Audio Transcript

Did you miss something, Pastor John — something about how we should rejoice in our salvation, not only in the God who saves? That’s the question today. Tomorrow we read Psalm 9 together in our Bible reading, and in Psalm 9:14 we read this plea: “[Let me] rejoice in your salvation.” That text — and others — about rejoicing in the gift of our salvation comes to you in the form of a pushback from a listener and reader named Matt, who lives in Savannah, Georgia.

“Pastor John, hello! In one of my all-time favorite books, God Is the Gospel, you write that God himself is ‘the highest, best, final, decisive good of the gospel’ (13). Thus, the gospel is not merely about gifts or blessings, but the ‘best and final gift of God’s love’ — ‘the enjoyment of God’s beauty’ (11), an all-encompassing gift calling us to see and savor the glory of Christ forever. Amen! Above all other gifts, ‘the gift must be God himself’ (14), you say, because without this ‘God is not the greatest treasure’ (12), and the gospel is no longer true good news. And yet — and here is my question — the Bible clearly calls us to rejoice in our salvation in five specific places, and none of them appear in your book, I don’t think.

1. “My heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (Psalm 13:5).
2. “May those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the Lord!’” (Psalm 40:16).
3. “[Let me] rejoice in your salvation” (Psalm 9:14).
4. “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).
5. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10).

“So, how do we hold fast to God as the highest, best, and final good of the gospel without failing to love and rejoice deeply and continually in the garments of our salvation, too? How do we avoid using justification or the cross merely as a booster rocket for initial spiritual momentum that later falls off as unnecessary because we have God himself, and then we never think of our salvation? That’s my fear.”

Rejoice in Goodness

Thank you, Matt, for drawing attention to these words — namely, that we should indeed rejoice in God’s salvation. We should; you’re absolutely right: which I would take to include:

• Rejoice in his incarnation.
• Rejoice in his two natures in one person.
• Rejoice in redemption on the cross.
• Rejoice in his propitiating the wrath of God.
• Rejoice in our justification by faith.
• Rejoice in adoption into God’s family.
• Rejoice in the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives and sanctification.
• Rejoice in his preserving us for the last day.

Oh, my goodness, we sing, “He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast.” How can we not rejoice in the saving work of God from beginning to end? Yes, let us rejoice in our salvation. I wish I had quoted all those texts in my book.

And this is the question: How does our stress on God himself — as our final and ultimate joy — relate to these other joys in such a way that we don’t in any way belittle or nullify the preciousness of God’s work of salvation? That’s the fundamental question that he’s asking, and it’s a super good one. I don’t feel too bad about not addressing it in God Is the Gospel, because in Desiring God, pages 167–170, I do deal with this question: How does joy in God himself relate to joy in God’s gifts? That’s the question.

God and His Gifts

It’s a huge issue because not only are we told in the Bible to rejoice in our salvation, as you pointed out; we are told to rejoice:

• in every good, created thing (1 Timothy 6:17)
• in God’s people (Philippians 4:1)
• in our wives: “Rejoice in the wife of your youth. . . . Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (Proverbs 5:18–19)
• in God’s law (Romans 7:22)
• in God’s works (Psalm 9:1)
• in God’s righteousness (Psalm 71:23)
• in God’s goodness (Psalm 107:8)
• in hope and that our “names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20)
• in suffering (Romans 5:3)

It is impossible to think biblically and take “rejoicing in God” to mean “don’t find any joy anywhere else.” That’s just not possible — except it seems like that’s what the Bible says:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. (Psalm 73:25)

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

How do we solve the tension between desiring God alone with no competitors, on one hand, and, on the other hand, delighting in his salvation and his creation — because both are in the Bible? In fact, in Psalm 16:2–3, they’re back-to-back. It’s not as though one part of the Bible says one thing and one part of the Bible says another thing. That’s not the case: It’s the same part of the Bible, same author, same verses.

Listen to Psalm 16:2: “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” Here’s the next verse: “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Are you kidding me? That’s not gobbledygook; that’s not doublespeak; that’s not contradiction. That’s God’s holy word, and that’s what these pages in Desiring God are about.

God-Entranced Enjoyment

What’s the solution? Lots of people have wrestled with this over the years. I quote Augustine, I quote the seventeenth-century poet Thomas Traherne, and I quote C.S. Lewis. For example, Thomas Traherne says, “You never enjoy the world aright, till you see how a grain of sand exhibiteth the wisdom and power of God: And prize in everything the service which they do you, by manifesting His glory and goodness to your Soul” (Centuries, 13–14). And Augustine says, “He loves thee too little [God] who loves anything together with thee, which he loves not for thy sake” (Confessions 10.29). That’s so helpful.

I think there are two features of our rejoicing in salvation and creation that prevent that rejoicing from being a dishonor to God as our supreme delight and satisfaction. First, we must delight in God above all other realities. We must prefer him over his gifts. But secondly, we must taste the excellence of God in his gifts. His gifts are not simply potential competitors with himself; they are means by which a creature knows something of God.

This is true of his gifts of salvation, true of his gifts of creation. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Therefore, we will enjoy the starlit sky at night properly when that enjoyment is also an enjoyment of the glory of God revealed in the heavens. A God-ignoring enjoyment of the galaxies is idolatry, but a God-entranced enjoyment of the galaxies is true worship of the God of creation.

And the same is true for the works of salvation. Works of salvation are a revelation of God: his nature, his character, his being. We can see this in the way Paul talks in Romans 15:8–9. He says, “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness . . . in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” The point is Christ came into the world to show God’s truthfulness and to show God’s mercy. And Paul says he did that in order that we might go through the truthfulness, through the mercy, and glorify God himself for his mercy and for his truthfulness.

The gifts of God’s truthfulness and mercy are meant to lead us to the enjoyment of his glory. And yes, it would not be wrong to say that they are beams or rays streaming out from the Son of God’s glory — so that to enjoy his mercy rightly is to enjoy him as the merciful God, and to enjoy his truthfulness rightly is to enjoy him as the truthful God.

My conclusion is that if God’s works of creation and salvation are enjoyed as gifts of God and as manifestations of his glory, then that enjoyment is not idolatry as long as our delight in his works is also — and supremely — a delight in God.