on which the presence of the blessed Trinity was carried into our hearts. Looking back now with gratitude, I nevertheless believe those days spoiled me. For when we experience this, we can never be satisfied with less.

Written on My Heart

One day when I was a graduate student, Mr. Still gave me something. In itself it was of no real consequence, but having known him for several years as pastor and friend, I said to him, lightheartedly and somewhat teasingly, “You have known me now for several years — but this is the first time you have given me something!” I passed the gift back to him, saying, “You will need to write your autograph on it.” He pointed to the object, brushed it away, and said, gently but clearly conscious I would not doubt the integrity of his words, “That is not where I want to write my autograph.” Then, pointing his finger at my heart, he said, “There is where I want to write it.”

That is what lies behind and is expressed in and through a ministry in which the word of God is poured into the hearts of his people. The ink in which Mr. Still’s ministry has been written into my heart is now dry; but please God, I hope what he wrote will remain clearly legible to the end of my life.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Recently, we’ve been talking about how we serve and praise God. A week ago, we looked at what it means to serve God — “one of the most important questions a Christian can ask,” Pastor John said. That was APJ 1956. And that led to this question: What do we offer God as we serve him? Does he need us? And the answer to that question was no, he does not need us. We meet no need in him. So then, what do we offer him as we serve him? It’s another essential question to resolve. And that was last time, in APJ 1957.

Today we look at praise, but a different kind of praise than what we have been talking about on the podcast recently. Today we’re talking about praise in the context of celebrating one another. How do we celebrate one another authentically, and do so without flattery, which is a sin? This question is from Sarah, a listener who writes us this: “Pastor John, hello. Can you explain to me the difference between flattery and encouragement? We are called to encourage one another, but also to not puff one another up in pride. How can I know which one is which?”

There is such a thing as flattery. Not all getting is good, so we have the word greed, right? And not all giving is good, so we have the word bribe. Praise, which involves both getting and giving, may not be good, and so we have the word flattery.

Flattery in Scripture

The Greek word for flattery, kolakeias, occurs one time in the New Testament. Paul is defending his ministry to the Thessalonians, and he says, “We never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed — God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others” (1 Thessalonians 2:5–6). And it is, I think, more than coincidental that flattery occurs in that sentence with the word greed. In other words, “I want something from you” — you’re kind of getting at the heart of flattery when you think about that.

“Flattery is a form of hypocrisy.”

The idea of flattery is present without the word in Jude 16, where Jude accuses certain men of admiring persons for the sake of their own advantage. That’s the idea: you’re admiring and you’re saying nice things about somebody for the sake of your own advantage.

Now, lots more is said about flattery in the Old Testament than in the New. The word flattery is built on the Hebrew word for be smooth or slippery. So, a person who flatters is smoothing and caressing. “The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil” (Proverbs 5:3). Here’s Proverbs 7:21: “With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.” The most general statement about flattery in its destructive effects is Proverbs 26:28, “A flattering mouth works ruin,” or Proverbs 29:5, “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.”

Flattery vs. Praise

So, the key question becomes, How can we celebrate or praise good things about others without spreading a net for their feet or working their ruin? I think the key is to keep in mind the essential difference between good praise and bad flattery.

Flattery is bad because it’s calculated. It’s given with a view to obtaining some advantage (Jude 16). Flattery may be true; it may not be true. Sometimes people think it has to do with whether it’s true or not. That’s not the issue. You may be saying something true about somebody, and it may still be flattery. The issue is whether it’s calculated to achieve some purpose that is not rooted in the authentic, spontaneous delight that we take in the virtue we are praising.

In other words, the key mark of genuine, non-flattering praise is that it’s the overflow of authentic delight in what we are observing about the other person. It’s the opposite of calculation; it’s spontaneous. C.S. Lewis — one of my favorite quotes — says, “We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not only expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation” (Reflections on the Psalms, 111). Yes, exactly right.

But flattery does not flow from a sincere delight in the thing being praised. It’s all external and manipulative. It’s elicited out of us by some other benefit that we’re hoping to get through the flattery, not by the benefit that we just got from the person’s kindness or virtue or beauty or accomplishment. So, flattery is a form of hypocrisy. We try to give the impression that we are being moved by a spontaneous delight in something we admire, but we’re not really being moved by a spontaneous admiration. We’re being calculating; we’re desiring to use praise to get something. And I think the very phrase “use praise” makes me gag. You’re going to go to God and use praise. Ick. It’s a horrible way to think, and it’s pretty prevalent today.

Keeping Praise Authentic

This reality raises the question of whether it’s appropriate to “use praise” as a means of bringing about behaviors in children or employees or friends. Doesn’t that imply some kind of calculated use of praise for ulterior motives? And that’s a tough question.

I think the answer goes something like this. If the praise can still be an expression of authentic, spontaneous delight in some good that we have observed, and if our goal is that the child or the friend do more of that behavior, not for the sake of praise but because it’s intrinsically beautiful and God-honoring, then it’s legitimate to hope that our praise will produce more good behavior. But in general, I think it’s dangerous to think of our praise of others — including our children — in utilitarian terms.

“The key mark of genuine, non-flattering praise is that it’s the overflow of authentic delight.”

Children are going to catch on to this eventually. They’re going to say, “I don’t think Daddy really enjoyed what I just did. He’s just trying to use it to get me to do something.” Thinking that our praise will bring about behaviors that we want — kids are going to catch on to that. That’s not going to be authentic. Parents will be thinking like psychologically trained manipulators. Far better to be the kind of person — the kind of parent — who sees God-given virtue or God-given achievements, and is so authentically stirred with admiration and joy that we spill over with praise.

And of course, it’s going to have wonderful effects on our relationships and on the future behaviors of our kids and others. But if we start making the utilitarian dimension of praise prominent — which it is being made prominent today — it will cease to be authentic and, in the long run, I think it will backfire.

Evidences of Grace

Just one last help. I have friends who have taught me that a good way to conceive of our praising other people is to think of it as drawing attention — spontaneously enjoying and thus drawing attention — to “evidences of God’s grace.” That little phrase is pretty common in some circles, and I think it’s a good one. If we believe that in sinful human beings all virtue is ultimately from God, which it is, then all praising of true virtue or true accomplishments or any beautiful traits that we see will be conceived of as honoring God, not just man.

So, it is a good thing in a family, in a church, and among friends to habitually call attention to evidences of grace in each other’s lives, to say to our children in a dozen ways — we don’t have to be mechanical about this —“I love what God is doing in your life.” “That was so good of the way you shared your toys with Jimmy.” Kids aren’t going to think, “Oh, Daddy’s preaching” — not if it’s authentic, and you really feel joy in what your child just did and joy in the grace of God.

But my earnest plea is this: try to avoid utilitarian, calculated approaches that turn spontaneity into manipulation. That’s the soil of flattery.

Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples into the towns where he was about to go. He said to them, “Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10:9). When they came back from their ministry, Luke tells us,

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And [Jesus] said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:17–20)

Do not rejoice at your stunning power over evil (even in my name!), but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Written for Redemption

What does it mean to have your name written in heaven? The apostle John tells us that names were written in heaven before the foundation of the world. We also know that the book where these names are written is called “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8). In other words, it is the book of salvation, the book of the redeemed.

If your name is in the book, these things are true of you (or most assuredly will be):

You are chosen by God in eternity.
You are predestined for sonship in his family.
You are ransomed from every evil bondage.
You are purchased for God’s precious possession.
Christ has taken your place under the punishment of divine wrath.
God has caused you to be born again; he has taken out the heart of stone and put in its place the heart of flesh.
He has made you alive in Christ Jesus and given you the gift of repentance and faith.
He has forgiven you all your sins, and declared you innocent before God.
You are irrevocably rescued from the terrors of hell.
You stand righteous in the court of heaven and have peace with God.
He has adopted you as his own child, and made you an heir of eternal life with the inheritance of all things.
He has made his Holy Spirit to dwell in you, and brought you into the fellowship of his beloved Son.
He is omnipotently committed to holding on to you so that nothing can separate you from the love of God.
He will make every pleasure and pain work for your eternal good.
He will lead you in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
He will bring you safely to his eternal kingdom and present you blameless before the throne of his glory.
He will grant you to see the glory of Christ and be changed into his likeness.
He will give you a new glorious body for the enjoyment of all the endless delights of the age to come.
He will grant you to sit with him on his throne, and share in his universal rule.
He will give you access to the very presence of God, where there will be fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

That is what it means to have your name written in heaven.

Joy of All Joys

Now, when the seventy-two returned rejoicing that powers of darkness, evil, and destruction had fallen before them in Jesus’s name, why would he say, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20)? Why would he say that?

“Be more irrepressibly thrilled that you are saved than that you are gifted — even in the name of Jesus.”

I don’t assume that Jesus was giving an absolute prohibition of rejoicing over the rescue of people from satanic evil. Because in Luke 15, in the parable of the prodigal son, he tells us to rejoice when we rescue a lost sheep (v. 6), a lost coin (v. 9), or a lost son (v. 32). So, when Jesus says, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but [do] rejoice that your names are written in heaven,” I take him to mean that rejoicing in our salvation — in the God of our salvation — is something more essential.

It is to be your most essential joy — that is, the joy with the deepest roots, the joy that is most durable, the joy with the greatest satisfaction, the joy that sustains and shapes all joys, the joy that is unmistakable to those around us, the joy that can’t be suppressed, but marks your ministry and your life. Let that joy be this: that your name is written in heaven. Let that joy be this: that you are saved.

Be more deeply, more durably, more gladly, more pervasively, more unmistakably, more irrepressibly thrilled that you are saved than that you are gifted, or competent, or productive, or successful, or famous, or powerful, or fruitful — even in the name of Jesus.

Do not rejoice that, with degree in hand, you are equipped to make a difference, but that your names are written in heaven. To be precise, when you take your diploma, and rejoice to enter the world for the good of others and the glory of God, do it in such a way that people say, “His truest joy, her truest joy, is to be saved. Those Bethlehem graduates are thrilled that their names are written in heaven. Everything flows from that.”

Seven Reasons to Rejoice

Now, back to our original question. Why did Jesus say not to rejoice in ministry success but to rejoice that your names are written in heaven? Why does this matter? It matters for seven reasons: legalism, authenticity, zeal, glory, love, death, and shame.

1. Legalism

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, we will move toward legalism. If ministry is not the overflow of joy in Christ, it will become the achievement of joy — and it won’t be in Christ. If our work is not coming out of joy, it will become the desperate striving after joy.

2. Authenticity

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, we will not be able to commend Christ with authenticity as the all-satisfying Savior. There will always be a niggling sense of inauthenticity in our ministry and our witness: “If he does not satisfy me, why am I trying to show him to others?”

3. Zeal

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, our zeal for any worthy cause will be distorted, out of tune. The cause may be totally righteous, but it will be missing the melody of God’s all-satisfying presence. People may admire your stature as a warrior, but the music of your life will not sound like the pleasures of knowing Christ.

4. Glory

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, God will not be glorified in our vocation the way he ought to be. Why? Because the fullness of his worth and beauty and greatness is known and shown only where he is manifestly felt as the deepest, sweetest, most durable joy in life.

5. Love

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, our love for other people will be compromised. Because what is love but to labor, at any cost to ourselves, to give people what is best for them, what is fully and eternally satisfying? That labor of love is weakened by every degree of joy we do not find in our own salvation.

6. Death

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, we will approach our own death without peace. We will be tormented late at night with the nagging fear that we loved service more than the Savior. (A precious parenthesis here: In my last interchange with Tim Keller, Luke 10:20 was the verse we reveled in. He wrote, “That book in heaven is the one that Lloyd-Jones was comforted by. You probably know the story of him quoting it near the end of his life.”) Dear young graduates, I promise you that sixty years from now, if you have spent your life reveling in the Savior more than in his service, you will be so glad.

7. Shame

To the degree that we are not thrilled to be saved, we will be afraid to face the Lord on the last day. When he asks, “What did you enjoy most in the life I gave you on earth?” how will we face him? How will we face him if we must confess, “You were not my most essential joy”?

Joy Now, Joy Forever

I say with Jesus to all the graduates (and to the rest of us), “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Make that joy your most essential joy. Let that joy be known to all.

Then you will be delivered from legalism, and you will minister with authenticity, and your zeal will have the melody of heaven, and God will be glorified in your life, and you will taste the sweetness of loving people, and you will face death without fear — and you will face the Lord without shame.

Leviticus is the book where many Bible-reading plans go to die. Those who begin well in Genesis and Exodus find themselves, like the people of Israel, stumbling through the wilderness in Leviticus and Numbers, desperate to find their way to the story of David or the letters of Paul. For many, they stumble because they haven’t been taught the ABCs of the sacrificial system. The instructions about arranging animal parts, sprinkling blood, and bodily emissions are incomprehensible until they learn the basic grammar of the Levitical world.

Once we’ve grasped some of the basics, however, we find that we’re not only able to read Leviticus with more understanding; we’re also able to see depths in the rest of Scripture, including Paul’s letters, that were hidden before. Consider the following sentences, tucked away in his exhortation to the Philippians to do all that they do without grumbling or complaining:

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (Philippians 2:17–18)

The language here is Levitical and layered. We are invited to consider the Christian life, and ministry to others, through the lens of Leviticus. Paul assumes that his readers would be familiar with the various sacrifices and offerings, and therefore able to comprehend the aim of his ministry and the aim of their lives.

All of Me to All of You

Paul references two offerings — the drink offering and the sacrificial offering (literally, “the sacrifice and service of your faith”). The latter is most likely a reference to the ascension offering, sometimes called “the whole burnt offering.”

“Every Christian is now a living ascension offering, daily presenting ourselves to God through faith in Christ.”

The whole burnt offering is the baseline offering in the Old Testament, in which the worshiper lays hands on the unblemished animal so that the spotless animal now represents the sinful worshiper. The animal is killed, its blood drained and then sprinkled on the altar by the priest. After this, the priest arranges the dismembered body parts on the altar, with a particular focus on the head and the fat portions. Finally, the priest burns up the whole animal so that the animal, as the representative of the worshiper, ascends to God in the smoke as a pleasing aroma.

This offering is a fitting image of total surrender, of our heartfelt desire to draw near to the living and holy God despite our sinfulness. In it, the worshiper confesses, in essence, “All of me to all of you, O God.” Paul draws out this element of the sacrificial system in Romans 12:1–2:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

In the new covenant, rather than offering an animal through fire and smoke, we offer ourselves — our bodies and our minds — as our spiritual service and worship to God. We present the members of our bodies to God as his instruments, and we submit our minds and hearts to the truth of his word. And as Paul makes clear in Philippians, we do all of this by faith. Every Christian is now a living ascension offering, daily presenting ourselves to God through faith in Christ.

And, of course, the deepest reason that we are now able to make this spiritual offering of our bodies and minds is that Christ has fulfilled the Levitical sacrificial system by offering himself on the cross. Christ entered the heavenly holy place, “not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). Christ offered a better sacrifice than bulls and goats, putting away sin once for all by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26). We offer ourselves totally to God only on the basis of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice.

Poured Out for Their Sacrifice

Remember, however, that Philippians 2 mentions a second offering with which the apostle identifies both himself and his ministry: “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering . . .” Again, with the ABCs of Leviticus in hand, we recall that alongside the primary ascension offering were also secondary offerings such as the tribute or grain offering, representing the works and labor of the worshiper. If the ascension offering is the main course, the tribute offering is the side dish.

In the book of Numbers, we learn that once Israel entered the Promised Land, they were to offer not only grain offerings but also drink offerings. They were to pour out wine on the altar, along with the grain. And here’s a crucial point: according to Numbers 15, every ascension offering made in the Promised Land was to be accompanied by a grain offering and a drink offering. Every cheeseburger came with fries and a drink.

So, what does that have to do with Philippians? Paul says that each of the Philippians is being offered as a living sacrifice, as an ascension offering. And his labor for their joy and faith is the drink offering on the side. He’s being poured out so that they can be offered up. And so, he’s willing to be poured out, all the way to the bottom, that is, to death.

Isn’t this a wonderful, biblical, Levitical picture of the church and the Christian life? We are all called to offer ourselves wholly to God. “All of me to all of you, O God, because of Jesus.” Total surrender. Each of us is an ascension offering, daily giving ourselves to God, renewing our minds by his truth, and presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. This is our spiritual worship.

Following the apostle’s example, though, each of us is also called to be a drink offering for others. We’re called to be poured out as a glorifying accompaniment to their lives of sacrificial service. Like Paul, we labor and run and work and give so that others can be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. We pour ourselves out so that they can offer themselves up.

Offering One Another to God

This Levitical background shapes our vision of the Christian life and ministry to others. For instance, consider how this vision of Christian service reorients our labor to shepherd our children. To begin, we are not fundamentally asking them to offer their obedience to us; we’re aiming at a living sacrifice and service to God by faith. When we exhort them to not grumble and complain, but instead to offer cheerful, happy, and full obedience, we are calling them to gladly say, “All of me for all of you, O God, through Jesus Christ your Son.”

Or consider how it shapes our prayers. When Paul says that he is being poured out as a drink offering, this includes the prayers that he offered for the Philippians at the beginning of his letter.

It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9–11)

Abounding love, growing discernment, wise approval of what is good and right in any circumstance — this is a Godward life. If God answers this prayer, these people will be pure and blameless, living sacrifices filled with his righteousness, and fully pleasing to him. And behind such a Godward life of spiritual worship lie the prayers and labors of the apostle, graciously assisting and serving the full and complete offering of God’s people to God.

And all of this is done with joy. When Paul pours himself out in prayer and service, even unto death, he does so with indomitable joy. And he invites the Philippians to join him in that joy. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

For Paul, living is Christ, dying is gain, and therefore, his labor for the progress and joy of the Philippians’ faith is a deeply happy one. He gladly spends and is spent for their souls, pouring himself out as a drink offering, to help bring them nearer to God. Through his written words, he still does the same for us. And now we share in the joy of pouring out ourselves for others.

ABSTRACT: Those who celebrate the God-centeredness of God might expect to find in the Gospels a clear Christ-centeredness of Christ. As Jonathan Edwards argues in two of his greatest works, however, Jesus’s pursuit of glory is complex, multilayered, and dynamic as he moves from the manger to the cross. The Gospel of John in particular shows how Jesus renounces the pursuit of his own glory during his earthly life, seeking instead the Father’s glory as his last and ultimate end. Yet, as he moves closer to the cross, Jesus increasingly looks forward to the glory he will receive from his Father — indeed, the glory he and his Father share. Along the way, we learn from Jesus’s example of holy creatureliness, and we worship him as the one who died, rose, and now sits with his Father in unsurpassed glory.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, David Mathis traces the God-centeredness of Jesus through the Gospel of John, with help from Jonathan Edwards.

“That one phrase, the glory of God” — says Jonathan Edwards — includes “all that is ever spoken of in Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works.”1

This might be Edwards’s most memorable, and often quoted, summary of his Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World. In the final section, he argues that God’s supreme end in creation is one (not many), and that this one end is best captured as the glory of God — that is, the “true external expression of God’s internal glory and fullness.”2 God made the world, and rules all of history, to display his own glory.

So, many of us, gladly persuaded by the biblical refrain, speak reverently of “the God-centeredness of God.” As the Scriptures testify at many times and in many ways, and as Edwards catalogs and presents, our Creator righteously has a “supreme regard to himself,”3 rather than any mere humans. With patient instruction and careful reflection, biblically shaped minds often see the sense and rightness of the infinite value of the Creator compared to his creatures — yet the incarnation and human life of Jesus raises some fascinating questions.

What happens when the Creator himself, in the eternal person of his Son, takes on our full humanity, and in this way becomes a creature, with us, in the created world? How does the earthly life of Jesus, the God-man, in his so-called “state of humiliation,” from birth to the cross, relate to God’s God-centeredness? And how does this God-centeredness relate to Christ’s subsequent “state of exaltation,” beginning with the cross and resurrection, and including his ascension and sitting down on heaven’s throne?

Developing Theme

In both Edwards’s dissertation and his most celebrated work, The Freedom of the Will, he addresses (albeit indirectly) this often-overlooked aspect of our doctrine of Christ. In End, chapter 2, section 3 (on “particular texts of Scripture, which show that God’s glory is an ultimate end of the creation”), Edwards briefly notes that “Scripture leads us to suppose that Christ sought God’s glory as his highest and last end,”4 a theme to which he returns in section 6. In Freedom, Edwards draws in a relevant aspect of his christology as “a point clearly and absolutely determining the controversy between Calvinists and Arminians.”5

As we’ll see below, in both instances, Edwards leads us to consider our question diachronically, rather than statically. In other words, despite our tendency to press for a simple timeless answer, Edwards observes a progress and development of the theme across time as the incarnate Christ moves through his “state of humiliation” to his “state of exaltation.”

Today, in his exalted state, with the Son’s redemptive work complete, the glory of the Father and his Son are seen to be the one essential whole that they are, and always have been. But in the earthly life of Christ, the plan of the Father and Son unfolded in history as Jesus moved toward the cross.

Christ’s Goal in Life

First, Jesus, the God-man, lived his human life in utter dedication to his Father and his Father’s glory. Rightly did the angels proclaim, “Glory to God!” at Jesus’s birth (Luke 2:14), as the glory of the Father came to the fore in the life and ministry of the Son. In his state of humiliation, from manger to cross, the man Christ Jesus did not glorify himself, he says (John 8:54; Hebrews 5:5), but his words and deeds, and the effect and intent of his human life, were in full and glad submission to the will, and glory, of his Father. As Jesus summarizes his earthly life and ministry in John 8:49, “I honor my Father.”

The Son loves his Father (John 14:31). And he lived as man, and set his face toward the cross, propelled by his great delight in and love for his Father. Jesus instructed his disciples to so live, and bear fruit, that his Father would be glorified (Matthew 5:16; John 15:8), and he taught them to pray for the hallowing of his Father’s name (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2). The night before he died, Jesus summarized, in prayer, his life’s work as “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4). When Jesus sees that, at last, his “hour” has come for the cross, he turns heavenward in prayer, “Father, glorify your name” (John 12:28).

While the God-centeredness of God might lead us to expect a simple Christ-centeredness of Christ in his earthly ministry, this is largely not what we (yet) find in his state of humiliation. In End, Edwards points to John 7:18 (one of several statements from Jesus renouncing the pursuit of his own glory) as characteristic of Christ’s humbled state: “The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” The incarnate Christ does not “[seek] his own glory” but the glory of his Father, “him who sent him.” Jesus sought his Father’s glory, says Edwards, “as his highest and last end.”6

In Freedom, Edwards observes that “the words [of Isaiah 42:1–4] imply a promise of [Christ’s] being so upheld by God’s Spirit, that he should be preserved from sin; particularly from pride and vainglory, and from being overcome by any of the temptations he should be under to affect the glory of this world; the pomp of an earthly prince, or the applause and praise of men.”7

So, to be clear, the God-centered God becoming man in the life of Christ does not produce one who is, in essence, a self-centered human. Jesus’s preservation from sin, says Edwards, is “particularly from pride and vainglory.” As demonstrated in rebuffing Satan’s temptations in the wilderness, Jesus did not pursue “the glory of this world.”

Rather, Edwards cites Isaiah 49:7 to show that Jesus, in his state of humiliation, is “one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation.” However, here in the same verse of prophecy comes the shift from humiliation to exaltation that will come at the cross: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves” before the one who once was deeply despised.

His Near Approach to Death

As Jesus draws near to the cross, we discover a significant development. Edwards turns from John 7 to the “now” of John 12, with Jesus’s crucifixion “in a few days.”8 Christ is “in this near approach” to his death, and where does he turn? Again to his ultimate and supreme end, praying,

Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. (John 12:27–28)

The Father’s voice from heaven then confirms it: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” Edwards comments, “God had glorified his name in what Christ had done, in the work he sent him upon [in his earthly life so far]; and would glorify it again, and to a greater degree, in what he should further do [in his sacrificial death], and in the success thereof.”9

In his next statement, Jesus refers, however obliquely, to his own lifting up and exaltation. Now, writes Edwards, “in the success of the same work of redemption, he places his own glory, as was observed before.”10 As Jesus had said in John 12:23, with his imminent death in view, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

“God made the world, and rules all of history, to display his own glory.”

In this hour, not only will the Father lift him up, rather than Jesus lifting himself up, but this first lifting up will be a lifting, of all places, to the odium of the cross (Jesus “said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die,” John 12:33). Even as Christ, who is himself God, moves to acknowledge and affirm the coming lifting up, the glorifying of himself, he proceeds with a care befitting his humanity and creatureliness.

Though, at this key juncture, as he draws nearer to the cross, he rehearses his supreme end, to glorify his Father, Jesus also now acknowledges (and reveals that he desires) his own exaltation. As John 13:31–32 fills out Jesus’s multiple motivations in going to the cross, Edwards comments that “the glory of the Father, and his own glory, are what Christ exulted in.”11 Seeing that his hour has come, and that he will soon move beyond his “state of humiliation,” and enter into glory (Luke 24:26) with his great final act of self-humbling (Philippians 2:8), Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31).

In Jesus’s near approach to the cross, we see both glories, as it were — of Father and of Son — coming to the fore, not in competition, and each accentuating the other. Not only will the incarnate Son continue to glorify his Father, as he has since Bethlehem, but now he will do so in new measure “and to a greater degree” — and the Father too will glorify his Son. “So intertwined are the operations of the Father and the Son,” comments D.A. Carson, “that the entire mission can be looked at another way. . . . One may reverse the order.”12 Son glorifies Father, and Father glorifies his Son.

He Comes Yet Nearer

Edwards then moves to the far side of the Upper Room Discourse, to Jesus’s remarkable prayer in John 17, when Jesus “comes yet nearer to the hour of his last sufferings.”13 As in John 12, Jesus prays again for the glory of his Father, and yet here, remarkably, the prayer is, even more clearly, for his own glory, and that to the glory of his Father:

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1–5)

Verse 1 captures the essence of this “hour” at the cross: the Son will be lifted up in the culminating humiliation that is simultaneously the first lifting up of his exaltation, and this glorification of the Son, at the cross, will be to the glory of the Father. The cross is both the final act and consummation of his humbling and the essential prelude to, even the first act of, his exaltation. Verses 4–5 trace, in sequence, the movement from his humbled earthly life (verse 4) to his coming exalted state (verse 5). Humbled: “I glorified you on earth.” Exalted: “Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence.”

How Did Jesus Endure?

Previously, Jesus had eschewed pursuing his own glory (John 7:18; 8:50), receiving glory from humans (John 5:44), and glorifying himself (John 8:54). In the “near approach” of John 12 and 17, in the quintessential creaturely act of prayer, Jesus reveals the heart that kept him going to the cross — a heart that was not simple, but complex. First, his lifework, and lead prayer, were for his Father’s glory (John 12:28; 17:1). Second, as he draws near to the cross, we see his holy desire for his proper glory and exaltation, not in place of his Father’s but with him, in his presence (John 17:5). And third, his desires for his Father’s glory, and his, come together with his heart of love for his people (John 13:34) and his acting to save them (John 12:46–47). Here Edwards connects John 12 and 17 with Hebrews 12:2:

The expressions of divine grace, in the sanctification and happiness of the redeemed, are especially that glory of his, and his Father, which was the joy that was set before him, for which he endured the cross, and despised the shame: and that this glory especially was the end of the travail of his soul, in obtaining which end he was satisfied.14

“‘The joy set before’ Jesus, through which he endured the cross (and thus loved his people), was his glory and his Father’s.”

In other words, “the joy set before” Jesus, through which he endured the cross (and thus loved his people), was his glory and his Father’s. “The travail of his soul” and subsequent satisfaction refer to Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering servant, who, “when his soul makes an offering for guilt, . . . shall see his offspring [that is, his redeemed people]. . . . Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10–11). In both End and Freedom, Edwards points to Jesus’s looking forward to the reward of his exaltation as the key to his enduring in his state of humiliation, all the way to death on a cross. In End, he says, commenting on John 7:18,

When Christ says he did not seek his own glory, we cannot reasonably understand him, that he had no regard to his own glory, even the glory of the human nature; for the glory of that nature was part of the reward promised him and of the joy set before him. But we must understand him, that this was not his ultimate aim; it was not the end that chiefly governed his conduct.15

In Freedom, Edwards highlights that Jesus

had promises of glorious rewards made to him, on condition of his persevering in, and perfecting the work which God had appointed him (Isaiah 53:10–12; Psalms 2 and Psalms 110; Isaiah 49:7–9). . . . Christ had not only promises of glorious success and rewards made to his obedience and sufferings, but the Scriptures plainly represent him as using these promises for motives and inducements to obey and suffer; and particularly that promise of a kingdom which the Father had appointed him, or sitting with the Father on his throne; as in Hebrews 12:1–2.16

Glory Set Before Him

With Christ, we come to the unique and spectacular man who is also God — and the one person of the Godhead who also became man. We both learn from his imitable example of holy creatureliness, and we worship him as the one who inimitably died and was raised for us.

In doing so, we see that as Jesus came closer to the cross, his pursuit of the Father’s glory became increasingly distinct from ours. We, the redeemed in Christ, have a great “state of exaltation” to come, but not as the unique divine Son. Yet even here, in his unfolding pursuit of divine glory in his “near approach” to the cross, he shows us how we too acknowledge and righteously seek our own portion of creaturely glory. In asking for glory in John 12 and 17, Jesus is strikingly human. On his human knees, in human words, with his fully human mouth and soul, he asks of his Father. He prays. Rather than grasping or putting himself forward, he makes his holy request and walks in faith.

“As Jesus draws near to the cross, we see that the glory of the Father and his Son are one essential whole.”

For Christians, as it was for Christ himself in human flesh, our being glorified, exalted, lifted up by God is no sin or danger. The trouble is our self-glorifying, our self-exalting, our grasping. Jesus’s humble acknowledgment of his coming glory in John 12, and his prayer for his Father to decisively exalt him in John 17, are not instances of man seeking to take or seize glory, but rather man “by patience in well-doing seek[ing] for glory and honor and immortality” (Romans 2:7).

Yet Christ as our imitable example is not the final or most important word. We worship one whose glory is distinct and inimitable. As Jesus draws near to the cross, the glory of the Father and his Son is revealed to be one essential whole. We dare not pit one against the other. So, as Edwards says in End, “The glory of the Father and the Son is spoken of as the end of the work of redemption.”17 And as he writes in Freedom, “the glory bestowed on Christ” does not compete with or detract from the glory of his Father, or the Godhead as a whole.18

As Edwards had long preached, so he confirmed in two of his great works of the 1750s: God made the world “to communicate and glorify himself through Jesus Christ, God-man.”19