Well, welcome back to the podcast.

Well, it does John Piper add to the gospel, namely, does John Piper add joy to the

gospel?

It's a question today from a listener named Brian.

Hello, Pastor John.

I thank God for using your ministry to bless many people and to restore them to a meaningful

relationship with God.

I saw a recent tweet, a quote from you online saying, quote, you either treasure Jesus above

all or you're not saved if you don't value Jesus above everything else, you don't have

saving faith.

In quote, now such a hot potato tweet caught a lot of heat from Christians and pastors

because the statement implies that treasuring Christ is perhaps a step in addition to believing

Christ and hence adds to the gospel.

Some of the critique was about how this treasuring Christ is better put under the umbrella of

sanctification, not faith.

My knowledge of Christian hedonism is very small, so I would like to ask you, is treasuring

Christ a part of saving faith or does it come later in the process of sanctification?

So my tweet was, quote, you either treasure Jesus above all or you're not saved.

If you don't value Jesus above everything else, you don't have saving faith.

And the criticism is, treasuring Jesus above all as an essential mark of a Christian

adds something to saving faith as the instrument of justification.

And so corrupts the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone.

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