A Conversation on Providence with Mark Dever and John Piper

hello my name is mark dever i'm the pastor of the capitol hill baptist church in washington dc and i have the great joy of sitting here with my dear friend and brother john piper of desiring god ministries john thank you for being here brother i love being your dear friend and i love the fact that you have written this new book on providence but i have i have a problem with it john let's just start with my problem okay i invested like hundreds of others in the what i thought were the complete works of john piper with a united scripture index volume at the end so i could use all i think 13 volumes of works that you've written to see what you're thinking about this passage of scripture in that passage of scripture and now you've produced a number of things since that set came out but this is like a whole volume or two by itself what's going to happen to the works of john piper with things like this you did not invest in the complete works you invested in the collected work we use language carefully okay i wasn't dead i'm not dead yet so so will this go into future editions i have no idea but and what about that scripture index volume that's what i'm concerned about that's that is the concern isn't it i don't know how things like this are done you're going to have to call the good friends at crosswalk i'm sure they they were not ignorant of what they did but you're right what this is the i think the fifth book since wow since the coming you've got a couple more up your sleeve well you know i i visited a chapel 20 years ago at trinity where grand old missionary statesmen at age 89 said i've written a book a year since i was 70. i'm sitting at the back thinking yes life begins at 70. all right so you have uh written another book and you have tackled a topic that everybody from john bunyan to benjamin franklin talking about the providence of god and you've written over 710 pages on it what were you hoping to say that hadn't already been said on god's providence nothing that's the short answer i don't intend to say if i say something new it's probably wrong right well so then why say it again yes um there aren't many books in print and accessible and available today that assemble the entirety of scriptural texts on providence in a language that's understandable with a love for the providence of god and a christian hedonist twist that shows that god's glory and our joy really do come to climax together i mean we can get into that in due time but i do have a take on the reason god created and runs the world that not everybody expresses it's just a very edwardian take that says our rejoicing in god's glory and his providence is one of the main ways by which that glory shines forth in the world not many people are saying that though it has been said often in church history so i had a desire to pull it all together i had a desire to put that emphasis on it and i wanted to persuade people god controls the world because it's a powerful and precious doctrine that i have found pastorally mark has stabilized hundreds and hundreds of people through the worst of times well and it's all over scripture i mean one of the glories of this volume brother is the 24-page scripture index at the back where uh for a preacher like me that means i can use this like a one-volume commentary if i'm preaching in ecclesiastes or ephesians i can just look in the back uh see if you deal with that passage see where it is go read you on it and uh and see any implications particularly about providence uh and it's so helpful with that yeah well that that was a goal to be bible saturated and knowing very few human beings read 700 page books nevertheless many quite ordinary saints love having a 700 page book on their shelf if there's an accessibility to the places that i might address the one place they're troubled by yeah and that's that's why indexes are so important yeah well i i think that this book is uh is a wonderful reproduction of so much of what god is like so i think if you like the god of the bible you're going to like this book i like to say it like that it really is about god it's about god i mean we we put words in front of god providence of and things like that but we want to know god so the key to understanding the book if somebody wants to grab a copy and look at it is the table of contents it's always a great place to go it's a three-page table of contents and what you find in the table of contents is you've done the book in three parts part number one a definition and a difficulty part number two the ultimate goal of providence and part number three which is most of the book the nature and extent of providence right did you have that kind of a breakdown in mind from the beginning uh it took several weeks to settle on that i thought it would mainly be nature and extent you know i want to i want to show this is really true god does exercise his governance of the world pervasively and he does it without undermining human uh responsibility and accountability that's what i thought my task was but as soon as i began to write i realized almost every time i say something i'm pointing somewhere like why so the why question i thought i've written on that god's passion for his glory that i've said that so many times but i couldn't do it i couldn't write about the nature and extent of providence and not talk about well why is he doing everything hence the purpose and that kind of took over because it provided the the goal of everything yeah the book struck me as kind of a combination of pink's the sovereignty of god packers knowing god and your book pleasures of god sort of all together i hadn't thought of that but thank you yeah i like that yeah why specifically a book on god's providence why that vantage point on god he says god says in in isaiah 46 i am god and there is no other i am god and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning saying from ancient times things not yet done declaring my purpose will stand i will accomplish all my purpose now if i understand that cluster of i ams god is saying for me to be god means i accomplish my purposes you take that away i'm not god so right at the heart of what it means to be god is i speak and i perform what i speak and nobody can thwart my hand i mean the very fact that he's called yahweh 600 times and that yahweh name is rooted in exodus 3 14 i am who i am i think is a declaration of absolute being and absolute uh existence from eternity to eternity nobody makes me who i am i decide who i am i provide the standard for everything so god's godness resides very much in his capacities and his intentions his freedom to rule the world you said at one point in the book that one of your aims in writing the book was to help us see the world in a different way to sort of generate thankfulness to god yeah for as many providences yes thankfulness but even more i think essential than thankfulness is wonder and awe and reverence and hallowing and delight and treasuring thankfulness tends to connote for people his gifts are wonderful thank you i had breakfast this morning and that's absolutely essential to saving faith if you're not a thankful person you're not a saved person but it's not the most basic way to relate to god the most basic way to relate to god is not thank you for your gifts but i love you you are beautiful you are glorious and so that when i say i wanted people to look at the world differently i wanted it to be a god entranced world a god saturated world so wherever you look when you look at breakfast you don't just say oh that tastes good and i'm thankful that i have tastebuds but rather something of god is shining forth from that granola and grape nuts and shredded wheat this morning with two percent milk and blueberries something of god was there and if i don't go through the gifts to god then i'm not worshiping the way i the way i ought so i i want i mean edwards did this for me i just wanted to happen to people i experienced an awakening when i was 22 years old and i felt like have i ever known him before have i ever met the living god in his majesty before i read some of edward's books and then the bible opens like a flower i hope that happens for people amen i think it will brother if you look at page 446 i'm just going to read you your own book right in the middle of page 446 i think this captures a lot of what it seems like you're doing in the book we've seen enough in this book so far that hatred governing and hardness governing providence of god is not a surprise my hope is that you will begin to reflexively say to such texts yes there it is the perplexing providence of god and yes he knows how to do this in a way that neither forces good people to be hateful against their will nor diminishes any accountability for sin nor tarnishes his own immaculate holiness and goodness and justice how god governs the human heart and its acts of sinning we are not told that he does we are told over and over what sustains us when surrounded by hatred is not our ability to explain god's providence but the unshakable fact of god's providence and that fact will sustain us to the degree that we believe that nothing absolutely nothing can happen to us but by god's fatherly hand this is why stories of god's providence abound in scripture but explanations of the mystery of how it works do not our faith needs the certainty of the fact not the fathoming of the mystery i think that's a good summary of what your your burden seems to be in this book right because how many people at least in their early exposures to the truth of god's sovereignty retreat or default almost immediately to the how question how can this be how because it's not it's not clear to us you know i picked i decided to pick up this book in order to open it and read something but you're telling me god is sovereign over that right in other words it it really does help to have story after story and explicit statement after explicit statement assure me god governs wicked people not just nice weather but hurricanes and tsunamis and hitler's and amines and pogroms and genocides and rape god is governor and if you can rest in that and hand over to him how do you do that without undermining their free will and your righteousness leave the how to god accept his declarations it does bring into your life both worship mystery and restfulness i mean you and i were saying just before we went on air here it's so good to be a reformed lover of the sovereignty of god in these days amen i mean it all it has always been i mean i i love living where i live doing what i do going where i go restful that covet or no kovid i'm in his hands if he takes my life he takes my life he's god that's okay amen so you have in the book an introduction and a conclusion and in between you have 45 chapters and of those 45 chapters only two have questions as titles and those are your very first two uh and i want to just ask you those questions to set up people for looking at the book the first one is what is divine providence it i think it's most helpful to define it by distinguishing it from sovereignty because most people me included for a long time just equated the two god is sovereign god exercises providence and i thought for 20 years i said i'm going to write a big book on sovereignty someday big red book on sovereignty on some day just like there's a big blue book on complementarianism another book on big red book on sovereignty but but i didn't write a big red book on sovereignty or did i sovereignty i think means god's right and his power to do whatever he pleases and that's what the bible says he in fact does our god is in the heaven he does whatever he pleases psalm on 115 but that doesn't get at the goal dimension the wisdom dimension the purposeful dimension so providence adds to sovereignty purposefulness it is so my short definition of providence is god's purposeful sovereignty he he has fatherly care he has wise rule he has just rule all these adjectives that you can put in front of sovereignty turn it into providence the second question then is divine self-exaltation good news it is and and i i tackled that right at the beginning because i knew that throughout the whole book i was going to be pointing out text after text where god makes much of god i mean it is clear that god says nobody takes my glory from me you exalt yourself above me you're coming down now any human that talks that way we tend to say i don't like you you are one arrogant so and so preg and yet god talks like this everywhere so how can that be good news how can that be honorable how can it be beautiful how can it be admirable and so that chapter tackles that question and and answers it by saying god is the one being there's only one who is i say it respectfully stuck with being perfect he's just stuck with being infinitely beautiful stuck with being infinitely righteous stuck with being infinitely glorious stuck with being infinitely wise if god were to say that he were not infinitely wise he'd be a liar and therefore would not be god nobody else is like this we have to come to terms with the godness of god the uniqueness of god and not stumble over the fact that he can say things we dare not ever say and the reason he's saying it is good news that is i am god i am glorious i am beautiful come to me love me and join me is because we're made to do that every human heart is made to know and love god we are made to find our highest satisfaction in seeing and savoring god so for god to say here i am the greatest treasure in the universe i welcome all who come to me i'll fold you into my family and give you vistas of my perfections forever and ever that's the best news in the world if you're willing not to be god i mean i get down on my knees mark every morning no that's not true i didn't this morning because i hurried over here to meet with you but almost every morning and then you're quiet this morning you were reading steven's speech i i did but i didn't get on my knees this morning i sat in my chair to read steven's speech i usually get on my knees and my first words out of my mouth is i am not god i'm here just to say i want to get low if even if it's only for 10 seconds i want to get low and say i am not god and and if if i could get more people to be happy to say i'm not god you are god do what you please i will have lived well amen um brother part two is the ultimate goal of providence in the book and you have three sections of that the ultimate goal of providence before creation and in creation the ultimate goal of providence in the history of israel that's six chapters going through the old testament and the ultimate goal of providence and design and enactment of the new covenant it to me it feels like you're doing sort of a biblical theology passed through following this doctrine through the canon is that right yeah that's right that's right um and i'm sure i am influenced by the last 20 years or so of emphasis on on the biblical theology or canonical theology which attempts i mean i love systematic theology i would never like some of my friends or some former friends that i knew in seminary and so on dump on systematic theology political theology is where it's at systematic theology imports categories blah blah blah that's a lot of baloney everybody has categories they're just as present in biblical theology as they are in systematic theology but the difference is of course that systematic theology is usually structured around the loci of salvation and tracism uh in the bible whatever the bible says about those and i love it i mean get tremendous help from that but i thought okay if i'm going to provide something lasting and thorough about the providence of god people will wonder does this doctrine show up only in the new testament when you when you quote genesis 50 verse 20 is that a one-liner that exists by itself or does paul say things like that and does isaiah say things like that not just moses say things like that that really matters i think well you know you you call this the ultimate goal of providence that's your part two and you use the illustration at one point in your book of if somebody is putting a hole in the ground in minnesota it's good to know why they're wanting to build a house so you understand something better if you know the purpose and that's why you said you wanted to put this up front in the book the goal of providence because then people are going to understand it better when they see what the purpose is that's right that's right you do you don't put a hole under your house usually in florida you probably hit water if you do but in minnesota virtually every house has a basement it's cold here it really helps to have a basement down there but digging a hole in the ground does not make any sense at all unless you know oh it's for a house to sit on top it's not a well that's being built here something that's always been part of your theology and it's it's very much in this book baked in from the beginning is an insight that you attribute often at least to c.s lewis reading his reflections on the psalms the idea that delight is incomplete until it's expressed and that that's an important way that we conceive of god's providence and you you quote lewis in the book you say uh you say he says we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment it is its appointed consummation right that relates to what we've seen already in why god's self-exaltation is not bad news because what lewis was dealing with there in his reflections on the psalms was repeated statements in the psalms that summons people to praise god and he said it sounds like an old woman seeking compliments he did not like the god of the psalms because the god of the psalms kept saying praise me praise me praise me and then he came to that section like in my in my book it's just underlined for three pages places 92 to 94 of my edition on reflections on the psalms where he says i i had failed to see that the most cranky and narrow souls praised least and the most healthy souls praised most and the reason lovers keep telling each other how beautiful they are is not because they're unsure of it but because the pleasure in each other is not complete until it is spoken which means that if god is requiring of me that i give expression to my praise he's requiring of me the consummation of my pleasure in him in other words it is a loving thing for god to demand that he be praised of me and if if the praises of god is the goal of providence so must our pleasure be that's probably right at the heart of one of the things that makes this book a little bit different than others perhaps is that i'm going to stress in this book everywhere i can that our godward-ness is profoundly satisfying and that satisfaction is part of what makes the godness of god shine talking about the goddess of god you mentioned a few minutes ago exodus 3 14 i am who i am i am that i am and you have about three pages which is one of the few places in the book you really don't deal with scripture very much you just take that phrase and then you logically work out 10 conclusions about the absoluteness of god's being and i feel like very much unlike the rest of the book we're in a bit of a logic textbook all of a sudden where john is simply working out what to him seems like logical necessary implications of god's self-existence do you want to talk about that for a second do you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah i would let me try i addressed the issue of logic in the book in several places because some people will say god's governing the human will while humans are still responsible is illogical okay so that and i argue no no no that's not a logic issue and here the one you're talking about i am who i am with 10 implications you say i'm working out the logic of it well that's a loose use of the word logic because i would say i'm working out the use another big word metaphysical implications of it in other words logic is where you have premises that lead to valid conclusions all men are mortal plato's a man therefore plato is mortal that's logic that's not exactly what's going on in those few pages if i say i am who i am means absolute existence then i close my bible and i think what does that mean what does that mean what are the implications of that i would say never had a beginning now is that logic functioning there or is that built into i am who i am metaphysically and i don't know whether i can separate those two out or not but i want to draw the distinction between logic as something that governs the way propositions relate to each other so that there's no self-contradiction and metaphysics where you say he is absolutely powerful therefore nobody can forward his hand is that is that logic or is that just built into what it means it's like an identity statement part of the meaning of absolute existence so that's what i think's going on there and and so yes i would say to pastors when you read a proposition and you settle it that's true that's biblical this is really there that christ died for sinners or that the new covenant was purchased by the blood of jesus you can draw out of that implications for the soul and for life that hopefully are never illogical i mean i really believe logic is built into the god is the one who establishes what logic is but are really uh implications because of the nature of what you just saw and i would encourage pastors put your elbows on either side of the bible close your eyes plead with god to open your eyes to the implications of what you're looking at for the for the church you're you're leading one of the places that you do that frequently as you look at scripture uh particularly in this biblical theology the section two or part two and when you come to the conquest uh you say on page 123 at last in his mercy god brought israel into the promised land and dispossessed the nations in his justice on their wickedness and in his grace on israel's wickedness neither israel nor the canaanites deserved the land god was acting in freedom then you refer back to i am who i am in exodus 3 14 and i will have mercy on whom i will have mercy romans 9 15. his aim was that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the lord is mighty joshua 4 and that israel would love him and cling to him with all their heart and soul joshua 22 this global glory of god and this gladness of god's people and his grace are not separable the perfection of glory stands forth at last in the perfection of gladness in the glory of grace this is where all providence is leading right we're circling back again and again to the gladness issue but let me let me let me go behind it to the to the conquest yeah there what i'm doing there and what every pastor or every bible reader has to do is figure out how can this be right what's going on with this cleaning house on these people with brutal destruction of whole cultures at the hand of joshua under the command of god to do it and you go back all the way to genesis and he said the sins of the amorites are not yet complete 400 years has to elapse so that the sins can imbue can accumulate so that when i send you in there to clean house it is the hand of my justice doing what is right but the the bigger issue there for providence is to step back and say okay this is a very strange way to do history to choose a people for myself israel and to use israel a very imperfect idolaters failing sinful people to do judgment on other sinful peoples and yet be my people through whom messiah comes to reach the very nations that's really round about i mean romans 11 32 to 30 yeah 29-32 about all the nations being shut up to sin and the israel sinning so that the judgment of god falls on them and then mercy spills over to the nations this is all about the strange ways of god and now to arrive at praise to him and gladness in his people you can't you can't have the kind of praise and the kind of gladness that god wants unless you see it against the backdrop of judgment on sin and grace towards sinners so what you're doing throughout the book is you're reorienting us to god whether we're looking at the conquest or something else that's taken as a difficult example of god's providence you're reorienting us to look at god properly and in seeing god properly then we'll begin to see the conquest or other examples right right in the bible's history probably i just cannot over emphasize the fact that what the world needs i forget what old puritan said that the the pastor's task is to re-establish the dominion of god in the hearts of god's people meaning our people need to feel we need to feel god is god god is big god is great god is majestic this most people have a very small view and a very small affection for the bigness of god so yes i hope that page after page people are simply being told stop you know be still and know i am god yeah the way you summarize it page 144 evil one despise god evil two prefer dirt this is the very essence of evil to assess the infinitely valuable all-satisfying god and then turn away from him as unworthy and unsatisfying in order to seek satisfaction by scratching in the dirt to make a broken cistern there is no greater scorn against no greater name yeah jeremiah 211 i guess that's where that comes from behold my people have committed two great evils they're forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewn out for themselves cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water i mean they've tasted god we've all tasted god the heavens are declaring the glory of god our hearts are crying out the law is written on your heart we've all tasted something of god and we taste it and say yuck give me a tv show give me a little sex give me a little fame give me a little money give me a little power give me give me give me and god just marginalized i mean that that's the outrage that brought down the fall the flood hell everything else and people don't realize how horrific that is because they don't sense how great god is when you come to the new testament in this part two where you're doing a biblical theology you do the old testament and then you come to the new testament when you come to the new covenant all of a sudden their suffering starts taking on a particular role in our understanding of god's providence you see the ultimate reason that suffering exists is so that christ might display the greatness of the glory of the grace of god by suffering himself to overcome our suffering do you want to unpack that for us that if you ask for biblical statements concerning the why of the suffering of the godly there are six at least that i think of but the ultimate one i mean if you just say ultimately from eternity to eternity why did god ordain a world because he he was not taken off guard by this world that's one of the arguments even if you use the word permission he saw things coming and he planned to permit so even though you may use the word permit for sin and suffering it is a planned permission and he saw it coming and he ordained that it be so if god ordained that such a horrific world of suffering be what would be the ultimate reason and the ultimate reason is hanging on a cross unless you have a world of sin and a world of suffering christ will not be crucified that's why their sin and why they're suffering so that god would be crucified because evidently in the crucifixion of the son of god the apex of the glory of grace is seen and according to ephesians 1 6 that's the ultimate goal of the universe predestined unto sonship to god through jesus christ according to his purpose to the praise of the glory of his grace so grace is glorious praise is the goal where does grace come to its climactic expression god dying for the ungodly that could never happen without suffering and without sin so if you were to you know give me one 30-second answer to the ultimate reason why they're suffering in the world i would say so god could suffer so god could display the kind of god he is in bearing the sins of the world in himself to display his glorious grace now there are other reasons i mean most people can't compete with that when their dead loved one is at their feet right my husband just collapsed in a heart attack that's not what's going to go through their head usually but there are other precious reasons given in the bible i get very frustrated mark when the main note that is struck in teaching people about suffering is we don't know we just don't know i see we do know we know one two three four five glorious statements in the bible for why this happens of course we don't know all the details we don't know why now we don't know why the intensity we don't know why the particular relationships a lot of things we don't know but the bible doesn't stress ignorance as the ground of worship the bible has revealed precious glorious things about the goal of the providence of suffering in the lives of his people amen so john when you've set all that up in your biblical theology in your part two most of the book five of 700 pages is your systematic theology it's your part three it's the nature and extent and you go through nine sections setting the stage and then eight particulars over nature providence over satan and demons providence over kings and nations over life and death over sin over conversion over christian living and then the final achievement of providence let me just walk through you don't have to talk about all of those but just walk through the your basic logic in uh in that here's one thing that comes to my mind i'm not sure what to do with all these but let me step back and give you one sense of my experience pastorally of how people move toward a love well this felt very pastoral because i could tell the stuff you were spending time on is the stuff that is a christian i experienced that's what i have questions about well if god's provident what about this and that's where you spend your time people stumble most over the providence over the human will yeah conversion in particular sanctification and the slowness of it the delinquency of people we love who don't come to faith the actual ruling of the human heart is where people who've been born and bred as free-willers in american culture the air we breathe is human self-sufficiency and self-determination so they stumble with that but those very people generally don't stumble at first over sovereignty over flies and frogs and locusts and plants and fish and and what i found pastorally mark is that if you take them through providence over nature earth water wind plants animals and then you take them to satan it gets a little more dicey do you think satan rules the world or is he on a leash you go to job you say is there freedom there isn't there freedom there that little by little the more people gladly embrace the sovereignty of god over the world in general the more open they tend to be towards realizing the implications of that for his sovereignty over his saving work and our dead hearts opens them they're more willing to go there so that's that's where we go we go from nature to life and death to sin and then conversion and christian living because that's where it really becomes both controversial and precious like john piper just turned 75. one of the most precious moments of my life was day before yesterday standing beside my son in worship singing he will hold me fast our hands up at the same point my savior loves me so he will hold me fast oh really oh really so why do you wake up a christian tomorrow morning i mean people really need to ask that question why did i wake up a christian why will i wake up a christian why will i persevere to the end and if they answer free will and my commitment baloney i mean i want to use a bad word but i'll just use baloney um no you will wake up a christian if you wake up a christian because he kept you that's providence that's that last section there about uh christian living and conversion your longest section is on the top of that page is that section six providence over sin and that's where in those chapters 26 27 28 29 you're looking at hard examples in the bible and then you turn to our own lives you'll have broken families there in that one chapter and then you have what i would call the kind of mariana trench uh in in chapter 33 where you're looking at just the terrible wickedness in lamentations and elsewhere we see of where parents eat their children and it's just a horrendous thing to read about and think about but it's in the bible and how john do you see god's providence even in those murky depths if you have been persuaded by falling in love with and trusting jesus that his view of scripture is the true view and then with his pointing you have seen evidences of god's glory and grace in all of scripture so that you have come to rest this is not this this is on top of governing this is the word of god and then you read of the horrific suffering and cruelty of man on man including the death of children you cannot say well god didn't have anything to do with that so we're all confronted with the sovereignty of god in ordaining permitting guiding governing the horrific deaths of even little children and um two or three things to say one god swept away all children in the flood so there's no question that god has taken the life of children god takes all life the lord gives and the lord has taken away blessed be the name of the lord the death of every child is foreseen and ordained by god thank god because otherwise it would be random or it would be satan that's not good news if god is good and god is wise and god is just and god is loving i can rest in god at the death of my child so that's one thing is that god does it second thing is when the fall happened when god decreed death it was because of sin a sin nature so that even the death of children signals god hates corrupt human hearts even if even if it happens to a godly person or seemingly innocent little child the point of death is sin was horrible it was an outrage and we should feel that that the death of this child means sin in god's mind as he decreed it because of sin is horrific it's an outrage against the holy god the third thing is this and it's a little harder for us individualists to grasp it seems to me that god knew that when he wiped away a family say aiken's whole family like why the children it's because the judgment on the person was felt in the judgment on the children in a way that it wouldn't have been felt any other way in other words when there's such a there's such a unity between a head of a family and the children that the judgment on the head isn't complete and full as it ought to be felt until the whole family is included now last thing to say would be if somebody says that cannot be just then you back up and you say it was just and if in fact anything by way of excessive punishment or excessive pain was endured it will be made up for in the resurrection god the judge of all the earth will do right and if you look at the most innocent people suffering and the most wicked people prospering the bible's way of handling that is give it time no give it time and i would say in time that time is in this life and in the next life those are some of the thoughts of of how i would deal with it i would just invite everybody to approach it like this when you run into things in the bible that are absolutely baffling to you take the bible at its word and spend a lifetime of putting your hand over your mouth and quietly seeking the lord you may get some answers that you didn't have when you were 20 you may have them at at 70 or you may not and you'll get them on the other side but i think we will all go deeper with god we'll know him better if we don't write off the things that he says he did here as though they didn't happen amen back in your introduction john you say the longer i've studied scripture and tried to preach it and teach it the more i have seen the need to encourage preachers and lay people to penetrate through biblical words to biblical reality what do you mean by that i'll give you an illustration i was teaching a class on philippians about four or five years ago and i was teaching the students this technique that has been so illuminating for me called arcing which simply means that you break a paragraph down into each proposition so work out your salvation with fear and trembling for god is at work and you too wielded to do his good pleasure and you notice the word for introducing the second proposition and a paragraph would be ten of those maybe propositions connected by conjunctions that signify certain logical or relationship that illuminates so i was teaching them how to break it down and and they were learning it and they were doing it they'd say oh that's a ground clause i said right and you check it obviously got that ground you know and it struck me as i was providing study questions for them that the questions i was asking after we nailed that down they were kind of shaking their heads and saying where do you get those questions that that's we've already got the logic figured out here what where and what i realized was if you call that a ground uh work out your salvation with fear and trembling for god is the work in you to will and to do his good pleasure and you now say i've got it it's a ground you don't got it because how is it the ground and i realized there's a lot more to see here than just nailing down the logical connections and giving them a name you've got to figure out now how is it that god is at work in us to will and to work what does to will mean god is at work to will what does it mean god it worked to work in me how is that a ground for my working out and and what i realized is oh i'm really talking about reality here not not propositional relationships propositional relationships exist to point us to reality god really is at work in me god really changes my will god really is working there is a real relationship that that relates to my producing my salvation by his producing it in me there's reality there and i just fear that many pastors stay at the surface level of texts they read text they read words they read propositions they read conjunctions they read history they read secondary literature and all kinds and i'm just screaming your people are gonna die this week you're gonna people are gonna deal with things this week they need to see in and through those propositions to the reality that they can taste it really works in their lives that's what i mean i love that tendency and you push in all your books it seems to do that john and your own study of scripture and i think that's the that's one of the reasons the lord has used your work so powerfully because i think when people like me sit and read yourself we can tell you're thinking about it longer than we tend to think about it ourselves i mean you're staring it you've got the logic there and the text but then you stop and ask well what does that mean and it's so helpful page 192 you say god is supremely committed to the display of his glory for the admiration and enjoyment of all who will have it as their supreme treasure if we do not feel at home with this radical god-centeredness of god we will not feel at home with the biblical story of god's providence we will not feel at home in god's god-exalting presence well yeah and that's the goal of this book is to help people feel at home with the bible i mean you you have to really distort the bible in order to make it man-centered yeah in order to to strip god of his godness you have to ignore a lot of passages and it's grievous to me because i i grew up in a kind of religion that put man's decisive determination of his own destiny at the forefront that god was significantly marginalized i i had to break free from the self-determination commitment of the free will argument in order to know god i wasn't at home with the i mean there was text after text that i wasn't at home with like i mean i can remember talking with friends and say when we when we bumped into the word predestination we said yuck that's a presbyterian word like what it's right there in ephesians 1 he predestined us for sonship to himself though jesus christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glory i mean that verse blew up in my face when i was 22. how i kept telling myself it isn't really there it isn't really there it's just a mystery to me and there are millions of christians who have to tell themselves that's that just can't mean what it says it cannot that's what i mean by being at home with the god of the bible when you say in the design of the new covenant the ultimate goal of god's providence is to glorify his grace in beautifying by the blood of his son an undeserving bride who enjoys and reflects his beauty above everything that's just ephesians 5 isn't it it's a beautiful summary i mean i was talking with somebody about the is there a more glorious calling for what it means to be a husband of a wife than to read that were to love her the way christ loved the church but but to go on and say he loved the church that he might present the church to himself in splendor because we are his body i mean christ meant to so rule the world create the world rule the world die rise again create a new world all in order to assemble his elect from all the peoples of the world beautify them first through justification and imputation and then by sanctification make them a beautiful bride that he would delight in their delighting in him forever amen one of the joys of this book is that christ really is the key to understanding god's providence i mean he he is that that way in which god shows himself most gloriously in all of his attributes you say on the top of 627 christ accomplished for us the condemnation that the law demands so that he might accomplish in us the sanctification that the law commands the key phrase for our purpose is the phrase so that when god put christ in our condemned place he did this not only to secure heaven but to secure holiness or even more precisely not only to secure our life in paradise but also to secure our love for people right yeah which is why i think that section is called the providence of fulfilling the new covenant because the new covenant has these two more than two but just for juxtaposition purposes two glorious promises i will remember your sins no more so that's the doctrine of justification and imputation the the finished work of christ on the cross i will remember your sins no more second i will write the law on your heart and cause you to walk in my statutes that's sanctification and the the neglect of the sovereignty of god here i'm very concerned about it seems like reformed people like me love the doctrine of justification rightly so and imputation by faith alone and then kind of think okay now what is sanctification well that i guess i i begin to work hard in order to to uh reflect that and say well actually god works that in you according to hebrews 13 21 working in you that which is pleasing in his sight that's new covenant promise so the new covenant which was expressed centuries before christ came said there's going to come one he's going to come and he's going to do these two things he's going to cover sin he's going to make you holy because god wants to demonstrate a grace of imputation and a grace of power and sanctification so john did working on this book stir up your love for god yes and and of course this book is the climax of people say hello thank you to write i said 70 years which means my love for god is not um a steady state constant thing it has its rise and it has its faults and i fight to delight in god every day with his word and at the center of that word is himself and he reveals himself you know it says and what for samuel 3 21 he revealed himself as shallow through the word he revealed himself he showed himself through the word so when i opened the bible in the morning i'm definitely looking at words like this morning it was this speech of stephen and i said to you the very first thing out of stephen's mouth was and the god of glory revealed himself to abraham and i just stopped at okay i'm going to talk to mark in an hour a great place why why would stephen say the god of glory revealed himself he starts there he ends there with the martyrdom that's the way i fight for the love of god i want i want to love god by letting god reveal himself to me in this book every day so the book on providence was just a concerted forced assembly of what what i've been seeing for years and years the last chapter of chapter 45 new bodies new world never-ending gladness in god it's just a wonderful climax of the symphony it reminds me of charity and its fruits uh ending with heaven is a world of love i mean that's exactly what this chapter felt like so oh good so so so readers if you're not going to read much else in a 710 page book let me encourage you just to read the last chapter it'll be sweeter if you read the whole thing first but man that last chapter john that was good i love this one bit on page 683 where you say the reason the riches of christ can never be boring is that we are finite and they are immeasurable infinite therefore we cannot ever take them in fully there will always be more gloriously more forever only an infinite being can fully take in infinite riches but we can and we will spend eternity taking in more and more of these riches there is a necessary correlation between eternal existence and infinite blessing it takes the one to experience the other eternal life is essential for the enjoyment of immeasurable riches of grace amen amen and amen it makes me want to just go there real quick amen and you know that all of that comes straight out of ephesians 2 7. i mean that may sound like oh he's on an edwardian trip there no no i'm lingering over ephesians two five to seven and it does not get more spectacular than he made us alive in order that he might display the riches of kindness to us the immeasurable riches of kindness to us in christ jesus forever i mean the word immeasurable if you just you know like we were said earlier you put an elbow on either side of the bible you close your eyes and say immeasurable immeasurable what does immeasurable imply and that's where that comes from it doesn't it doesn't come from trying to spin out any kind of logical theological thing that comes from outside the bible it comes from meditating on the word immeasurable kindness and it's divine immeasurable divine kindness so if it's immeasurable then it's inexhaustible if it's if it's inexhaustible how long will it take to get to the bottom of it forever you'll never get to the bottom of it which means there's and mark i i probably i'm a little nine-year-old boy here because i lay down we had a spiral staircase behind our house that went to the roof as a little kid i would go up there at night after the stars came out and i would lie down on the shingles of my house and i would look into the stars and i was scared to death that eternity would be boring because church was [Laughter] so i'm just so scared lord it's going to be boring and i'm supposed to believe in you and so i'm working out a solution to that nine-year-old problem over and over again say god show me why it cannot be boring forever and ever endeavor well unlike eternity even this very long book ends as does this interview john thank you for thinking about all of this and believing it and living it and writing it thank you mark it's great to be a good friend of yours and rejoice together in glorious things happy 75th birthday john thank you you're just one day late

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Published: Thu May 06 2021