What is it that makes the Gospel good? Some people root the Gospel in forgiveness, and it is true that our sins are taken away in the Gospel. Some make the Gospel about heaven and hell, and it is true that those who are justified will escape the wrath to come.
But I ask again: what is the highest, best, final and decisive good that makes the Gospel so very, very good. I am being awakened by John Piper to the truth that the highest, best, final and decisive good of the Gospel is that it brings us to God. It hooks us to him. It brings us to utter delight in him. It makes him our all-sufficient and everlasting treasure.
In a heart-gripping way, our God gives us Himself. Thus it is completely appropriate to say that GOD is the Gospel. The Gospel is not merely about God. Or from God. It is God. Himself.
This changes everything.
The power of the Gospel is the power of God. Heaven is the throne of God. It is the God-ness of propitiation, atonement, the Scriptures, and the Church that make them desireable. It is that same God-ness that means that nothing in all creation rises to absolute, primary being. All other things (including the Church, the angels, and heaven itself) are derived. They have secondary being.
This means that all creation has the glory of the moon, while God himself is the Blazing Center of reality. He himself is reality, and there is no reality apart from him.
There is a God Is The Gospel study guide online that begins to unfold this glorious truth. May the Lord prick your heart with his the Gospel of Himself.
