Johann's Note

I recently met a wonderful man named Johann. He's everything my parents wish I was, and to some extent I wish I was too. He's currently busy with his Ph.D in genetics, and this is a note he recently published. It is something that has irritated me about many Christians, and I've been considering blogging about for a while, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Now that Johann has done it so eloquently I don't think I can do any better, so here it is. Enjoy.



A brief and lighthearted word to the 'Emergent Church'
excerpts and paraphrases from 'The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World', John Piper. Crossway books (2007).

'But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.'
John 17:13

Christ summarises his goals for human beings in this verse:

1. That we may have 'his' joy.

Christ's obedience to the cross was sustained by the joy that was set before him (Heb 12:2) and the 'joy that was set before him' was his return to the Father to see and share in the Father's glory (John 17:3-5). Therefore, when Jesus speaks of 'his joy' being fulfilled in us he means that he wants us to enjoy the Father as He does.

2. And that the mechanism for 'having' this joy is the 'things He has spoken in the world'

Christ shares this joy with us by means of understandable propositions (or Bible doctrine) and statements about himself and his Father and his work, which the Holy Spirit illumines and ignites as the kindling of our passion for Christ.

The only joy that reflects the worth of God and overflows in God glorifying love is rooted in the true knowledge of God... and to the degree that our knowledge is small or flawed our understanding of God will probably be a distortion, and the joy based on it a poor echo of God's true excellence.

The postmodern embrace of the 'mysterious' is contrary to the antithetical nature of scripture. The joy you have in what you know of God is intensified by the expectation that there is so much more to see. Here is the correct place for mystery: that the mystery of what you don't know gets its God-glorifying power from what you do know. God is not glorified by strong feelings of wonder that flow from ignorance of what He is like. To say 'My joy is in the journey toward knowing, not the arrival' is to make an idol out of the journey and turn Heaven into a sore disappointment. Jesus is not honoured by the exploration of various christologies, any more than your wife would be honoured by your indecision concerning her character.

Jesus is honoured by our knowing and treasuring him for who He really is.

Our feelings about him do not make him what He is.
Our feelings about him reflect the value of what we think He has.

And if our knowledge of him is wrong, to that degree our enjoyment of him will be no honour to the real Jesus.

Our joy displays his glory when it is a reflex of seeing him for who He really is.




I'd like to thank Johann for giving me permission to use his note, and say thanks for the awesome chat he, Matt and I had the other day. He's a really brilliant man, with a faith that is firmly based in intellectual understand, as well as being able to take into account the 'human element'. I've only spoken to him once, but I shall be chatting with him again soon, and I'm sure that he'll be appearing in 'New Adventures' shortly.