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{"id":1633,"date":"2005-09-25T15:41:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-25T15:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianwarnock.com\/2005\/09\/god-is-the-gospel-by-john-piper-book-review\/"},"modified":"2018-01-15T14:24:17","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T14:24:17","slug":"god-is-the-gospel-by-john-piper-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2005\/09\/god-is-the-gospel-by-john-piper-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":""God is the gospel" by John Piper : book review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

With this book Piper raises the bar. It is clearly his argument that Joy in God is the goal of the gospel itself. He really did mean it when he said the chief purpose of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever. Now, he makes plain that it is God himself who makes the gospel good news. Before we get into the review proper, why not<\/p>\n

Read the Introduction and Chapter 1<\/a><\/li>\n
Listen to the Audio introduction<\/a> by John Piper<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Piper\u2019s book opens as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/strong>From the first sin in the Garden of Eden to the final judgment of the great white throne, human beings will continue to embrace the love of God as the gift of everything but himself. Indeed there are ten thousand gifts that flow from the love of God. The gospel of Christ proclaims the news that he has purchased by his death ten thousand blessings for his bride. But none of these gifts will lead to final joy if they have not first led to God. And not one gospel blessing will be enjoyed by anyone for whom the gospel\u2019s greatest gift was not the Lord himself.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cGospel\u201d means good news ?but what makes the good news good? What is the goal of the gospel, without which it is no longer good? It is that Christ\u2019s death brings sinners to God! Were it to bring us anywhere else we would be left hopeless. But the gospel is that God gives us himself Christ died to give us Christ, and this self-giving is his highest mercy to us and the best news for us! The most profound, most exceedingly gracious, final and decisive good of the good news is Christ himself as the glorious image of God revealed for our endless satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
This morning my pastor Tope preached<\/a> on a similar theme. He said that the \u201cone thing\u201d that is necessary is God. We must seek presenceense and worship more than everything else. When we do this everything else will fit into its own place. By the end I was convicted. He challenged his hearers to respond by raising a hand if they wanted to recommitt to putting God first in their lives. It was only my foolish pride and the fact that he used the word \u201cbackslidder\u201d in his description of the people he wanted to respond that stopped me from raising my own hand.<\/p>\n
Foolishly we put many things above the \u201cone thing\u201d \u2013 work, family, even Gods good gifts can take the place of God. We can busy ourselves with much serving and miss the real presence of God in hurry. Even salvation itself is not the goal.<\/p>\n
Piper says \u201cThe gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n