I’m in Corolla, NC (Outer Banks) on a short vacation. While here my goal is to read several books, one of which I am halfway through: John Piper’s Spectacular Sins (and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ).
It has been a great joy to rise every morning with the sun, make my way to the deck over looking the Atlantic, and allow John Piper to preach to me the majesties of the glory of Christ Jesus.
Piper’s objective in this short book is to demonsrate that God is sovereign over sin without sinning Himself. Piper deals with hard questions like, if God imprisoned the angels that sinned, why does he allow Satan to roam free and wreak havoc on humanity? Or, if creation was “good” (as God pronounced it in Genesis 1) where did the Serpent come from? Where did sin originate? Or if God knew that Adam would sin, why did He create Adam in the first place?
In answering these and other tough questions Piper consistently points us to “the purpose of God,” as when he speaks of the fall of Satan:
I conclude, therefore, that God permitted Satan’s fall, not because He was unable to stop it, but because He had a purpose for it. Since God is never taken off guard, His permissions are always purposeful.
What is God’s ultimate purpose when he allows evil in the form of “spectacular sins” to triumph?
Satan’s fall and ongoing existence are for the glory of Christ. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, will be more highly honored and more deeply appreciated and loved in the end because He defeats Satan not the moment after Satan fell, but through millenia of long-suffering, patience, humility, servanthood, suffering, and decisively through His own death.
God had Jesus’ glory in view when He planned Adam’s sin. Adam’s sin is not a response by God to something He hadn’t considered possible. Adam’s sin was purposed by God so that the full-orbed Glory of Jesus Christ could be put on display through God’s plan for humanity’s salvation. In commenting on 2 Timothy 1:9 Piper notes:
…grace was planned before human sin was there to need it. This means that God’s plan to save us through grace was not a response to human decisions to sin. Saving grace was the plan that made sin necessary. God did not find sin in the world and then make a plan to remedy it. He had the plan before the ages, and that plan was for the glory of sin-conquering grace through the death of Jesus Christ.
Meditate and mull over Piper’s phrase: “Saving grace was the plan that made sin necessary,” and then thank God for His unspeakable gift.
My thinking is based on the ‘Necessary sin of Adam’. What we learn is that without Adam’s sin, we remain mere creatures. But through Adam’s sin, and God’s response in becoming human, He elevated us to the status of children. Higher than creatures. Forethought, foreseen and fore-solved. Amazing!
He does not permit, nor condone evil. It occurs against his will, because He has given man free will. But there are always consequences, though we may not always realise it. Christ could have refused to surrender to the evil one, and where would we have been? The ransom or price would have remained unpaid, because sin or righteousness must have its consequence.
So God, in essence, is like the hero that causes the bus to be on its way to crashing only to come fly in and save it to get the Glory. That is hard to wrap my mind around. God gets pleasure in our suffering because it brings Him glory. He made not have created sin, but to get around creating actual sin He creates the the tree that bears the fruit of sin so that when we eat of it we have to run to Him for the potion to heal ourselves. It is definitely true when Matthew says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” We are at the mercy of God. He does say in Luke 14:27 that He who cannot bear his cross or suffer, essentially, is not worthy of following Him. The fact is no matter what, we are not worthy of anything as the best we have to offer Him is as dirty rags as it says in Isaiah 64:6. It goes on to say “For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.”
I have been mulling this supposition over for some time in the back of my mind…even if not on the surface…When wham…I came across this article while running down rabbit trails…Very pertinent, not oppressively long…Even the “Good Guys” run through the mud sometimes…sorry John…Sometimes when we get dirt between our toes, it’s had to see.
In such an instance…everything brings God glory simply by the state of not being God. Yet everything would not necessarily be necessary. God is in Himself fully glorious and in need of nothing to be such. If all creation stopped at this moment…He would in Himself continue in His Glory!
Also lest I have misrepresented my meaning, the repentance I am speaking of is post regeneration…*: ) We continue to repent when we err, in the light of Gods goodness because we love Him.
Actually, our bad choices by their very contrast to righteousness DO glorify God and Jesus.And they further glorify his mercy. But of course we should not aim to sin more so that grace may abound more. And I agree that it is the GOODNESS, the KINDNESS, of God that leads to repentance, though some on this site have argued to the contrary.
“Sovereignty speaks to having the power and authority to do whatever the ruler wants with no one to stop him; God has that kind of power and authority, and when he sovereignly chooses to act “none can thwart his hand”. But he retains the option to not act (which is actually even MORE powerful when you think about it). He is powerful and authoritative enough to let some things go and let his creatures make choices and still accomplish his purposes.
After all, love without choice isn’t really love at all.”
What’s un-Calvinistic about that? We are given free will within bounds…however…our bad choices don’t glorify God or Jesus. God’s goodness leads us to repentance; it doesn’t scare us into heaven. While grace abounds in the presence of sin…God doesn’t want us to sin…that is just silly. (so says the Apostle Paul)
OK, I’ll bite. Yes, God did intend for evil to exist, therefore he in essence created it…for a good cause, of course. You can’t appreciate light without darkness, you can’t appreciate heat without cold, you can’t appreciate love without hate. Contrast magnifies the differences, and God wants (and deserves) to be magnified. It’s all part of the epic story he began and will complete one day, the story of stories, the “super-story” from which all great stories derive.
Now if I still believed in a Calvinist perspective of the sovereignty of God, I would believe that the story is totally pre-written to the very last detail and that in the end none of us can do any differently that what he has pre-written.
However, I don’t believe that anymore. Sovereignty speaks to having the power and authority to do whatever the ruler wants with no one to stop him; God has that kind of power and authority, and when he sovereignly chooses to act “none can thwart his hand”. But he retains the option to not act (which is actually even MORE powerful when you think about it). He is powerful and authoritative enough to let some things go and let his creatures make choices and still accomplish his purposes.
After all, love without choice isn’t really love at all.
It seems to me…that we have a shall we say “twist” in the supposition…
Because God is never caught off guard, and is in fact totally sovereign, when he created man he knew every possibility and GRACE was planned to remedy the ultimate knowledge that man would sin…not that sin was necessary. So Grace is necessary for Glory in this case not sin.
Greg or Paul…When ALL of Jesus’ enemies are under His feet…and we have moved into the eternal state…will there still be sin… the memory of sin…or less glory??? Or does this have more to do with the gratefulness of man than the glory of God?
Wholeheartedly agree with you, my friend.
Sin and evil play a necessary role in the glorification of God. God did not “create” sin or evil, they are just natural antithesis to His great attributes and allow him to receive the glory that only He deserves.
I do thank God for His unspeakably wise gift of grace…the necessity of sin…that’s really scary…I’ll really have to mull that over.
I know that nothing ever “occurs” to God; He has all things in control and is totally sovereign…However, the scriptures tell us to never say when we are tempted that we have been tempted of God…How that plays out is definitely above my pay grade at this time…mind renewal is still in progress and as long as I keep submitting myself to the change effected by the Holy Spirit and the Living Word…I will get it resolved…the whole Pharaoh story does seem to lead to that conclusion…but on this point, I’m not fully persuaded yet.