Well, both Paul and Moses said that they would rather be personally damned in order for others to be saved by way of a trade. So doesn't this imply that their vision of mission was higher in their priority list than their personal and eternal joy in the presence of God?

In other words, didn't Paul and Moses prioritize mission over joy in God? It's a great question and it comes from Josiah in Michigan. "Dear Pastor John, when I first heard of Christian hedonism I was put off. I recognized that with God the concept of altruism breaks down, but I still considered it virtuous for the biblical examples of Moses and Paul.

Moses, while trying to make atonement for the sins of the Israelites, the golden calf, offers to God the option of blotting himself from the book of salvation rather than fully punishing the people." That's in Exodus 32. 32. "And the Apostle Paul said he wished he were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, the unbelieving Jews." That in Romans 9.3.

"As I work through your book Desiring God, I have become more fond of the theology but still don't see how it works with the above two passages which seem altruistic. My question is how could a Christian hedonist with a properly ordered mind accept eternal separation from his greatest delight for the sake of achieving some other end?

Aren't Paul or Moses suggesting a personal end in which the salvation of the lost, not God himself, is their highest concern?" No, I don't think that is what Paul and Moses are suggesting, namely that the salvation of the lost has a higher value to them than the glory of God.

I don't think so. Let me deal directly with Paul and his words in Romans 9.2 and 3 since I think they are more difficult than the words of Moses in Exodus because they have a direct reference to damnation, not just death. Paul is talking about his love for his Jewish kinsmen and says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish," we'll come back to that wording, it's very important, "I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh." Here's the problem.

Christian hedonism, my view of the Christian life, says that we ought to aim at maximizing our eternal joy in God in everything we do. In God is our supreme treasure, our supreme value, and we should seek this eternal joy in God's presence even if it means selling all that we have, giving it to the poor, being persecuted for righteousness sake, returning good for evil in this life with no hope of any reward in this life for all the good that we do, and finally dying through torture or nameless in a strange foreign land.

Yes, whatever it costs, we're going to pursue our joy in God maximally forever. And in Romans 9.3, Paul expresses his willingness, it seems, to be damned for the sake of his Jewish loved ones. He says, "I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh." And the ESV translation of the imperfect Greek tense of the verb "could wish," "I could wish," and that tense implies incomplete action, which I think is a very good translation here.

"I could wish" implies that something is standing in the way of Paul carrying through this wish, and the action is still in process and can't get through. "I could wish," namely, his willingness to be cut off from Christ. It's hindered and can't be carried through. Indeed, it can't. God is not the kind of God that damns a man for loving God's reputation and lost people.

So being damned because you are supremely loving is not going to happen. That's not the universe that God created and runs. Here's the problem. The problem is Paul's apparent willingness that if he lived in a universe like that, he would be willing to be cursed and cut off from Christ.

And so the question is, is that acting as a Christian hedonist? Is his heart responding like a Christian hedonist? So let me try to put myself—this is what I've done—to try to be as honest with myself and my theology as I can be, I try to put myself in Paul's place.

So here we go. I'm going to imagine myself before God in this situation. Suppose I were standing before the Lord with my wife, whom I love very much more than anybody else on the planet, and suppose God says to me, "One of you may enter heaven to be with me forever.

Only one. And the other to hell. And John, you choose. You choose which it will be, yourself or your wife, Noelle." Now, this is a very dangerous hypothetical situation to imagine, because it will never exist, the Lord does not put us in that situation. It would be virtually blasphemous for him to be putting us in that situation, and he does not send any person to hell who values him so highly and loves others so deeply as to put their fellowship with Christ above his own.

But even though this hypothetical situation is dangerous, Paul seems to go there. He is doing this to make it as clear as he can to his Jewish kinsmen how much he loves them and wants their eternal good. So I've tried to be as honest as I can be in answering the Lord's question, "You or your wife, which will it be, Mr.

Christian Hedonist?" And I believe my answer would be, I hope and pray my answer would be, "Let her into heaven." As I have tried to get inside my head at that moment, imagine what would go through my mind. It would go something like this. If I say, "Let her go to hell and let me enter heaven," everything in me as a lover of Jesus and all that God is for me in Jesus, everything in me would want to curl up in a ball and groan and scream and chew my hands with shame.

Everything in me would want to run away and hide from the face of the Lord. There are no dreams of everlasting joy. No, no, no, no. There would only be everlasting shame for John Piper. This is not heaven. This is no sweet communion with Christ forever and ever. This is moral horror to live with myself with that.

Not only that, but when I ponder, on the other hand, the possibility of seeing Noel absolutely, utterly, sinlessly whole, never again to feel pain or depression or sorrow, but only breathtaking happiness and radiance in the presence of Christ greater than she has ever known, everything in me says, "That would be a glorious sight.

Oh, how I would love to see that sight. That sight would make my soul explode with gladness." In other words, if I chose for Noel to be damned, heaven would be hell for me, and if I chose for her to be saved, my hell-bound heart would sing in the flames.

Heaven's joy of love would be with me in hell, which means that heaven would not be heaven, and hell would not be hell. It is impossible that heaven be filled with hellish shame, and that hell be filled with heaven's joy, and I suspect that precisely this impossibility is why Paul wrote Romans 9:3 with the exact wording that he did.

"I could wish." He thought it through. "I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ," or literally, "I was wishing, but the impossibility of the hypothetical situation made the wish unfulfillable." The wish cannot be carried through in a world where the God of the Bible exists.

So the upshot seems to be this, it's kind of surprising. Paul's willingness to be cut off from Christ for the sake of his Jewish kinsmen, like my willingness to be cut off from Christ for my wife's salvation, is rooted precisely in the commitments of Christian hedonism. I shrink back from the heaven of moral horror where I would experience eternal shame, and I embrace hell where my conscience is clear and the joy of my wife's salvation makes me glad.

In fact, I would argue that it is precisely the impulses of Christian hedonism that make Romans 9:3 work the way it does. Christian hedonism believes passionately the words of the Lord Jesus that when we face a painful sacrifice of love, we should remember it is more blessed to give than to receive.

That's what was happening at that moment, remembering that, imagining that, tasting that. Christian hedonism shrinks back with loathing from the selfishness that kills that blessedness. Therefore, Christian hedonism drives Paul to flee from the remorse and self-loathing and horrors of conscience and divine disapproval that would come to him if he chose his own rescue over the rescue of his kinsmen.

So my conclusion is, Romans 9:3 is not the Achilles heel of Christian hedonism. Christian hedonism is the key to Romans 9:3. Incredibly sobering thoughts here, Pastor John, thank you. And thanks for sending in your toughest Bible questions, especially as they relate to joy. We really appreciate them. Well, at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, you can explore all 1,200 plus of our episodes to date.

You can scan a list of our most popular episodes, read full transcripts, even send us a question of your own. And of course, to get new episodes delivered to you three times per week, subscribe to the Ask Pastor John podcast in your favorite podcast app. Well, does God want me to be happy, or does God want me to be holy?

It seems by mentions in Scripture that God is more concerned with our holiness over our happiness. So how do happiness and holiness relate? It's an incredibly vital question, and it's on the table next time. I'm your host Tony Ranke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday.