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Published on Leave a comment on Humility, Trinity and Daniel 4 [Thawed-out Thursday]

First posted two years ago.

How to attain humility?  Determine to think low thoughts of yourself?  You'd be defeated before you began.  Self-deprecation is still self-deprecation.  No, to be humble we need to be humbled.

Daniel 4 gives us a great picture of this.  Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man in the world, is humbled by the triune God who is 'able to humble' 'those who walk in pride.'  (Dan 4:37).

As an Australian male who's paid to shoot his mouth off I know a little something about walking in pride.  What can I learn from Daniel 4 about humility?

First, the hero of the piece, Daniel, accomplishes his work only in the power of the Holy Spirit.

"I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you." Dan 4:9 (LXX has 'Holy Spirit of God' - translating the plural 'gods' as elsewhere in Scripture)

"None of the wise men in my kingdom can interpret it for me. But you can, because the spirit of the holy gods is in you." Dan 4:18.  See also 5:11,14 (LXX translates them all as Holy Spirit of God)

Without the Spirit, Daniel has nothing to offer.  With the Spirit, Daniel is wiser than the wisest men on earth.

Second, the promised King of God's Kingdom is described as the Lowliest of Men.

"the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone He wishes and sets over them the Lowliest of men." (Dan 4:17)

In the great inversion of all our human expectations, God's choice for King is not simply a lowly man, but the Lowliest of men.  The King of all kings is the One who says "I am gentle and humble in heart." (Matt 11:29)  How can Nebuchadnezzar exalt himself when the Chosen One of the Most High is the Servant of all?

Third, Nebuchadnezzar learns humility when he worships the Most High God:

34 At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes towards heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honoured and glorified Him Who lives for ever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; His kingdom endures from generation to generation. 35 All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No-one can hold back His hand or say to him: "What have you done?" 36 At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honour and splendour were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom.

With his eyes turned upwards, Nebuchadnezzar praises Him Who lives forever.  The sovereign glory of the Omnipotent Father draws out of him awed worship.  I'm told (and I can believe it) that the Grand Canyon will take your breath away - no-one stands on the rim with high thoughts of themselves.  And no-one can confess the majesty of our Father and not be correspondingly humbled in the process.

So how do I fight pride?  The doctrine of the trinity of course. I need to know that anything I have of worth in God's service is a gift of the Spirit - "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" (1 Cor 4:7).

I need to know that the Lord of Glory is Himself the Lowliest of men.  His glory is His service.  So how can I exalt myself above Christ?

I need to know that the Most High Father is awe-inspiring in His heavenly power.  As I worship Him I find a grateful 'nothingness' by comparison which is, at that very moment, my restoration to honour.

To be enfolded in the life of these Three is to be well and truly humbled.

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Published on Leave a comment on Three more thoughts on penal substitution

Further to the discussion here...

1. The early church taught a substitutionary, propitiatory, sacrificial death as the key to Christ's 'sweet exchange' with sinners.

e.g. For Irenaeus, Christ's filling out of Adam's distorted image necessitates a 'filling up of the times of his disobedience' (Ad. Her. III.21.1).  In taking on Adam’s substance, He took on Adam’s curse, satisfying it at the cross, ‘propitiating indeed for us the Father, against Whom we had sinned’ (V.17.1) and ‘redeeming us by His own blood' (V.14.3).

For Athanasius the curse of Genesis 2:17 is key.  The Word becomes incarnate in order to take a body capable of death “so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished." (De Incarn. 8)  Moreover this death is specifically a sacrifice (ch9; 10; 20) made under God’s curse (ch25).

2.  Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) cannot mean a disruption to the Father-Son love since God's wrath is an aspect of His love.  Perhaps if we thought that wrath was some other thing, divorced from love, then we might say that God's wrath poured out at the cross breaks the Father-Son union.  But no, if God is love and if this wrath is a reaction of love to the sin that Christ had become, then there is no danger of breaking the homoousios.

3. PSA means God saves us from God.  It says that the ultimate problem facing humanity is not death or corruption or sin or the devil but God Himself.  Sin is not our real problem - wrath is. We need to be saved from the Judge Himself.  And we can only be saved by the Judge Himself - the Judge judged no less.  Certainly Christ ransoms us from all those lesser powers (and therefore certainly there is a place for Christus Victor etc).  But that's not the ultimate meaning of salvation.  It's a divine curse, a divine judgement, divine wrath from which we must be delivered. PSA takes this with the seriousness it deserves.

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Published on Leave a comment on Let Jesus be Jesus [A re-post slightly revised]

I'm always banging on about the trinity here.

One thing I particularly emphasize is the fact that the distinct Persons maintain their distinct-ness in the unity of the Godhead because this unity is the perichoresis (mutual indwelling) of the Persons.  In fact the distinct-ness is upheld in these relations.  The Father is truly Father because of His paternal relation to the Son in the Spirit etc, etc. God's One-ness does not steamroller the distinctions, it's a One-ness that includes (and is even constituted by) this mutual, interlocking one-ness.  (Just click the Trinity tag on my sidebar and you'll soon come across many such posts).

One implication is this: We can all just breathe a sigh of relief and let Jesus be Jesus.

What do I mean by that?  Well let me ask a few questions.  When you read the Gospels, do you ever wonder:

  • Why doesn't Jesus just say 'I am God'?  Why all this 'I am sent...' stuff?
  • Why does Jesus keep saying things like: 'I can do nothing by myself'? (e.g John 5:19,30)
  • How come Jesus sleeps?
  • How come Jesus doesn't know when He's returning?

He seems to walk around doing divine things (like forgiving sins), but at the same time He seems to go out of His way to show how dependent He is.  Think about the paralytic in Matthew 9. He forgives his sins - which only God can do (v3) - but He does so as the Son of Man (v6) and the overwhelming reaction of the people is to glorify God for giving such authority to men. (v8)  Even the most blatantly divine action is done in a distinctly human and dependent way.

Do we get worried about Jesus' weakness which comes out of every page of the Gospels?  Are we concerned that Jesus doesn't say "I am God"?  Instead He seems most often to claim a dependence on God and He walks around unashamedly humanly, showing Himself to be a complement (not a clone) of the One He calls Father.

Does this infuritate us as we seek to prove from the Scriptures the divinity of Jesus??  It shouldn't do.

It is a revelation of His divine nature (and not a concealment) that we see in Jesus such dependence on the Father.  When He says 'I am sent' it reveals His divine nature as the eternal Son of the Father.  When He says 'I can do nothing' it reveals His divine nature as the eternal Servant of the LORD.  When He sleeps it reveals His divine nature as One dependent upon the ever-wakeful Father.  When He says He doesn't know when He's returning He reveals His divine nature as One sent from God.  He waits on the Father's command and does not initiate His first or second coming.

He really can't do anything by Himself.  He really does sleep.  He really doesn't know when He's returning.  But for all that He is no less divine.   For He belongs to the other Members and as the dependant Son, filled without measure with the omnipotent Spirit, He is a full participant in the communion that is God.

We don't need to assign these differences in Jesus to some 'human nature' locked off from a special sphere of uncorrupted, independent deity.  Jesus' deity is not insulated from these differences, it includes them.  It is the human Jesus who says 'If you've seen me you've seen the Father.'  It is the human Jesus who says 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'  In His differences, even in His complete humanity, He is the living God.

His divinity is on show on every page of the Scriptures because His divinity is His anointing with the Spirit and consecration to the Father.  That's why the key title for Jesus is not "God" but "the Christ, the Son of God."  This title is the most clear expression of His divinity.

So let's let Him be who He is in the Gospels.  Let's not fit Him into some pre-conceived notions of divinity.  Let's let Jesus be Jesus.

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Published on Leave a comment on Trinity – the difference between slaves and sons

Two boys at work in a field. (Gal 4:1-3).

They look the same, but they couldn't be more different.

One is a slave, the other is a son.  One is property, the other is heir.  One calls the owner "Boss".  The other calls him "Daddy."

But from a distance you can't tell.

In church, slaves and sons sit side by side.  And, from a distance, you can't tell which is which.  But actually there is a profound difference in their relationship to the Father - and this difference is decisive.

Paul writes Galatians 4:4-7 to sort out the slaves from the sons.

At the heart of this difference is the trinity.  If we understand the trinity and our union with Christ, if we understand our adoption into the very life of God, then we'll be sons.  If we miss this, we will live as slaves.

The trinity really is that important.

Audio of Sunday's sermon - Galatians 3:26-4:7

Slides here.

Text below...

...continue reading "Trinity – the difference between slaves and sons"

Published on Leave a comment on Atonement – keeping legal and familial together

There are the cold and clinical 'latins' who are all about the 'law court' and 'satisfaction' and 'penal substitution'.

And there are the warm and generous eastern types who speak of 'trinity' and 'adoption' and 'theosis'.

Or if you're on the other side:

There are the faithful and biblical evangelicals who remember God's 'justice' and 'wrath' and 'propitiation'

And there are the wishy-washy liberals (i.e. everyone who's not an evangelical) who never face the problem of sin and judgement.

So which is it?

Matt Finn's post and Sam Allberry's comment show the way forward.  The penal self-substitution of Christ (which is very clearly taught in the Scriptures) only makes sense with a strong doctrine of the Trinity and of union with Christ.  Only if the Crucified One is God Himself intercepting His own judgement, and only if I am crucified with Him does it hang together.

It's just a real pity that those churches that are strong on penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) are often weak on trinity and union with Christ.  And in that context PSA gets horribly twisted.  And so many who oppose it say to themselves "If it's PSA or the trinity, I'll stick with the trinity."

If that were really the choice then I don't think I could blame them.  But it's not the choice.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ...18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.   (Eph 2:13,18)

We've got to hold together the legal and the familial - PSA and trinity/union with Christ.

Perhaps we need to remember JI Packer's three word summary of the New Testament: "adoption through propitiation". And let's hold on equally tightly to both.

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Published on Leave a comment on Resolved to pray? Your resolution is belated

From last night's sermon on Galatians 4:6:

A new year has begun, it’s often a time when we assess our Christian lives and think about how they’re going.  If I were to ask you ‘how is your prayer life going?’ How would you respond?

If you belong to Jesus, you can look me in the eye and tell me ‘My prayer life is unimprovable’.  How’s your prayer life? ‘My prayer life is divine.’

I am clothed in the Son of God and His prayer-life is pretty darned good.  And Galatians 4 verse 6 tells me that the Spirit of the Son is in me.  And what is He doing?  He is praying!

What is He praying?  He is praying the prayer of Jesus to the Father.  ‘Abba, Father’ is Jesus’ own prayer – He prayed it in the Garden of Gethsemane – it’s Jesus’ own prayer “Abba, Father.”  (Mark 14:36)  And the Spirit OF THE SON is praying that prayer from within ME.

I’m not just invited to pray, I am already caught up in the prayer life of God.  The Spirit is already praying Jesus’ perfect prayer IN me and praying it to the Father.

The Spirit is praying from within you right now, ‘Abba, Father, Abba, Father, Abba, Father’ – it’s as constant as your heart-beat.  ‘Abba, Father’ – that is your spiritual pulse.  The Spirit of the Son calling out to your Father from the depth of your being.

And those words ‘Abba, Father’ – they are not just the first line of a prayer.  ‘Abba, Father’ is the essence of prayer.  It is resting like a needy child in the arms of a strong and loving Heavenly Father.

And all our little prayers that we say (when we get around to it) – they are the ‘Amen’ to the Spirit’s continual prayer.  We’re always late to prayers – did you know that?  However early you get up in the morning – the Spirit has been up earlier, and He’s been praying in you.  You join in late and add your own Amen.

And as we go on in the Christian life, the Spirit of the Son will help our little prayers to become more child-like, so that more and more we call out “Daddy” the way He does (Rom 8:15).  And then we stop praying like slaves and start praying like sons.

Every time I forget I’m a son, I start praying like a slave and it kills my prayer life.  I pray like I’m a slave and He’s a slave-master, like I’m a soldier and He’s a commanding officer.  But Jesus didn’t teach us to pray ‘Our Sergeant-Major in Heaven’ or ‘Our Line Manager in Heaven’  – instead: Our Father in Heaven.

We need to be little children in prayer and thankfully the Spirit of the Son makes us exactly that and helps us to pray child-like prayers where we depend on our heavenly Dad.

Our own attempts at praying won’t be very good but, wonderfully, the Spirit takes even our most rubbish efforts at prayer and wraps them up in the Son’s perfect prayer and lifts them the to the Father.

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Published on Leave a comment on The New Atheism and the Trinity

Here's Mike Reeves speaking at a student evangelistic event this week.  Sound quality is not great but it is well worth listening to!

It's called "How Atheists Are Right."  Mike's arguing that the new atheism rightly rejects the solitary dictator in the sky.   Christopher Hitchens regularly complains that theism is totalitarianism.  The theist God is with you 24-7, cannot be escaped and can even convict you of thought crime - the very definition of a totalitarian regime.

But, as Mike says, traditional Christianity has always stood against the solitary dictator in the sky. Instead, when we say God we mean a fundamentally different being.  We believe in a God who is other-centred love.  And as John Lennox put to Christopher Hitchens in a recent debate - My wife is with me morning and evening but I don't call my marriage a totalitarian regime!  (Or words to that effect.)

Anyway - for Thawed-out Thursday I thought I'd defrost (and slightly revise) an old post originally called 'So what?'.  It discusses the way in which the atheism of the west is linked to the trinitarian theology of the west (or lack of it).

Wherever the inter-Personal nature of God is minimized the 'dictator in the sky' is enthroned.  And in those circumstances atheism recommends itself very persuasively.  But really the solution is to return to a robustly trinitarian theology.  In his talk, Mike does this very winsomely.

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A friend of mine is at Bible college and has been set an essay on trinitarian theology and the difference between east and west.  He asked me to clarify the difference between an eastern and a western approach to the trinity and then to answer the crucial question:  So what!!

Now first of all I'll lay out some broad brush-strokes.  Here's a crude but still useful way of discussing our theological method.  As Theodore De Regnon has famously put it:  In the west theologians begin with the One and work towards the Three.  In the east, theologians begin with the Three and work towards the One.

Now that might be completely false historically.  My point is not to defend this as a reading of the theological traditions.  I'm just wanting to use these definitions of 'east' and 'west' as labels to help the discussion along.  But let's make sure we understand the proposition first.

De Regnon is saying that typically, the west begins with the One God and then tries to figure where Three-ness fits in.  The east begins with the Three Persons and then figures out how the Three are One.

Now... once again, this is a sweeping generalisation but when I use the labels 'western' or 'eastern' to describe the approach to trinitarian theology, that's what I'm talking about.  And I grant that in what follows I am caricaturing positions.  No theologian in the 'west' is as bad as I'm saying.  But plenty, plenty, plenty, of your average western Church-goers are far worse.  Far worse!

And I'm not wanting to get into an argument about whether 'Augustine was a lot more nuanced/ Cappodocian/ economy-driven, etc, etc'.   For the sake of argument, let me grant every 'yes, but...' which an Augustine supporter may wish to raise about Augustine's own theology.  But let's step back and examine a trend in western Christianity that bears the stamp of his influence.  And let's admit that if Augustine doesn't fit the caricature, there are millions descended from him who do.

I should also say that there are basic things about eastern trinitarianism with which I disagree.  But on the simple point of our theological method I believe we should begin with the Three and discuss God's Oneness in that light.

And here's why.

If you're eastern you say: "I've met this guy Jesus and He introduces me to His Father and sends His Spirit."  And then, having met the Three Persons in the gospel, you ask, 'What kind of one-ness do these three Persons share?'  And because you think in this way you can conclude: "These three Persons are one because they are united in love."

So you go to John 17 and you see Jesus saying He wants His followers to be one the same way He and the Father are one.  And then you say "Aha!  The one-ness of the church is loving unity, therefore it stands to reason that the one-ness of Father and Son is loving unity."  And then you remember 1 John 4 and you say with joy: How is God one?  God is love!  God is a loving community of Three Persons.

And this means that the greatest thing in all reality is love (because God is love).  And it means that reality is relational.  And it means that loving community among disinct people is very important.  One-ness for the east is a loving union of particular Persons who don't lose their individuality.  Father, Son and Spirit are all different Persons - they are not one because they are identical.

So, using these rough labels, the eastern approach can say: God is three distinct but totally united Persons loving one another.  Let me flesh out three implications of this:

1) It means that difference, distinction, community, relationship, mutuality, reciprocity and LOVE are all at the very very centre of who God is.  God's identity is not primarily a collection of attributes but a community of love.

2) Because even the Father, Son and Spirit find their identity in relationships we see that relationship is at the heart of personal identity.  God is who He is because He is love.  God is who He is because of the relationships of Father, Son and Spirit.  Therefore I am who I am because of the relationships I share in.

3) Community is hugely important.  Even in God, different voices are not silenced by one dominant ruler.  Instead different voices contribute to a one-ness that's all about distinct persons working together in love.

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On the other hand (using these crude generalisations) the west begins by saying: "we know that God is one.  We know that this one God has all sorts of attributes that go with the 'Creator' job description. So God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, impassible, immutable etc etc."  Then the west says, "Ok we've got the one God, but now in the gospel we meet these three Persons.  So how can the three Persons qualify as this one God?"

The west figures that since the one God is defined by these attributes then the way these Three are One is by sharing in all these same attributes.  And so they map these attributes identically onto the three Persons.  In this way the distinctions between Persons gets lost.  Every difference is blurred into the one God who is defined not by relationships but by attributes (i.e. He's big and clever).  Three implications of this:

1) God's identity is primarily a collection of attributes - attributes that are about His distance from creation, His difference to us.

2) If God is who He is because of His attributes - personal identity is essentially about attributes (about being big and clever).  Therefore I am who I am because of how big and clever I am.

3) Community is not really that important - there's only one voice and will that counts.  Distinctions and difference will get bull-dozed before the all-important one.

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Ok, now that I've laid it out like this, hopefully you can see some of the 'so what' significance??

Let me tease it out by discussing the three implications:

Regarding 1):  In the west, God has been defined as a collection of attributes that place Him at an infinite distance from us.  Now if you go out on the streets and talk to people about whether they're religious, basically (keeping eastern influences out of this) people will say either they do or they don't believe in a distant, uni-personal God who is approximately the 'omni-being' of philosophy.  Whether they believe in "God" or don't believe in "God", the "God" they're talking about is the collection of attributes which the western theologian began with before they examined the gospel!

The god that our western culture has either embraced or rejected is not the God of the gospel!  Instead the "god" of the pub discussion is pretty much the "one God" that the western theologian began with.  And if the bloke in the pub rejects that god - I don't blame him!!  And if Christopher Hitchens rejects that god - we don't blame him, right?  Because that's not a god who is obviously related to Jesus of Nazareth (or His Spirit or the Father He called 'Abba').  And therefore its not a god who appears to be particularly interested in us - its not a god revealed in gospel love but in philosophical speculation.

Now the cultures shaped by the western church have been shaped by this doctrine of God.  When they accepted "God" it was this "God" they accepted.  When they rejected him, it was this "God" they rejected.

Atheism has basically been the rejection of this god.  People have decided they don't want a distant omni-being over against them and proclaimed his non-existence.  And what people like Colin Gunton have asked is, "Would the west have rejected "God" so thoroughly if the "God" they were presented with by the western church was the community of committed love revealed in Jesus?"  The answer still might be yes, but at least we'll be discussing the true God when we evangelise!

Regarding 2): The question of personal identity.  Well if we go with the west (as I've been defining it), my identity is all about my attributes.  I need to build up a CV of my big-ness and clever-ness.  That will define me.  But if I go with the east then my identity is about my relationships.  I am who I am because fundamentally I'm in Christ (and what's more I'm a son, a brother, a husband, etc). When I take this seriously, my western status-anxiety can be relieved in a second.  I find liberation from the western drive to prove myself and forge an identity for myself.  I am given identity in the relationships I have (primarily my relationship with Christ).

Think also of the abortion debate. What is it that defines whether this foetus has personal identity?  Ask a westerner and they'll instinctively answer you in terms of attributes: "This foetus can/can't do X, Y, and Z therefore the foetus can/can't be aborted."  But what if the foetus is a person not because of its attributes but because it already stands in relationships of love?

Regarding 3): The point about community.  Here's a quote from the website: (https://christthetruth.net/audio/threepersonsunited.htm)

"...what can we learn about relationships and community from The Relationship? In gender relations, in multi-ethnic society, in equal opportunities policies, in the church, in our families - we are constantly confronted by people who have real and important differences and yet people who ought to be treated with equal respect and dignity. How do we appreciate the differences and uphold the equality? If we treat all in exactly the same way, are we not ignoring the valuable distinctives? This ‘melting pot' approach falls foul of oppression-by-assimilation. The incumbent majority always wins out at the cost of the minorities - they either become like the majority or they die. Do we, therefore, treat specific parties differently in an attempt to give them a leg-up? When this happens stereo-types can be re-enforced by ‘special treatment' and work against the value of equality. Furthermore: who defines the appropriate yard-stick of "success" in a culture? Perhaps it is better to abandon the idea of community altogether and accept along with Margaret Thatcher that there is "no such thing as society."

"Well what can the Trinity teach us? At the heart of reality lies a Community of different but equal Persons who have their own identities constituted by their mutual interdependence. They work together as One. There definitely is such a thing as society. Person-hood can never be considered individualistically but is made up of relationships on which we depend. Within The Community, the Persons freely submit to one another in roles of subordination while never losing their equal status. They do submit to differences in treatment and in function - but they maintain a definite equality of being and uphold one another in bonds of unconditional love. Here is a Community on which to model our own."

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I think Mike's talk is the most brilliant example of how this approach pays off in evangelism.  Do listen to it.

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Published on Leave a comment on Why I am a Trinitarian Hedonist

I once spotted John Piper at the back of All Souls (he'd come to hear John Stott preach).  I came bounding up to him after the service intending to tell him that I'd quoted him in my sermon that morning.  But for some reason I decided that this would be proud - as though I was bragging about being a preacher.  (I know that's nuts.  But not as nuts as what happened next).  Having rejected my opening gambit mid-bound, I found myself in front of him with nothing to say.  And what did I blurt out?   I can't quite remember it exactly but it was something very close to "I'm a big fan."

Can you imagine a less Piper-esque line??  He didn't know what to say.  Which made two of us.  The whole embarassing situation was only resolved when my wife, God bless her, held out her hand and asked him about his trip.

If you ever catch me shaking my head ruefully and tutting, chances are these 90 seconds are running through my head.

Anyway, I love John Piper.  I'll never forget a mission trip to central New South Wales in early 2002.  I'd just read Desiring God and the idea of a happy God and that my satisfaction in Him was the way to glorify Him - it was truly liberating.  And I remember being inspired to greater service by my enlarged appetite for joy.  In 40 degree heat, I spent my time carrying around trays of ice-cold water for everyone and beaming at the thought of my reward (Matt 10:42).

And I loved (and still love) quotes like this from the opening of chapter 4:

Disinterested benevolence toward God is evil.  If you come to God dutifully offering Him the reward of your fellowship instead of thirsting after the reward of His fellowship, then you exalt yourself above God as His benefactor and belittle Him as a needy beneficiary – and that is evil.

In 2003 I ran a discussion group on Desiring God and enthusiastically recommended it.  But with one significant caveat.  Chapter 1!  I didn't like chapter 1.  I lacked a lot of the vocabulary to articulate what I didn't like, but I didn't like it.  And neither did anyone else in the discussion group.

Chapter 1 sets out the foundation for Christian Hedonism - the happiness of God.  But the happiness of God is defined explicitly in terms of His self-centredness.  "The chief end of God is to glorify Himself."  And this God-talk was not really trinitarian.  In fact, talk of God pre-eminently loving Himself came before talk of how the Father loves the Son.  First His happiness is spoken of as the glory of His unrestrained sovereignty, the magnification of His own divine perfections etc.  Then Piper turns to say "one of the best ways to think about" God's self-glorification is to think about the Father-Son relationship.  Why?  Because the Son is the Father's Image, therefore loving the Son is a way of God loving Himself.

Do you see the logic?  First it is asserted that God loves Himself - and this is supported largely on philosophical grounds (i.e. God's the best, He'd be unrighteous to value anything higher than what's best, ergo He must be supremely interested in Self).  Then he turns to Trinity and says, "See?  God loves His Image - He's a self-lover."

But if we begin with Trinity then the Father's love for the Son reveals not a self-centredness but an other-centredness.   God is happy not because He is self-absorbed (no-one - not even God is happy in self-absorption!).  God is happy because He is other-centred.  There is an over-flowing life of mutual self-giving in the triune relations.  That is the happiness of God.  And that is what we are invited into.

So once we've made that correction I am happy to call myself a Christian Hedonist.  (How could a hedonist be other than happy to be so!?).  I continue to see problems in Piper's doctrine of God and I still want to challenge the 'glory' which he speaks of.  But I've very much valued his teaching on hedonism.  And I think it can be strengthened (not weakened) by the insistence that happiness is found - from Top to bottom - in self-giving love.

Anyway, if you want to see how I ran the Desiring God discussion group - the handouts are here.  Session 1 is where I diverge from the book.

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