Spectacular Sins

I am just finishing the book Spectacular Sins by John Piper.

As you might expect from Piper, his purpose is to demonstrate from scripture the sovereignty of God in every situation including several specific spectacularly sinful occasions.

He deals with the fall of Satan, Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden, The pride of Babel, the sale of Joseph into slavery by his brothers, Israel demanding to be ruled by a king like other nations, and Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. He shows in each circumstance how God permitted “wisely” the sin to occur and that the sin was a preexisting part of God’s plan to achieve maximum glory for His name.

The book is very easy to read. The book is very short. I highly recommend it as a handy dandy reference book for anyone who struggles with the concept of God allowing evil to occur in His creation.

I bring it up because of this bit that I read last night on pages 84-85:

The most magnificent thing about the Lion of the tribe of Judah in his fulfillment of Jacob’s prophecy is that he lays claim on the obedience of all the peoples of the world not by exploiting our guilt and crushing us into submission, but by bearing our guilt and freeing us to love him and obey him with joy forever. The Lion of Judah is the Lamb who was slain. He wins our obedience by forgiving our sins and making his own obedience–his own perfection as the righteous one–the basis of our acceptance with God. And in this position of immeasurable safety and joy–all of it owing to his suffering and righteousness and death and resurrection–he wins our free and happy obedience.

The story of Joseph is the story of a righteous one who is sinned against and suffers so that the tribe of Judah would be preserved and a Lion would come forth and prove to be a Lamb-like Lion and by his suffering and death purchase and empower glad obedience from all the nations–even from those who put him to death.

Does he have yours?

emphasis added