The Incarnate Wealth of The Compassion of God (John Piper)

God is the wealthiest person in the universe. He not only owns more than anyone else. He owns everyone else and everything everyone else owns. When you create something, it belongs to you. And God created everything-including us. “It is He who made us, and not we ourselves [marginal reading]; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3) There is one ultimate owner in the universe, God. All others are trustees. Neither we nor what we have is finally our own. It is all a trust to be used for the aims of the owner. In a sense, therefore, all sin is embezzling.

But, strikingly, the New Testament describes the wealth of God not mainly in terms of what He created and owns, but mainly in terms of the glory He has from all eternity. Repeatedly we read of “the riches of His glory” or “His riches in glory” (for example, Ephesians 3:16; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:27). If God were only rich because He made and owns all things, He would have been poor before creation. But that means He would have created out of need and would be dependent on his creation. But that is not the picture of God we find in the Bible. God did not create to get wealth; He created to display wealth-the wealth of His glory for the enjoyment of His people (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).

But even more specifically, the focus of the New Testament is that the wealth of God’s glory is, at its apex, the wealth of His mercy. This is something the world takes very lightly: “the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience” (Romans 2:4). God created and redeemed the world so that He might “make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:23). Or, to put it another way, He creates and saves His people “so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). The universe exists primarily to display the wealth of the glory of the mercy of God for the enjoyment of His redeemed people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Justice is essential among the perfections of God’s glory. But mercy is paramount. “He who justifies the wicked and He who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15). Yes. Therefore justice is essential. But something else is also true: “It is [a man’s] glory to overlook an offense’ (Proverbs 19:11). Therefore, if justice can be preserved, it is the apex of glory to show mercy.

For this reason Jesus Christ came into the world. Jesus is the mercy of God incarnate and visible. He is also the justice of God incarnate; but justice was subordinate: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17) God the Father offered up His Son in death “so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). The substitutionary death of Jesus Christ created the backdrop of justice where justifying mercy would shine with unparalleled glory. Therefore, the glory of God’s mercy is the aim of Christ’s coming. This is explicit in Romans 15:8-9: Christ came into the world “to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.” The aim of the incarnation was to magnify the mercy of God for the enjoyment of the nations.