In the last post we looked at God’s motives in salvation. In looking at God’s motives in salvation as set out in Scripture this gives us, so to speak, a divine view of salvation. God had a motive for creating all things and He had a motive and intent in the fall and then in the Gospel. It is utterly vital to look at the motives of God in terms of salvation and the Gospel. If He saves sinners with motives entirely and wholly based on Himself and His own glory rather than anything found in sinners, we can see that the notion of free-will as taught by Arminians cannot be why God saves sinners. If His motives are for Himself and from within His triune being, an act of the will of a human being that is free from His grace would be a motive apart from and not of Himself. The Gospel of grace is not just that God does things for sinners that they cannot do for themselves if only they will make one act of the will, but instead it is that God saves sinners based on Himself and His glory alone. That alone is grace alone.
Last time we focused on the motives of God that He gives us in Ephesians 1:5-14. This time we will approach it from a different angle, though with the same basic thought. Rooted in the fallen human nature is a thought that we find in our own fallen hearts: we tend to do things for others based on something that is within that person or that he/she will do. But God saves sinners based on Himself and nothing that the sinner can do (for self or for God). He saves sinners to manifest His glory through the sinner rather than expecting the sinner to do one thing for self or Him at all. God displays the glory of His self-sufficiency through the sinner rather than expecting any sufficiency from the sinner at all. In fact, the sinner’s efforts to exercise self-sufficiency in the smallest of things are an act of enmity to God’s self-sufficiency as displayed in His grace.
Let us look at the motives of God in this sense as to what could move Him to save sinners. We know that He is a God who does as He pleases (Psalm 115:3). What else could please God to save sinners if not Himself and His own glory? What else would be a holy and good motive for God to save sinners but Himself? Should God love sinners as His primary love when He commands sinners to love Himself with all of their beings? He commands sinners to love Him rather than their own lives. Does it make sense for Him as a primary motive to give the Son who was God in human flesh for the souls of sinners who are commanded to love Him at the cost of their lives? Did God love sinners more than He loved His Son? Did the Son love sinners more than He loved the Father?
The questions in the previous paragraph should show us that we must think through these things from a God-centered perspective or we will fall into the trap of thinking God is just like us. The Lord Jesus Christ is said to be the outshining of the glory of God (Hebrews 1:3). The same thought is in John 1:14 where the Word is said to become flesh and in that we see His glory which is full of grace and truth. If God loves His own glory, He must love the Son who is the shining forth of that glory. When the Father is said to love His glory it is the same thing to say that the Father loves the Son. The only fitting motive for the Father to save sinners is out of love for His own glory which is to say that He loves His Son. The only fitting motive for the Son is to love the Father and His glory, and He said many times that He did in the Gospels.
We have such an impoverished view of grace in our day. In reality, however, such an impoverished view of grace turns grace to be non-grace. Another way to put that would be to say that an impoverished view of God’s grace makes it to be a different kind of grace, which is to say that it’s not grace at all. Scripture tells us that a different Gospel is no Gospel at all (Galatians 1:6-10). If God’s motive in saving sinners is dependant on a human act of the will, even though ever so slightly, it is no longer grace alone. That little act of the human will turns grace from being 100% to 99.9%, but that means it is not grace at all. We can see this from a picture of His holiness. God is perfect in His holiness. If He turns from 100% holiness to 99.99999% holiness, then it is not holiness any longer but something different. For God, holiness is 100% holiness or it is something else. God’s motive in saving sinners is all Himself and so by grace or it is a different motive and so grace is no longer grace. Romans 11:6 must be pounded into our heads and hearts. One little work destroys grace and makes it no longer grace. A diluted substance is no longer the same substance. If we add just a little poison to water, even .005 %, it is no longer the same substance but it is water and something else. Grace is the same way. One work, no matter how little, turns a pure grace into grace plus something else and so it is no longer grace alone. God’s motive in salvation must be entirely from within Himself as seen in His love for His own glory, that is, His love for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father or salvation is not wholly of grace and is a different Gospel. The teaching of free-will is not just some minor issue with a minor difference, it is the drop of poison in the Gospel of grace alone that changes the very nature of it.
God Loves... Himself 
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