T4G Gems: John Piper

Did Jesus Preach Paul's Gospel? (Luke 18)

"For some—perhaps many—there is the suspicion (or even conviction) that justification by faith alone is part of Paul’s gospel, but not part of Jesus’ gospel. And in feeling that way, our commitment to the doctrine is weakened, and we are thus less passionate to preach it and defend it as essential to the gospel. And we may even think that Jesus’ call to sacrificial kingdom obedience is more radical and more transforming than the gospel of justification by faith alone."

"I really believe that the ultimate reason God gave us four portraits of Jesus in the four Gospels is so that we would more fully and accurately see and savor the glories of the Savior that we meet personally in the gospel, and that we would enjoy fellowship with him in this life, as we know him personally from what he did and said in his days on earth."

"When it came to justification, this Pharisee was trusting in the wrong thing. He was looking at the wrong basis for his righteousness before God. He was looking at the wrong person and the wrong righteousness. He was looking to his own righteousness—and it was his, not because he created it, but because he acted it. It was not an alien righteousness. It was inherent in him. It was in his will and in his heart and in his actions. It was his, and it was put there, he believed, by God. That is what he was trusting in. And what about the tax collector? He looked away from himself to God. He trusted in nothing in himself. He trusted in God’s mercy. And Jesus said, 'God declared him righteous and acceptable.'"

"Jesus said to the rich young ruler: You lack one thing. You lack me. Stop treasuring money and start treasuring me. You want to inherit eternal life. You want to enter the kingdom of heaven. You want to be justified. Only by your attachment to me will you inherit eternal life, enter the kingdom, be justified. If you would be perfect—which is the only way into God’s kingdom—follow me. Be connected to me. Depend on all that I am for you."

"People in our day, in order to create greater moral seriousness (especially with the radical commands of Jesus) are making morality part of the ground of justification. This backfires, because it destroys the joyful confidence which alone can bear the fruit of Christ-exalting love. It takes away the one and only ground and source of the very transformation they long for."

"Settle it once and for all that the dozens of places in the Bible that make your good behavior the condition of your final salvation are a condition only as the fruit and confirmation of justification, not the ground of it. All the good that God requires of the justified is the fruit of justification by faith alone, never the ground of justification. Let the battle of your life be there. The battle to believe. Not the battle to perform."

"Give Christ all his glory in the work of salvation, not just half of it. Half is the work of pardoning sin by becoming our wrath-absorbing punishment. But the other half is the work of providing our perfection by fulfilling everything that God required of us, and then imputing it to us. Don’t rob the Lord of half his glory in bringing you to God. Christ is our pardon. Christ is our perfection."

Mark Dever - R. C. Sproul - Al Mohler - Thabiti Anyabwile - John MacArthur - David Platt - John Piper - Ligon Duncan - Matt Chandler - C.J Mahaney