Spectacular Sins – Ch 4 - The Fatal Disobedience of Adam and the Triumphant Obedience of Christ

This is a weighty chapter. Surprise, surprise.

One takeaway is the difference between God ordaining evil, and God permitting Evil. Piper says it this way:

By ordain I mean that God either caused something directly or permitted it for wise purposes. This permitting is a kind of indirect causing, since God knows all the factors involved and what effects they will have and he could prevent any outcome. So his permission is a kind of secondary causing, but not a direct causing.
This distinction is an effort to be faithful to the different ways the Bible speaks about God's relation to events.

So God secondarily or indirectly causes evil. But even when he does permit evil, it is with a purpose. Whether by causing or permitting, God directs events to glorify Christ.

God planned to use the sin of Adam before Adam had committed the sin. Piper says:

For example, in Revelation 13:8, John writes about "everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." So there was a book before the foundation of the world called "the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." Before the world was created, God had already planned that his Son would be slain like a lamb to save all those who are written in the book.

When Adam sins, God does not go to his back-up plan. He knows it will happen and continues with his plan to glorify Christ by saving those whose names are written in "the book of the life of the lamb who was slain".

The last main takeaway for me in this chapter was the explanation of Adam as a "type" of Christ. The following paragraph explains it well:

Here's the parallel: People whose transgression was not like Adam's died like Adam. Why? Because they were connected to Adam. He was the representative head of their humanity, and his sin is counted as their sin because of their connection with him. That's the essence of why Adam is called a type of Christ—because our obedience is not like Christ's obedience and yet we have eternal life with Christ. Why? Because we are connected to Christ by faith. He is the representative head of the new humanity, and his righteousness is counted as our righteousness because of our connection with him (Rom. 6:5).

That's the parallel implied in calling Adam a type of Christ:

Adam >Adam's sin >humanity condemned in him >eternal death

Christ >Christ's righteousness >new humanity justified in him >eternal life

And this passage is universal. Every single human you meet is either under Adam, and condemned in sin, or justified and alive in Christ. This is not a wimpy worldview. But wimpy worldview's create wimpy Christians.

Spectacular Sins – Ch 2 - Christ Sovereign over all Hostile Powers

The central focus verse for this chapter is Colossians 1:15-16:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

In this chapter, Piper seeks to make clear that all things are created by Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. Everything exists to display the greatness of Christ. This includes evil things. Paul includes thrones or dominions in his list of things created for, through, and by Christ. Elsewhere in the New Testament, including later in Colossians, Rulers and Authorities are viewed as evil. So Paul wants us to know that even evil things are created by Christ to display his glory.

Why does he want us to know this?

1. it is objectively true, not merely opinion or a merely human idea.
   
2. it makes clear that Christ alone, not "rulers [and] authorities," is to be worshipped.
   
3. our day is not so unlike Paul's. Paul was concerned that, in the pluralistic, intellectual atmosphere of Colossae, Christians could be captivated by high-sounding heresies
   
4. to make us valiant in the face of odds that seem overwhelming to the natural eye.
   
5. he wants us to see and feel that our salvation in Christ is invincible.
   

Why does Paul tell us such weighty things? It is because the "antidote for wimpy Christians is weighty doctrine. In Paul's mind, the most massive truths are meant for producing radical lives of obedience".

Piper summarizes the chapter like this:

All things were created by him and through him and for him—even our worst supernatural enemies. In the end, it was they—not Christ—who were shamed at the cross (Col. 2:15). In the end, everything and everyone serves to magnify the glory of our Savior and increase the gladness of his people in him.

Spectacular Sins – Ch 1 – God Sovereign over Human Sin

This Chapter sets the course of the rest of the book. It starts out by looking at 2 Chronicles 10:15, 18:22, 25:20, three places in the Bible it says that God caused someone to do something that changed the direction of history.

From there, Piper asks four questions that follow from this fact that God is sovereign over human sin:

Why Does God Want Us to Know His Sovereignty over Sin?

Why Does God Not Restrain Sin More Often?

How Can We Have Faith and Joy during the Severity of the Last Days?

How Is Christ Glorified in a World of Sin?

He does not answer them here, but sets them as the backdrop for this book.

In Summary, God is sovereign over human sin. It is in the Bible. So let's try to understand it by asking hard questions and getting solid answers.

Spectacular Sins – Introduction – The Times are Changing

I started reading John Pipers book: Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ. I decided that I wanted to take the time to blog about it as I recall in the past when I have blogged about books I have remembered more. The quotes in these blogs are all by Piper from the book, unless otherwise indicated.

The general thought of the intro was that things are too soft in the church in the west. We are being coddled:

"It seems to me that Christians in the West are being coddled. We suffer little in the name of Christ. Therefore, we read the Bible not with a desperate hunger for evidences of God's triumph in pain, but with a view to improving our private pleasures."

Part of the problem is that we are missing the Bible:

"What is missing is the Bible. I mean the whole Bible, with its blood and guts and sins and horrors—and all of it under the massive hand of God."

We mostly know the nice parts of the Bible that looks good on hallmark cards. But those parts of the Bible alone won't get us through hard times.

Times are coming when we will actually be persecuted like the church is in other places in the world. When those times come, we will not want to hear "felt needs" sermons. "The aim of this book is not to meet felt needs, but to awaken needs that will soon be felt, and then to save your faith and strengthen your courage when evil prevails"

We will want to know that God is in control and rules over all things, including the suffering of his children.

To say these things is all about love. It is what we need to hear, and so it is loving to say them, although it may seem harsh and overdramatic.

If interested, this whole book can be downloaded free from the Desiring God website at: http://tinyurl.com/cy5blb

Captivated by God through the Gospel

Tonight I decided to watch a video I recorded on my video camera from the US Staff Conference back in '05. It was from a great talk by John Piper called "Captivated by God through the Gospel"

He divided his talk into 5 sections, and so I will give these notes in the same fashion.

1. What is the Gospel?

• 2 Cor 4:3-7
• What makes the gospel good news?
• Justification by faith? Forgiveness of sins? Propitiation? Liberation from sin? Escape from hell? Entrance to heaven? Eternal life? Deliverance from pain?
• These things are not the highest, final good. In fact they are useless, unless they give us the ultimate good.
• The gospel is the glory of god in the face of Christ treasured and seen as all-satisfying increasingly forever
• Justification by faith? So what! Unless it gives us the glory of God in the face of Christ!

2. What is Lostness?

• 2 Cor 4:4 - God of this world has blinded unbelievers
• Lostness is then blindness to glory of God in face of Christ!
• When we share the true gospel and people respond with blank faces, it is because they are blind to spiritual truth, not because there is something wrong with the message.

3. What is Conversion?

• 2 Cor 4:6 - God said let light shine out of darkness…to give light of glory of God in the face of Christ
• Conversion is opening of eyes to see light of knowledge of glory of God in Christ
• Conversion is a miracle!
• God has to do for all of us what he did for Paul on the Damascus road. It does not have to be as dramatic, but it is just as miraculous!

4. What is the Role of Humans in Conversion?

• Acts 26:17
• We are to open eyes!
• God sends us to do what he alone can do!
• God will not do it without us.
• People get saved through the preaching of the gospel
• This is why God uses CCC!
• As long as we are faithful to preach the gospel, God will continue to use us
• 1 Peter 4:11 - let the one who serves, serve in the strength that God supplies so that in all things God will get the glory

5. What is the Role of Teaching in Conversion?

• 2 Tim 2:24 - The Lords servant… should be able to teach, correcting with righteousness and God may grant repentance leading to knowledge of truth.
• We keep teaching, and if the Lord wills, he will say into their life "let there be light" and they are broken and they are broken, and the light goes on and the devil flees!
  

---------
What a great message! These 5 points are so key for all beleivers to understand! I will look forward to listening to the other message he gave, and giving the report!