Treasuring Jesus

WHAT IS SAVING FAITH?
Reflections on receiving Christ as a treasure
By John Piper
Crossway. 320 pages. £23.99
ISBN 978 1 433 578 366 (hardback)

I am grateful to John Piper for highlighting joy in God as the motivational core of the Christian life.

I think that his books Future Grace and Let the Nations be Glad are among the best books I have read in 40 years. Yet, like Bob Dylan fans, it can be hard to keep up with the prodigious output, let alone decide if his latest release is a hit or a miss.

The subject matter of this book could not be more urgent; we all want to be clear about the nature of saving faith. John Piper explores six inadequate approaches to saving faith before laying out his own proposal on receiving Christ. It is that the essence of faith is receiving Christ as our treasure and actively treasuring Him. True faith accepts the facts of the gospel, but also feels the impact of those facts.

‘Natural emotions are not spiritual affections. But spiritual affections are a spiritual form of emotion. That is, the heart is moved. Some kind of feeling happens that goes beyond thoughts or ideas or decisions. But it is not merely a natural feeling.’

The arguments used are formidable and compelling. Yet in making treasuring Christ the essence of saving faith do we potentially confuse what is constitutive of faith with what are its accompanying consequences. I am reminded of John Stott’s wise words about good works:

‘Good works are indispensable to salvation – not as its ground or means …but as its consequence and evidence …’

Pastorally, people are short-changed if they are told that it is: ‘Facts not feelings’ that matter when becoming a Christian.

Suggesting that the experience of joyfully treasuring Christ is the gold standard of saving faith could undermine those who feel that their grip on Christ is feeble. These ‘bruised reeds,’ have a hard time already, without the goalposts being moved!

We do not want to peddle easy-believism, but nor do we want to make it too hard to feel that we have made the cut. There is also the matter of leaving room for growth in a believer’s experience . We need the message that there is always more to be experienced from the gift of Christ to us, without being deflated by the tantalizing sight in the distance of what seems like an inaccessible goal, that we experience only intermittently. The book is probably 100 pages too long, but it is stimulating.