A reader asks: "I have learned that God is glorious and perfect and so much so that even God must love and bring glory to himself as doing otherwise would be blasphemous...I learned that we are created, sin, then are saved to demonstrate God's glory and to glorify Him. And, finally, I've always been taught that God loves us, unconditionally in fact. But are we instruments for God to bring glory to himself? How does he love something that he creates and uses to ultimately love himself?"
Dear reader,
This is an enormous question, and the answer lies at the heart of the Gospel -- but, the Gospel thought through in a way that involves the whole Bible and a lifetime of thinking on it! I'm very encouraged that you are thinking in that way; the answer I give here, I hope, will point you in a direction you can continue to travel as you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The answer won't, however, erase all questions. (It may very well raise more!) I've not lived a lifetime yet, and am still seeking more and more of the answer to this question.
The first part of the answer may seem a bit odd, because it involves thinking through the entire Biblical witness into what we call the "mystery of the Trinity". These days, I find that many people have thought so little about the Trinity that they don't know how the Trinity is Biblical, or even what it means that God is triune. It would take us too far afield from your question to spend too much time showing the Trinity from the Bible, but I encourage you to really delve into this teaching, for in many respects it is God's triune nature that provides the answer to your question.
What is the Trinity? What does it mean that God is triune? The Trinity is three persons who have been loving each other forever. There never was a time when the Father was not delighting in His Son, and never a time when the Son was not looking up to and honoring His Father. The Father and the Son have always been loving each other by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it has been the sheer joy and delight of the Holy Spirit to do this. So deep is the joy and intimacy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that you can say that they go from being "intimate" to being "in" each other -- actually one. What it's like to love that deeply -- and forever, as part of who you are and not as something that happened to you! -- is beyond my imagination. I can't even begin to comprehend love that deep.
Now, I bring this up because you raised the subject of God's loving and glorifying Himself. I wanted to point you deeper into God's love than perhaps you saw before. When God loves God, it isn't God sitting there thinking to Himself, "Wow! Ain't I SOMETHING. I am *so* awesome. I've gotta find someone to show off to. Hmmmn.....there isn't anybody. I know! I'll create someone!" That's not the sort of thing that's going on. The love of God is deeper then that. The love of God is God the Father thinking, "Wow! Just look at my strong, strapping Son. I am so proud of Him! How can secure His happiness? I know! I'll create a bride for him." The love of God is also God the Son saying, "My Father is so powerful -- greater than any other, greater than any king. I'm in awe of Him. He inspires me. What can I do to honor Him? To make Him proud? Imitate Him?" Of course, this is just a metaphor -- but metaphors are less real than the reality they point to, not more so. I use human examples to point to a love so deep, no mere human can even begin to fathom it.
Now, introduce another factor into the equation. Out of the depths of God's love for God, God created a world. But, that world went wrong -- horribly, horribly wrong. The rulers God appointed to steward that world rejected God's love and chose selfishness, unbelief, suspicion and ingratitude. Those rulers were us and those angels that fell -- the Devil and his hordes. Now, what does it mean for God to continue doing what God has always been doing with a fallen, broken creation now part of the equation? We hear the conversation take on surprising shades and new depths. The Father says something like, "My Son's beloved is in danger -- the One chosen to be His bride and Queen. I can't let that happen to them. I must secure their happiness!" The Son thinks something like, "My Father's glory is unseen because of this *%&@&D&*S usurper, Satan. I'll kill him!" Of course, I'm using a human story to point to a truth larger than any human story can ever exhaust or prove. God's anger is not like human anger. God's passion is not like human passion. Yet, you can use the lesser to point to the greater. That's what we're doing here.
Now, I think I'll stop here to let Pastor Mike reply according to the wisdom given him. I'll only give one small hint how the above translates into an answer to your final question: how does God's loving God and us being "used" to do that figure into God's loving us. I'm not sure, but I think there might be a better word than "use". The idea usually in the Bible is "koinonia" -- partnership, or participation. You can find it used in 2 Peter 1:4. God makes us participants in His love. God rescues not an inert creation, like some kind of toy, for His Son; He rescues a bride, Israel / the Church. God the Son doesn't honor His Father by "using" the fallen creation, but by rescuing a people from the clutches of the Enemy, sacrificing Himself to do so.
Pastor Mike?
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3 comments:
You know, I'm still waiting for the answer that Pastor Matt or I give to a question where the other posts a comment in response saying they disagree, leading to a big "cyberdebate" between the two of us. This answer is not it, however, so I'll have to keep waiting.
Everything Pastor Matt said I find helpful myself. As far as how we are "used" by God to bring glory to Himself, I think Matt is right to emphasize koinonia (a fun Greek word meaning something along the lines of common partnership/life/fellowship). There is nothing more fulfilling or purposeful than giving glory to God, because nothing/no one else in the entire cosmos is more deseriving of something than God is deserving of glory and honor. As Pastor Matt explains, God as Trinity does this Himself. Why then would He create a world for His glory to? The simple answer is God loves the world. God desires for us to know the fulfillment of giving Him glory. It still sounds selfish to us, but that's because we think of God from our sinful perspective. There's no fulfillment in people giving glory to us, because we don't deserve it. God, however, is worthy of glory and does nothing selfish in giving people the fulfillment of glorifying Him.
trinity is a non-biblical term. it was employed to support a myth or man-made belief ... how is it that the *trinity* has become something sacred when God is God, Jesus is his son, and the holy spirit is simply God's active force? The term trinity never appears on the bible or original writings.
I just read this comment saying the Trinity is unbiblical. The argument, if I am reading correctly, is that because a word does not occur in the Bible, that therefore the reality named by the word is not described by the Bible.
I respect very highly my reader's love for the Bible, and intend no disrespect to him at all. Yet, I find his argument very strange: Names are just names. The important thing is the reality they signify. What is the reality named by the word "Trinity"? Consider:
1) Only God may receive worship. (See, for example, the ten commandments in Exodus).
2) The one Jesus called "Father" receives worship.
3) Jesus himself, in the scriptures themselves, receives worship. (See Thomas's exclamation at the end of the Gospel of John, 20:28 for one example, and in Phil 2 for another.)
4) Jesus speaks to the Father as one would to another person, and the Father speaks of Jesus as one would speak of another person. (See Jesus' great high priestly prayer in John 17, and the Father's speech by the Holy Spirit's power at Jesus' baptism in Luke 3:22.)
Given those four points, we have at least a Bi-nity. The Father is not the same person as the Son and the Son is not the same person as the Father, yet the Father is God and the Son is God and there is only one God who receives worship. John's Gospel again helps us out here, explicitly saying that the Father and the Son are "one" (John 10:30) and that they are inside each other in such a way that anyone who sees the Son sees the Father also, see John 14:9-11. Here is a unity of at least two persons such that each one is fully God and receives worship.
As for the Holy Spirit, throughout John 14--17 Jesus speaks of the "Advocate" who will come, "the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father" (15:26). He says that he himself will send this Spirit. This Spirit is a person -- he does things that persons do such as teach (14:26) and testify (15:26). Yet, it is clear he is a different person than either the Father or Jesus because Jesus sends him and he proceeds from the Father. Furthermore, if this Holy Spirit is blasphemed, the consequences are even more grave than if the Father or Jesus had been blasphemed, for we are told that to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to commit an sin that can never be forgiven (see Mark 3:23-30) even though all other blasphemies can be forgiven. Therefore, we see the Holy Spirit is neither the same person as Jesus nor the same person as the Father, yet he works alongside and in complete partnership with them and like them -- like God! -- he can be blasphemed.
This is the reality named by the word "Trinity". The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Yet, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God -- and there is only one God. It is very true that this idea stretches human reason -- probably past the breaking point! -- yet it is very clearly spelled out in the scripture passages I detailed above, as well as many others. It is because passages like the ones just listed are pervasive throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament but also to some degree in the Old, that Christians worship God as Trinity. It's not to sustain myths, but to be honest with the Scriptures that Christians have believed in the Trinity since the earliest days.
Cheers,
Matt
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