What Does Christian Hedonism Add to Reformed Theology?

00:00:00.000 | It's a rather unique week for us here on the podcast. We're featuring three episodes on

00:00:08.400 | Christian hedonism. And today, in a longer than normal episode, we're going to look at

00:00:13.320 | the relationship between Christian hedonism and Reformed theology. And on Wednesday, we're

00:00:17.760 | going to look at Pastor John's fears and expectations for Christian hedonism after he's gone. And

00:00:24.080 | we end the week looking at the name Desiring God, some alternatives, and why Pastor John

00:00:29.120 | settled on the one he did. It'll be an important week for questions like that. But first up,

00:00:33.920 | Pastor John, in your book Desiring God, you called this thing, Christian hedonism, a philosophy

00:00:39.000 | of life. That's pretty sweeping. In other places, you call it Reformed Christian hedonism.

00:00:46.440 | So is Christian hedonism an alternative way of conceiving Reformed theology? Is it a different

00:00:52.400 | theology in the sense that it rejects some tenets of Reformed theology and replaces them

00:00:57.040 | with better tenets? Can you help us get some clarity on this? In your mind, what is Christian

00:01:02.600 | hedonism's relationship to historic Reformed theology?

00:01:07.640 | Well, I'll try. It's really big, and yet so helpful for me to think about this. Now, before

00:01:16.840 | I do that, there are no doubt some listeners who don't know the central ideas of either

00:01:24.520 | of those terms, like Reformed theology or Christian hedonism. So let me give just a

00:01:30.520 | word about each. The central conviction of Christian hedonism, as I've tried to develop

00:01:37.600 | it biblically over the years, is God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied

00:01:45.360 | in Him. Or another way to say it would be that we magnify God as our supreme treasure

00:01:54.560 | when we cherish Him more than anyone or anything else. That's the central contention of Christian

00:02:03.760 | hedonism with the implication that therefore we should pursue our satisfaction in God and

00:02:12.320 | our cherishing of Him above all things. The central conviction of Reformed theology, I

00:02:20.960 | would say, is that the glory of God is the greatest reality in the universe, and that

00:02:27.120 | God upholds and communicates this glory by saving sinners through Christ in such a way

00:02:33.240 | that His sovereign grace is the ultimate and decisive cause of all faith and all obedience.

00:02:42.240 | That would be the central idea of Reformed theology, as I use the term anyway.

00:02:49.240 | Now, as I've thought about how to clarify the relationship between Christian hedonism

00:02:55.000 | and Reformed theology, I was reading recently in volume one of John Owen's works, the

00:03:03.640 | volume that contains his two catechisms, and I noticed that Owen, like most Reformed theologians,

00:03:11.200 | enfolds the sovereign saving work of Christ by referring to His three offices as prophet,

00:03:19.840 | Christ the prophet, Christ the priest, and Christ the king. And so it occurred to me

00:03:24.000 | that it might be illuminating to ask, do Christian hedonists add a fourth category, a fourth

00:03:31.520 | office? Do Christian hedonists say that Reformed theology needs to be altered, revised, so

00:03:39.840 | that we now have the work of Christ being unfolded around four offices—prophet, priest,

00:03:48.120 | king, and treasure? Now, the answer to that question is no. No. We don't need a revision.

00:03:58.360 | We're not proposing a redefinition or a restructuring or a revision of Reformed theology so that

00:04:08.120 | Christ now has four offices—prophet, priest, king, and treasure. Here's why. The offices,

00:04:15.000 | as they're often called to distinguish them from Christ's person, the offices of prophet,

00:04:21.920 | priest, and king are categories of Christ's actions. As prophet, He speaks with absolute

00:04:31.720 | authority. As priest, He suffers and dies for His people. As king, He rules over all

00:04:40.480 | things. In the exercise of each of these offices, He does all that needs to be done for the

00:04:49.480 | ultimate aim of exalting God's glory and saving His people. Treasure, on the other

00:04:55.680 | hand, used as a noun, like prophet, priest, and king. Treasure, used as a noun, referring

00:05:04.520 | to Christ, unlike prophet, priest, and king, is not a category of action. It's a category

00:05:12.760 | of value. Calling Christ the highest treasure in the universe does not imply that He does

00:05:21.960 | any new acts not done as prophet, priest, and king. Rather, it asserts that in all the

00:05:31.880 | acts that He does as prophet, priest, and king, He proves Himself to be supremely valuable.

00:05:38.980 | He is supremely valuable as priest in His suffering and dying because He covers our

00:05:44.840 | sin and removes God's wrath so that all legal barriers to eternal blessedness are removed.

00:05:51.760 | And the sanctifying, glorifying power of the Holy Spirit is purchased and secured. He's

00:05:57.600 | supremely valuable as king in ruling because He subdues all our foes, removes all our defilements,

00:06:08.360 | transforms us into the likeness of Christ, and works things together for our good. He

00:06:14.000 | is supremely valuable as prophet in His speaking because saving and sanctifying faith live

00:06:23.000 | by hearing the Word of God. Now, to clarify how Christian hedonism deals

00:06:29.640 | with these offices, rather than adding to them, deals with these offices and Christ's

00:06:36.640 | value in performing them, we need to distinguish between intrinsic value and experienced value.

00:06:47.040 | This is so important to get this. So Christ is intrinsically valuable in the objective

00:06:56.160 | excellence and beauty and perfection of His person and work. This intrinsic value exists

00:07:04.240 | whether there are any other beings in the universe to see it and respond to it or not.

00:07:12.800 | God knows His own worth and the worth of His Son, and He cannot deny Himself, 2 Timothy

00:07:21.040 | 2:13. That's intrinsic value, whether we see it, experience it or not. But in creation,

00:07:29.480 | the reason God created things, in creation and incarnation, the reason He became a God-man,

00:07:36.440 | in redemption, the reason He died and rose again to save a people, in creation, incarnation,

00:07:42.680 | and redemption, God willed that the supreme intrinsic value of Christ, the radiance of

00:07:51.200 | His own glory, become experienced value. Intrinsic value, whether anybody experiences it or not,

00:07:59.440 | and He willed that it become in His people experienced value. That is, He willed that

00:08:07.720 | there come into being an elect, redeemed, transformed people who would experience Christ

00:08:16.800 | in a way that would suitably exalt His supreme intrinsic beauty and worth. And here is where

00:08:28.320 | Christian hedonism comes to the fore. Christian hedonism draws out of Scripture and out of

00:08:38.880 | the historic Reformed catechisms and confessions the implicit truth. So hear me, I'm saying

00:08:47.720 | that Christian hedonism is really there in historic Reformed theology, at least implicitly.

00:08:55.800 | And what I'm doing, what Christian hedonism is doing, is simply drawing out the implicit

00:09:02.560 | truth that this experience of the value of Christ in the hearts of His people is essential

00:09:14.000 | to glorifying the worth of Christ. And Christian hedonism argues that this heart experience,

00:09:24.440 | which suitably exalts the intrinsic value of Christ, includes joy, delight, satisfaction,

00:09:37.200 | cherishing in the excellencies of Christ. In other words, Christian delight in the worth

00:09:45.440 | of Christ is essential to glorifying His worth as it ought to be glorified. Where Christ's

00:09:58.320 | intrinsic worth and beauty are not enjoyed supremely above all other realities, Christ

00:10:07.520 | is not suitably exalted. That's the fundamental insight and assertion of Christian hedonism.

00:10:16.560 | The supreme value of Christ, the supreme intrinsic value of Christ, the pearl of great price,

00:10:28.360 | will not be honored, glorified, magnified as it ought to be where He is not, where that

00:10:39.080 | glory is not enjoyed as the soul's supreme treasure. So the foundational imperative of

00:10:50.880 | Christian hedonism follows. The Spirit-empowered, Word-sustained pursuit of joy in Christ is

00:11:00.860 | therefore mandatory for all human beings, divinely mandatory for all human beings, because

00:11:12.320 | it is essential to the full glorifying of God in a way that accords with His beauty

00:11:21.840 | and worth. Now what does all that imply about the relationship between Christian hedonism

00:11:29.680 | and Reformed theology? Six things, very briefly. One, Christian hedonism is not a replacement

00:11:37.760 | of historic Reformed categories of theology, such as Christ as prophet, priest, and king.

00:11:44.400 | Number two, Christian hedonism is a bringing to the fore of implicit and latent assumptions

00:11:52.960 | about the value dimension of the reality behind those historic biblical categories. For example,

00:12:01.720 | Christ as prophet is supremely valuable in His voice. Christ as priest is supremely valuable

00:12:08.240 | in His suffering. Christ as king is supremely valuable in His ruling. Christian hedonism

00:12:16.040 | forces that issue, brings that to the fore. Third, Christian hedonism is a clarifying

00:12:23.640 | of the ultimate goal of all God's Trinitarian work. Christian hedonism makes explicit that

00:12:31.080 | the ultimate aim of all God's works, namely, to the praise of the glory of God's grace,

00:12:38.640 | Ephesians 1, 6, 12, 14, that goal, the praise of the glory of God's grace is only authentic

00:12:50.280 | and God-exalting where that praise is glad in the glory of God. And thus, Christian hedonism

00:12:58.360 | presses home the truth that the ultimate goal of all things is the God-glorifying gladness

00:13:07.400 | of Christ's blood-bought people because short of that, He doesn't get His full glory. Or,

00:13:14.040 | say it one more way, Christian hedonism contends that if the final state of humanity is not

00:13:21.360 | exuberant in the glory of God, the glory of God is not exalted in redemption. Fourth,

00:13:30.400 | Christian hedonism is therefore a diagnostic test of whether all biblical and theological

00:13:37.440 | categories as they are written and preached are being handled, a diagnostic test of whether

00:13:46.720 | we're handling biblical truth and historic reformed categories are being handled in a

00:13:53.600 | way that helps readers and listeners see the reality behind the category for what it really

00:14:00.200 | is, including its value, and thus helps us respond with feelings suitable to that value.

00:14:12.400 | Fifth, Christian hedonism moves beyond point four, diagnosis. I said it was a diagnostic

00:14:21.360 | test. Now I'm saying it moves beyond diagnosis of failures to attain affectional faithfulness

00:14:29.440 | in theology and preaching. It moves beyond that to proactive, lukewarmness-presenting

00:14:37.880 | portrayals of biblical and theological reality. That's what I consider myself called to in

00:14:45.120 | this life, portrayals of proactive, lukewarmness-preventing biblical reality. In these portrayals, Christian

00:14:56.800 | hedonism affirms the historic reformed confessions and draws out of them and out of the scriptures

00:15:04.440 | behind them and under them the beauty and worth inherent in the realities these affirmations

00:15:13.120 | describe and draws attention to the Spirit-given human affections that correspond to that beauty

00:15:23.400 | and worth, without which these glories, these beauties will not be glorified as they ought.

00:15:30.900 | And finally, number six, Christian hedonism expresses the ethical implications of these

00:15:37.760 | five observations by showing that without the pursuit, so here's the mandate, the pursuit

00:15:46.240 | of maximum joy in all that God is for us in Christ, worship toward God and love toward

00:15:53.280 | people in a way that fully honors Christ is not possible. So I hope that goes part of

00:16:01.640 | the way in clarifying how Christian hedonism relates to reformed theology.

00:16:09.960 | Very interesting. Thank you, Pastor John. And thanks for listening to this unusually

00:16:13.720 | long episode, long by necessity. Over at our online home, you can explore all of our episodes

00:16:18.920 | in our archive of now about 1300 episodes to date. There you can get a list of our most

00:16:23.780 | popular episodes, read full transcripts and submit questions you might be wrestling with

00:16:27.160 | yourself. For all that, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:16:33.760 | Speaking of Christian hedonism, what do you, Pastor John, fear about the future and what

00:16:38.480 | hopes do you have for the future of this movement you've raised up called Christian hedonism?

00:16:43.840 | That is the question when we return on Wednesday. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

00:16:48.720 | [END]

00:16:50.720 | 1. What do you fear about the future and what hopes do you have for the future?

What Does Christian Hedonism Add to Reformed Theology?

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