Thinking about God (2)

As a young Christian, Jonathan Edwards liked to think about God. One day as he walked in his father’s pasture, and as he was ‘looking up on the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and meekness joined together; it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.’

He continued: ‘God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in every thing; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for continuance; and in the day, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things; in the mean time, singing forth, with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer.’

He even enjoyed lightning and thunder: ‘And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly, nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, so to speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm; and used to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God’s thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God. While thus engaged, it always seemed natural to me to sing, or chant for my meditations; or, to speak my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice.’

 

The self-sufficient God

The obvious feature possessed by the one God is his self-sufficiency. In other words he does not need any help from outside himself in order to exist. No one brought him into existence and no one has added any improvements to him. Although we are made in the image of God we are not like God in this way because we are never self-sufficient. We constantly need to be upheld in existence and we need to be improved all the time. Even the holy angels need to be maintained in existence and they improve in certain ways such as in knowledge. But since God’s self-sufficiency is permanently perfect he does not improve or become less than he is.

How do we respond to such a divine being? We should be full of admiration as we contemplate his eternal self-sufficiency. In addition, we should be gladly dependent on him because it does not reduce his resources when he helps all his creatures simultaneously. He is the source and sustainer of life.

The speaking God

It is possible to suggest that God could have remained silent and not spoken. Yet we may also say that since it was his eternal purpose that he should speak it is therefore not appropriate for us to suggest that he could have remained silent. And the doctrine of the Trinity reveals that speaking or communicating was going on from eternity as the Father, the Son and the Spirit interacted with one another. Yet before the Bible revealed that God was triune it revealed that he was a speaker, and we see this amazing reality in Genesis 1.

In that chapter, we see that God speaks about or to his creation and various creatures come into existence as well as inanimate life. His speech reveals him as the living God as he calls all kinds of life into existence. He speaks in detail about his creative actions and then he thinks about them with delight and utters his appreciation of what has come into existence. Moreover, subsequent to their creation, God came down to speak with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Of course, they were not speaking as equals, but they were speaking to one another.

Even after Adam and Eve sinned, God continued to speak. Now his words contained punishments. But they also indicated something that he could not have spoken to Adam about before he sinned. God spoke to the guilty pair about the salvation that he would provide. 

The Lord continued to speak, as the writer of Hebrews indicates in the opening verses of his wonderful book about the glory of Jesus. And as God continued to speak he revealed himself as the true God in contrast to the false gods that humans invented. He spoke in creation and they refused to listen, although they knew that they were doing wrong. Even those who saw his abilities in a powerful way, as Israel did, turned away from him repeatedly to idols, but still he warned them of the dangers of idolatry. In order to defend his glory, God must insist that he is the true God.

But God also speaks in very personal and direct ways. Consider these marvellous words from Isaiah 57:15: ‘For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”’ God the speaker wants to be with us in order to help us if we are humble. 

And what should the humble do in response to a speaking God? They should talk with him, whether in confession of sin, in expressions of worship, in gratitude and in requests for help. And the amazing thing is that they can speak to the speaking God at any time. They discover that he gives life and understanding to them because he is the living and true God.

 

The sovereign God

It is not difficult to work out that the self-sufficient God who speaks with supreme knowledge and certainty is the sovereign God. In order to fulfil his stated purposes he must have full authority even over those who have rebelled against him. This sovereignty is constant and cannot be overturned by all his opponents acting together. If they could do so, then they would be more powerful than him, which would mean that he was not the true God. But they cannot and he remains fully sovereign at all moments and in every place.

How should we react to such a sovereign God? Let me mention three responses briefly. First, we should serve him eagerly. We serve him primarily, and because he commands us to serve others, such as governments, we do so because we serve him. He alone is our sovereign master. Second, we serve him endearingly. To serve him in any other way is an insult to him. All that we do for him must be done lovingly. Third, we should serve him energetically, with all the strength and abilities that we have. And I suspect that when we do so we will find ourselves living as those made in the image of God should.

Thinking about God (1)

There are a few sentences that have made their way into the common language of English-speaking Christians and which they can recite with ease. Some are familiar with the statement often assigned to Jim Eliot, but which seems to have originated with a similar statement by Matthew Henry, that ‘he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose’. Of course, Matthew may have heard it first from one of his parishioners. More are familiar with the opening question and answer of the Shorter Catechism: ‘What is the chief end of man?’ ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.’

The famous Scottish author Thomas Carlyle, who was brought up in a Presbyterian church in Dumfries-shire, said towards the end of his illustrious life: ‘The older I grow, and I am now on the brink of eternity, the more comes back to me the first sentence of the Catechism which I learned as a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes.’ That would be a helpful attitude for us to have, should we live to an old age, or have already reached it.

Carlyle described life in his parents’ home: ‘Mother and Father were assiduous, abstemious, frugal without stinginess. They shall not want their reward. Both still knew what they were doing in this world, and why they were here: “Man’s chief end,” my Father could have answered from the depths of his soul, “is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” By this light he walked, choosing his path, fitting prudence to principle with wonderful skill and manliness – through “the ruins of a falling Era,” not once missing his footing.’

The compilers of the Catechism did not wish it to be only the attitude of old people. In addition, they wanted it to be the outlook of young people, those described as of weaker abilities. The contents of the catechism were what young and old in a church ought to know about God.

How can we describe the answer given to the question? It does not specify anything particular about the Christian faith, apart from saying that dedication and enjoyment are possible and desirable. It is not a summary of a Christian doctrine. Nor is it a kind of mission statement that we should adopt without making investigations. For example, who is the God it refers to and why and how should we glorify him and enjoy him forever? We can regard the statement as an invitation to discover the best way to think and live, explained in the rest of the catechism.

The idea of glorifying a person means to live in a manner that brings acclaim to him. When British holidaymakers misbehave in a foreign location, they bring dishonour on themselves and on their country. In a higher sense, when we misbehave (commit sin), we don’t only reveal that we are sinners; we also show what we think about our Creator God. Admiration for him will cause us to be concerned for his reputation. Sin is a refusal to recognise that our most important responsibility is to bring honour to God. The way to glorify God is to have a sense of his greatness on our hearts as well as a determination to always acknowledge his authority.

Thomas Watson, a Puritan author, pointed out that glorifying God consists in four things: appreciation, adoration, affection, and subjection. On appreciation, he said that ‘to glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts’. In other words, we must use our minds and think about God often. As far as adoration is concerned, Watson pointed out that we must worship the Lord in ways that please him, in ways that acknowledge who he is as the great God, whether in public or in private. Affection is a love that is ‘exuberant, not a few drops, but a stream.’ It is ‘intense and ardent. True saints are seraphim, burning in holy love for God.’ Subjection involves entire devotion to God: ‘our head studies for him, our tongue pleads for him, and our hands relieve his members.’

The catechism’s first answer is a way of highlighting the bigness of God. After all, he will be glorified and enjoyed for eternity. That can be said of no-one or of nothing else. Here we have simultaneously a superlative goal and a satisfying experience that is endless.

One response to this answer is to ask the question, ‘Did anyone on earth ever live up to this description of life?’ We know the answer. The only one who did so was Jesus, and it is good for us to meditate on him and admire how he glorified God and enjoyed him.

We also know that, because Jesus did so uniquely when he was on earth, countless billions of people will, in the new heavens and earth, glorify God and enjoy him forever. When he was here, he lived and died as the representative of his people, with his perfect life now reckoned to them as righteousness, and his death as the atonement for their sins when he suffered the penalty that divine justice required.