I know nothing greater in human language than the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is the towering chapter of the towering book of the towering apostle. The God of Romans 8, the Christ and cross of Romans 8, the salvation of Romans 8, the love of Romans 8, and the hope of Romans 8 are unsurpassed in greatness and worth in all the world. Even the logic of Romans 8 is more precious than life.

There is a connection between the beauties of the salvation and logic of Romans 8 and my relationship with Daniel Fuller. Fifty-five years later, I can still feel the spell that I came under in the fall of 1968 in Daniel Fuller’s hermeneutics class.

Most of my fellow students did not fall under this spell. When he announced a special elective to be held at his home, only six of us signed up. Dr. Fuller was not what you’d call “spellbinding.” Sometimes, in an almost painful sense, he was bumbling. There were students who would have said just what Paul’s adversaries at Corinth said: “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account” (2 Corinthians 10:10).

But there were some who felt the spell that was cast by this weak, bumbling, incomparable teacher. I recall one day in a seminar on Galatians when he walked into the room with his arms full of books and papers. He looked frazzled. He was no doubt overworked. He was the academic dean in those days, as well as professor of hermeneutics. He put the papers down and stood between two overhead projectors, one for arcing and one for diagramming, and said, “Somebody ask me a question so that we can get started.”

Some students rolled their eyes at that. Me? It was like a catapult into academic heaven. I think I had been waiting all my life for someone who would show me that asking questions is the key to understanding — and someone who had enough humility that he would make himself vulnerable to students twenty years younger than he.

I recall the beginning of a class with Leon Morris, visiting professor from Australia, in which I raised my hand with a question, and he awkwardly paused, turned red in the face, and communicated by his terse answer that questions were not welcome during his lecture. I dropped the class. I had come under another spell. What was it, and what did it have to do with Romans 8?

From Pieces to Panorama

As with every spell, it’s hard to put into words — like the spell I came under when I met my wife, or the one I felt in the medical center of Wheaton College in September 1966, when God called me to the ministry of the word. These have never left, but to put them into words is not easy. Here’s my best effort to express the spell Daniel Fuller cast over my life starting in the fall of 1968 and continuing to this day.

Part of it was this: the combination in one person of intense, rigorous, detailed, meticulous observation of words and phrases and clauses and sentences, together with a comprehensive, coherent vision of everything that exists. It was the excitement of discovery by breaking things into their parts, mingled with the even greater excitement of seeing them come together in a beautiful, all-encompassing fullness.

I might have expected to find a professor with exegetical eyes like a microscope, who sees the text of Romans 8 broken out into a hundred exquisite pieces, and I might have expected to find a professor with theological eyes like a telescope, who sees the whole panorama of reality as a unified whole.

But I did not expect to find them in one person — the microscope and the telescope, the meticulous exegete and the comprehensive theologian, the hundred pieces of Romans 8 and the breathtaking beauty of a unified whole. That almost never happens. William Wordsworth said,

Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: —We murder to dissect.

But not everyone. Not Daniel Fuller. For him, the meticulous observation of the smallest parts of Romans 8 was the assembling of the building blocks of a great temple of wonder and worship. I have lived in that temple for five decades and have found it to be an inexhaustible source of awe and strength. The only thing that gets murdered is pride.

Illustrated Glory

There is another aspect of the spell that Dr. Fuller cast over me. It was the use of homespun, almost childish illustrations of glorious truth that somehow did not trivialize the glory. I have heard many preachers and teachers over the years connect glorious truth with ordinary-life illustrations, and so often, instead of the truth shining with greater brightness, it disappears into a movie scene or a sitcom.

It didn’t work that way in the spell that Dr. Fuller cast over me. He came to Psalm 23:6, that great precursor of Romans 8:28, which says, “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” and he pointed out that the verb translated “follow” is radaph in Hebrew, which virtually always means “pursue” or “persecute.” He said,

God’s goodness and mercy are pursuing us. Like a highway patrolman with his red lights flashing behind you to run you down and say to you, “‘All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s’ (1 Corinthians 3:20–23). ‘The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him’ (2 Chronicles 16:9). ‘I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and all my soul’ (Jeremiah 32:41). I will never stop pursuing you for your good.”

I suppose I could have reacted to that illustration of the highway patrolman by saying, “Well, that’s mundane, trivial, goofy,” but that didn’t happen. Instead, I have been trying for fifty years to climb up into that glory, that the Creator of the universe is pursuing me with perfect goodness and omnipotent mercy all my days, like a highway patrolman, lights flashing, who wants to give me a ticket with the words, “You have been made an heir of the world!” (Romans 4:13).

Why didn’t I scoff at that illustration and roll my eyes? Why did I worship? I don’t know. It was the spell. I walked into Daniel Fuller’s spell and never left.

That Great Verse

The house he built in the spring of 1970 in the class on Romans 1–8 is the house I will live in forever, and I expect the wonders of chapter 8 to be as inexhaustible in a million years as they are today. The reason I say this is found in what may be the greatest verse in the Bible, Romans 8:32 — a verse that Daniel Fuller loved, a verse that was the fulcrum of his theology.

It is perhaps the greatest verse because no other verse is as clear in putting together the infinite depth of the foundation of our salvation with the infinite height and expanse of its blessings and happiness: “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?”

Dr. Fuller loved this verse because it is the great, irrefutable a fortiori in the Bible, an argument from the greater to the lesser, from the hard to the easy. If God has done the hardest thing imaginable to make us happy, then certainly, beyond any doubt, he will do the rest — whatever it takes — to make us supremely happy in him forever.

Paul loved the gospel-glory of the a fortiori argument. He used it in Romans 5:9: “Since . . . we have now been justified by his blood [impossible for the ungodly!], much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” How easy it is for God to save from wrath those who at infinite cost have been declared righteous by God himself!

And he used the great a fortiori again in Romans 5:10: “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son [enemies of God, reconciled? Unthinkable! And yet he did it], much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” How easy for God to save those who are reconciled to him by the infinite cost of his Son’s blood!

Then comes the greatest of all — the great a fortiori of Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all [unthinkable! Giving up his own Son to spitting, mocking, torture, and death? Yes!], how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” If he did the hardest, how easy then to give us all we need to be happy in him forever!

Inexpressible, Inexhaustible Riches

In the very center of his book Unity of the Bible (because it is the fulcrum of the whole), Dr. Fuller exults over the inexpressible implications of this verse. Very rarely did Dan Fuller resort to the inadequacy of human language to make a point, but on page 218 he says, “Words become inadequate as Paul describes these riches” — the riches of the “all things” in Romans 8:32. Because he gave his Son, God will give us all things in him.

Dr. Fuller echoes the heart of the great apostle: “Though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). The “all things” are unsearchable. He explains, “‘Unsearchable,’ or (lit.) ‘not capable of being traced out.’” The “all things” of Romans 8:32 are unsearchable not because they are confusing, but because they are endless.

And not only endless, but as he says on the next page, immeasurable. “God . . . made us alive together with Christ . . . and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4–7).

It will take an infinite number of coming ages for the infinite God to exhaustively show the riches of his grace toward us, because they are inexhaustible, unsearchable, immeasurable. They are the “all things” of Romans 8:32. They are as infinitely certain for us in Christ as the worth of God’s Son was infinite when God did not spare him but gave him for us all.

His Portion Now and Forever

This was the fulcrum of Daniel Fuller’s theology and the fulcrum of his life: “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” — everything we need to enjoy God fully and forever? The lever of infinite cost catapults us into infinite joy.

Here is how Dr. Fuller stated the unity of the Bible: “The one thing that God is doing in all of redemptive history is to show forth his mercy in such a way that the greatest number of people will, throughout eternity, delight in him with all their heart, strength, and mind” (454).

That delight is Daniel Fuller’s portion now: no longer embattled, no longer bumbling — but overflowing. And it will be ours through faith in Christ. If Dan could have the last word, I think it would be this: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

There was a bucket of electric bouncy balls, not a baby, in my stomach. He just never stopped moving. Usually the jabs and kicks gave me comfort — “Call the doctor if you haven’t felt the baby move in a while,” they say. I had no reason to pick up the phone, so instead I came up with one that would keep me up all night.

“I wonder why he moves so much,” I said to my husband before bed. As he reached for the lights, I grabbed my phone. What does it mean if your baby moves a lot? I typed into Google. My stomach dropped as I read the first result: “High Fetal Movement Associated with Stillbirth.”

Like I said, I didn’t sleep that night.

Psalms and Search Engines

I wonder how many twenty-first-century tech-saturated Christian mothers, like myself, abide by their own translation of Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything let your requests be made known to Google.” When we remove prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, and — above all — God from the equation, we forfeit all chance of experiencing any lasting end to our motherly anxiety. We cannot type, scroll, click, and read our way to peace. There is no “peace of Google,” only the peace of God (Philippians 4:7). And for that, we must pray.

Which can be quite difficult for expectant mothers to do. Burdened for the children we cannot hold but deeply love, our minds tend to tumble down hypothetical rabbit holes: “How long has it been since the baby kicked? Shouldn’t the kicks be harder? Is the baby really growing? Am I eating enough? How much should I be eating?” Pounding heart, tight lips, it seems far easier to search, our fingers frantic, than to seek God in prayer.

That’s where the book of Psalms comes in. For millennia, restless saints have fled to its pages. When we lack our own words, enough calm, or even the desire to pray, the Psalms hand us hundreds of ways to talk to God. Consider, for example, how an anxious expectant mother might use Psalm 139 to pray for herself and her unborn child.

‘You See’

Because of the sheer fact that we cannot see our unborn babies, we often imagine what could be wrong. With the help of Psalm 139, we can turn from anxiety to adoration. King David’s words call us to wonder, rather than worry, over what man cannot see, as we praise God that his eyes keep watch over the children in our womb.

In the spirit of the psalm, we can begin by focusing on God’s omniscience over our blindness. “O Lord,” we might pray, “you have searched and known not only me, but also my child. You know when I sit; you know when my child stirs. You are acquainted with all our ways, from the words I will say soon, to the organ that will form next. In a word, your hand is upon us” (verses 1–5). What is dark to mothers — the womb, our unborn children, what lies ahead — is light to him (verse 12). Anxious about what we cannot see, we can adore the God who never stops seeing.

Nor has he ever not seen. His knowledge of our unborn children never began; it has always been: “Your eyes saw this child’s unformed substance an eternity before the pregnancy test came back positive. No part of this process has ever been hidden from your sight” (verses 15–16). As we say these words to our all-seeing God, we send them coursing through our unseeing selves. Wonder is a great antidote to worry.

‘You Are Sovereign’

Not only does God see what goes on within our stomachs and lives; he sovereignly oversees it all. We know we cannot watch our unborn babies grow, but that doesn’t stop us from thinking we can control our pregnancy, at least in some measure. That’s why we often flit from one search to the next — for control. We can praise God for so much access to life-sustaining information (it’s probably wise not to eat raw fish if every health institute says so), but we must not deceive ourselves. While we carry our children, God is in control of them.

Psalm 139 offers a fitting reminder, as David attributes action upon action, outcome upon outcome, to God alone. With David we declare, “You form this child’s inward parts; you knit this baby together in my womb. I praise you for the fearful and wonderful works of pregnancy. You are making and weaving this little person together” (verses 13–15). A pregnant mother can attend to the atoms in her unborn baby’s body no more than she can touch the moon — thankfully. We have not the power to form, to knit, to make, to weave. But our God does, and we have his ear.

What’s more, David affirms how God forms both bodies and days. Before the foundation of the world, God not only chose to create our children, but he determined the length of their lives. Through prayer we say to God and ourselves, “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for this baby” (verse 16).

God didn’t pen our children’s stories into a dusty three-ring notebook, the kind that are always lying around, and then slam it shut. David says, “In your book were written.” Expectant mothers, our Father has a book! He is ever aware of its tales, of the lives of our unborn children (and everyone else). For what he has written, he will bring to pass. Whatever this trimester may hold, may our prayers lean into the sovereign God who holds it.

‘You Are There’

By this point, it’s easy to agree with David about the extent of God’s knowledge and power. His attributes are “too wonderful for [us],” too “high” to grasp and grip (verse 6). At the same time, Psalm 139 encourages mothers to rest assured that he is with us, in all his great and mysterious perfections.

David teaches us this lesson by taking us on a trip around the universe. He imagines himself up in heaven and down in Sheol (verse 8), east as the sunrise and west as the seas (verse 9). In each place, he finds God there. Amazingly, the Lord does not arrive after David, but leads David there himself (verse 10).

After David’s example, we can imagine ourselves walking through a hundred different high and low points of pregnancy (an exercise that may run our emotions through a pinball machine). Picture a doctor gesturing at a dot of flashing white, tears of joy springing to our eyes. There’s a heartbeat. A month later, that heartbeat seems too low, even inconsistent. We cry again, this time for fear.

Step back from each hypothetical. Turn to God and say, “During ultrasounds, you are there! Through worry-ridden nights, you are there! In the hospital room, you are there! Come what may, you are with me wherever I go, leading me, guiding me, holding me” (verse 8). As we praise his presence, his presence comforts us.

‘Protect This Child’

Toward the end of the psalm, after David has adored the all-seeing, sovereign God who is in his midst, he turns to petition, earnestly pleading for God to act (verses 19–22). Confident that God is over his life, he asks God to intervene in his life. In the same way, the more a mother recalls the power of God both to take and to give life, the more she will ask God to protect the child in her womb.

We pray confidently for God to protect our unborn children because we are confident that he can protect them. We ask him to decrease blood pressure, to increase growth, to remove hemorrhages, to induce labor — all because he can. And so we pray, with every mother’s blood-earnestness and a Christian mother’s confidence, “Oh that you would protect this child, O God!”

He delights in a mother’s pleas for her unborn child, which are themselves expressions of worship. We petition him because we know he is with us, listening to our cries. We petition him because we know that only an all-knowing, all-powerful God is able to sustain the babies in our bellies. We petition him because we know he loves those babies, more than we could understand.

Ought God’s thoughts about this pregnancy, then, be more precious to us than Google’s (verse 17)? A single search may produce 239,000,000 results (I just checked), but even that number has an end, a limit, a boundary. God’s knowledge is infinite, vaster than the sands on every shore (verse 18). His power, presence, and ability to protect likewise know no end. And — can you believe it? — this God is with us.

The right use of authority or power can make people glad. In our age, however, power is often immediately viewed with skepticism or outright disdain.

Of course, some level of skepticism isn’t completely unwarranted given the abuses of power in the world. These abuses have their roots all the way back in the garden, where we find that first misuse of power. In Genesis, God made Adam and Eve vice-regents over creation, but they failed to use their power in God-honoring ways. Instead, they took (an exercise of their power) what they never should have taken. The world has been suffering for their abuses ever since (Romans 8:20).

Today, when we scroll through headlines, we read plenty of stories of executives, politicians, and even pastors who have leveraged their positions in selfish and unethical ways. As a result, many people tend to view anyone who has power or authority with suspicion.

It’s absolutely necessary to identify, challenge, and rebuke sinful leadership. It ensures that people are cared for and God is honored. While many have rightly lamented abuses of power and authority, though, I do not see a corresponding celebration of godly displays of power and authority. If we want to cultivate healthy families, churches, and communities, we need more than negative reactions to bad leadership; we need a positive vision and good examples.

‘Happy Are Your Men’

In 1 Kings 10, the queen of Sheba, having “heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord” (1 Kings 10:1), wanted to see for herself whether these reports about Solomon were true. The queen poses hard questions to Solomon, and his answers take her breath away. She says,

The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. (1 Kings 10:6–7)

Now hear what she says next: “Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom” (1 Kings 10:8). The queen not only observes the shrewd leadership of Solomon, but also and extols the happiness of his people. The result of living under the wise rule of Solomon is gladness.

This kind of flourishing wasn’t limited to Solomon’s kingdom, but happens wherever godly leaders lead well: “When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth” (2 Samuel 23:3–4).

Power That Makes You Glad

Have we been so busy lamenting the abuse of leadership that we’ve forgotten the value of leadership? Authority and power in and of themselves are good. Indeed, power rightly wielded is a pathway to joy. It might be helpful, then, to paint a positive picture of wise and good uses of authority. By casting some specific dimensions of such leadership, I want to help leaders lead in joy-producing ways and thus provide examples that are worthy of commending and imitating.

1. Humility

Leaders who make people glad do not think too highly or too often of themselves (Philippians 2:2–3). That is, they are lowly people who live among the people instead of hiding behind their privileges. Good leaders realize that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). This does not mean leaders are timid or unsure of themselves. Instead, it means that they are aware of their weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9), depend on Jesus (John 15:5), and consistently lean toward others.

One other note to strike: humble leaders link arms with those around them. That is, good leaders know they are part of team; they know how to listen, integrate others’ wisdom, and check for blind spots as they attempt to wisely navigate complex situations. Rather than going off by themselves to make decisions, humble leaders know how to work with others to pursue collective wisdom as they move forward. They are not the type of people who act as lone rangers from a foolish sense of self-sufficiency.

2. Servanthood

The greatest leader to ever walk the earth came to serve, not to be served (Matthew 20:28). In the Gospels, Jesus serves his people at every turn. He provides wine when it runs out at a wedding, he multiplies bread and fish when there isn’t enough to go around, and brings healing to the sick and broken. Most importantly, Jesus serves his people by going to the cross “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). The King of the kingdom is a servant-king. In fact, Jesus tells us, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44). This kind of service does not abdicate its call to lead to appease unholy grumbling, but it does employ authority for the genuine good of others. And when that kind of holy servanthood begins with the leaders, it comes to mark the entire community of God’s people as we “through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

3. Courage

Good leaders are courageous. When God calls Joshua to lead his people into the promised land, he tells him three times in four verses to “be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6, 7, 9). The idea of courage does not mean a total lack of fear. Instead, the courageous leader may have bouts with fear, but he does what needs to be done despite the fear. I remember standing between my sons and a fierce dog once. I felt some level of fear, but because I loved my boys, I overcame that fear and stood my ground.

At times, courageous leaders will have to make hard and unpopular decisions. When faced with difficult decisions, though fear may rear its head, the courageous leader presses on and fulfills his God-given calling.

4. Sober-Mindedness

Joe Rigney has described sober-mindedness as clarity of mind, steadiness of soul, and readiness to act. This description of sober-mindedness intersects some with the last point. Courageous leaders are ready to lead. Sober-mindedness adds the components of clarity of mind and steadiness of soul. When people are led by someone who sees the issues clearly and endures opposition with resilience, they themselves are better prepared to face the challenges of the day. Sober-mindedness is a picture of a man seated comfortably in his chair, facing an onslaught of criticism for his decisions or challenges to his ideas, and instead of thrusting himself forward, he remains calm and self-controlled. He knows who — and whose — he is. And he’s ready to act. After all, God calls leaders to lead.

If you ever have the chance to live through an active combat situation (I have), you’ll be glad for leaders who think clearly, remain steady, and courageously act in the moment.

5. Faithfulness

One of the greatest needs in our world today are leaders who are simply faithful. They are not trying to make themselves famous or lead the next revolution. Instead, they simply want to come to the end and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).

Someone once described a faithful friend at my church as having a “high say/do ratio.” In other words, if he says he’ll do something, you can be sure he’ll follow through. People will be happier when leaders consistently do what they say they’ll do.

6. Joy

Lastly, truly good leadership is marked by joy. I do not mean these leaders are chipper or superficially happy. They know how to weep when people weep, make tough decisions when they need to make tough decisions, and yet also laugh and smile when the world seems to be falling apart, because they know who has the whole world in his hands. Perhaps we could say these are seriously joyful leaders.

Good leaders know the world is broken, but they have a joy in Jesus that is deep and immovable. No matter what comes their way, they know that their greatest problem has been solved by Christ and that their future with Jesus is a fixed reality. And the joy of a leader very often gives rise to joy in his people.

This is what the world needs: leaders who are humble, courageous servants, are able to graciously receive criticism, maintain a sober mind, and are faithful and joyful to the end. If you are privileged to benefit from this type of leader, one who wields power in a way that makes people glad, then celebrate that reality as a gift from God. And pray that God would multiply such leaders in the days ahead.