Find In Him Eternal Joy

Excerpt from John Piper:  No One Ever Spoke Like This Man

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I want you to listen to C. S. Lewis and Bono. You'll see why. Lewis is famous from this quote about how you simply can't have Jesus as a great moral teacher while rejecting him as God.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (Mere Christianity [Macmillan, 1952], pp. 55–56)

In other words, the way Jesus spoke—like no one else ever spoke—makes it irrational to speak nice things about him while rejecting his deity. He was not nice, if he wasn't God.

C. S. Lewis's fellow-Irishman, Paul David Hewson, otherwise known as Bono of the rock band U2, seems to have read Lewis and been persuaded. A few days after the Madrid terrorist bombing in 2004, Bono did an interview with a French journalist named Michka Assayas. When the subject of religion came up as the cause of terrorism, Bono turned the conversation to Christianity and the theme of grace.
When Bono said, "It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven," the journalist replied,

Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?

Bono's answer is really quite remarkable, and makes Lewis's point again, only perhaps more forcefully for our day in view of who he is and the context where he said it. Isn't all that "Son of God" talk farfetched?

No, it's not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says:

No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you.

And he goes: No, no. I know you're expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is: either Christ was who He said He was, the Messiah or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. . . . I'm not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that's farfetched. (Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas [New York: Penguin Books, 2005], p. 227).

Is Bono born again? I don't know. If he's not, I pray that he would be. And I call attention to my uncertainty because I want to make sure something is clear: It is possible to be persuaded by the logic of Lewis and Bono and not be saved—not be born again and have eternal life.
Which brings us back to our text and last week's message. The last thing the empty-handed officers heard Jesus say, before they said, "No one ever spoke like this man," was this: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:37–38).

In other words, believing on Jesus, means more than being persuaded that he is God. The devil is totally persuaded by Lewis and Bono. But believing on Jesus means coming to him to drink. That is, if you and I and Lewis and Bono are going to have eternal life, we must come to Jesus as our supreme and all-satisfying Treasure. Our thirst-quenching Water, our hunger-stilling Bread, our ever-guiding, all-illumining Light, our infinitely precious substitute, sacrificed Lamb of God.

No man ever spoke like this man. He is true. He is who he said he was. But don't leave it at that. Come, eat, drink, trust, find in him eternal joy.