Church & Ministry Resource Guide
Church & Ministry Resource Guide
You Were Pardoned for His Pleasure
Pardon Flows from the Pleasure of His Fame
The great ground of hope, the great motive to pray, the great wellspring of mercy is God’s awesome commitment to his name. The pleasure that he has in his fame is the pledge and passion of his readiness to forgive and save those who lift his banner and cast themselves on his promise and mercy. The saints of the Old Testament staked their hope for forgiveness not on their merit or their external rituals. They pleaded mercy on the basis of God’s love for his great name:
For your name’s sake,
O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. (Ps. 25:11)Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and forgive our sins,
for your name’s sake! (Ps. 79:9)Though our iniquities testify against us,
act, O Lord,
for your name’s sake; for our backslidings are many,
we have sinned against you. . . .
You, O Lord, are in the midst of us,
and we are called by your name; leave us not. (Jer. 14:7, 9)
The Pleasures of God
John Piper
Discovering the sources of God’s gladness reveals his character and transforms Christians into his likeness. John Piper’s classic searches Scripture to reveal God’s delight in his Son, creation, grace, and prayer, inviting readers to find lasting joy in him.
I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person’s theology was the effect it has on one’s prayers. This struck me as true because of what was happening in my own life. Noël and I had just been married, and we were making it our practice to pray together each evening. I noticed that during the biblical courses which were shaping my theology most profoundly, my prayers were changing dramatically. Probably the most significant change in those days was that I was learning to make my case before God on the ground of his glory. Beginning with “Hallowed be thy name” and ending with “In Jesus’s name” meant that the glory of God’s name was the goal and the ground of everything I prayed. And what a strength came into my life when I learned that praying for forgiveness should be based not only on an appeal to God’s mercy but also on an appeal to his justice in crediting the worth of his Son’s obedience: “God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins” (1 John 1:9).
In the New Testament, the basis of all forgiveness of sins is revealed more clearly than it was in the Old Testament, but the basis in God’s commitment to his name does not change. Paul teaches that the death of Christ demonstrated the righteousness of God in passing over sins and vindicated God’s justice in justifying the ungodly who bank on Jesus and not themselves (Rom. 3:25–26).1 In other words, Christ died once for all to clear the name of God in what looks like a gross miscarriage of justice—the acquittal of sinners simply for Jesus’s sake. But Jesus died in such a way that forgiveness “for Jesus’s sake” is the same as forgiveness “for the sake of God’s name.”
We can see this not only in Romans 3:25–26 but also in the Gospel of John. According to this Gospel, Jesus came in his Father’s name (John 5:43) and does his works in his Father’s name (John 10:25). At the end of his life, he said that he had manifested the Father’s name to those whom the Father had given him (John 17:6) and that he would yet make that name known to them (John 17:26). So all of Jesus’s life and work seems to be aimed at revealing and honoring the Father’s name. This is especially true of Jesus’s death, as he shows us in John 12:27–28. Here, Jesus is praying just before his death: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The hour of Jesus’s death was at hand, and the purpose for coming to that hour was to glorify the name of the Father. Therefore, we should think of the death of Jesus as the way the Father vindicated his name—his reputation—from all accusations of unrighteousness in the forgiveness of sinners.
On this side of the cross, we should pray just as David did in Psalm 25:11:
For your name’s sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
The pleasure of God in his fame is not only the basis of our pardon but also of our obedience and service and mission.
But when we Christians pray this, we should mean, “Forgive me, O Lord, because your great and holy name has been vindicated by the death of your Son, and I am banking all my hope on him and not myself.” This is what John meant when he said in 1 John 2:12, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for the sake of his name.” So whether we are reading in the Old Testament or the New, the great ground of our forgiveness is God’s allegiance to his holy name and the unswerving pleasure that he takes in making the worth and righteousness of that name known, especially in the gospel message that Christ died both to justify the ungodly and vindicate the Father’s justice. If God were ever to lose his delight in the fame of his glorious name, the foundation of our pardon would be imperiled.
The pleasure of God in his fame is not only the basis of our pardon but also of our obedience and service and mission. David teaches us to believe that God “leads [us] in paths of righteousness / for his name’s sake” (Ps. 23:3). And Jesus commends the persevering saints at Ephesus, “I know that you are bearing up for my name’s sake” (Rev. 2:3). Paul tells the Christian slaves at Ephesus to “regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed” (1 Tim. 6:1). This is probably what Paul means in Colossians 3:17 when he sums up the whole Christian life with the words, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That is, live your whole life to honor the name of Jesus—to give him a good reputation and spread his fame.
Notes:
- For a detailed exegetical explanation and defense of this interpretation of Rom. 3:25–26, see John Piper, The Justification of God (Baker Book House, 1983), 135–50. See also chapter 6, 157–85.
This article is adapted from The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God by John Piper.
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