Simon Vibert Online

John Piper Book Reviews

The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God

John Piper
Multnomah 1991

This book is the natural companion to Desiring God. If man’s chief end is: ‘To glorify God by enjoying Him forever’, then, Piper asserts, God’s chief end is exactly the same. ‘God’s chief end is to Glorify God and enjoy Himself forever’. God takes pleasure in His Son, in all He does, in His Creation, in His Fame, in Election, in Bruising the Son, in doing good to all who Hope in Him, in the Prayers of the upright, in personal Obedience and public Justice.

The God centeredness of this book oozes from every page. The book re-orientates the believer’s gaze to see that God is the centre of time and eternity and that we will spend eternity doing what God does - namely glorifying Himself and enjoying Himself.

In this book, as with many of Piper’s longer books, the central theme is almost too thoroughly worked out! Once his thesis has been stated the applicatory chapters can make the read feel a little stodgy!

This book feeds the mind with rich theology that naturally overspills in a renewed desire and delight in God. It has increased my resolve to see theology as naturally overspilling into doxology.

"Desiring God can be summed up in one sentence: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. The Pleasures of God adds this foundational truth: We will be most satisfied in God when we know why God himself is most satisfied in God. Therefore this book is about the unimaginably good news that God delights fully in being God." (p.9)