We are looking at what it means to be truly God-centered. In the last post we tried to look at what it would mean for God to be God-centered. In other words, the way we perceive God is fundamental for our view of God. In order for a human being to be truly God-centered, s/he must see that God is God-centered. Here are some more reasons why this is true. For God to be truly holy and to be love itself, He must love Himself more than any human being and all human beings together. A holy love will love true love and true holiness and a true holiness will always be devoted to true holiness rather than sinful beings. The Great Commandment as given in Holy Scripture does not command human beings to be like something that God is not. Human beings are incredibly wicked and idolatrous in the violation of the Great Commandment if they love people or things more than God. Hopefully most professing believers would admit that. However, are we willing to apply that to God? What is the Great Commandment that God follows? Are there people and things that are okay for Him to love more than Himself? Are we like God in loving Him with all of our being or are we commanded to love Him while He does not? We are so inoculated to the true God in our day that we are willing to say that God does not love Himself in all that He does and is His own primary motive in all that He does while we say that human beings should love God as their primary motive in all things. If we assert that it is our position, therefore, that what is pure holiness for man is not holiness for God, then to be consistent we must say that in order for man to be holy he must be unlike God.
On the other hand, Scripture tells us that we are to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and we are also to be holy as He is holy. How do these things fit together in God and then in human beings? The modern approach (applied consistently) appears to be that God is perfectly holy and His love is focused on human beings more than Himself. Human beings, however, are to love God with all of their beings and to focus on human beings out of their love for God. From that position, then, holiness for human beings is to be something that is unlike God. If God who is perfectly holy is focused on human beings and loves them more than Himself, then to be holy as He is holy shows that human beings must be focused on human beings more than on Him. But we know that it is idolatry for any human being to love something more than God. But even more, following the thought of Augustine, “he loves Thee too little who does not love all things for Your sake.” The people and the things we love are to be loved for His sake. This, then, gives us a completely new thought of what it means to love God and others. But it also teaches us that God’s very holiness in some ways consists in a love for Himself.
We know from I Corinthians 13:1-8 that nothing a human being can do apart from love is of any use at all. We know from these verses that no matter what we do in terms of giving money or even our own lives is of any benefit apart from love to God. Did Jesus Christ love human beings more than the Father when He went to the cross? You see, then, how modern Americans can preach and teach sheer idolatry when they teach precious truths about the Gospel in the wrong way. The Gospel does not primarily consist in how much God loved human beings and sacrificed Himself. It is primarily about how God loved Himself first and foremost and puts His love in the hearts of human beings and shares His love for Himself with them. The Gospel cannot be that God loved human beings more than His Son and so sent His Son to die for their sins, because that would be idolatry of the Father to love human beings more than God. Instead it is more in line with His triune glory that He loved His Son in a way that His Son went to die for sinners to demonstrate the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father. The Gospel is the Gospel of the love of God for God and then from that for sinners.
We know that salvation is a glorious thing that was planned by God for all eternity. We know that Ephesians 1:5 tells us that salvation is “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” In this we see the motives and purposes of God in the Gospel. Without doubt the glory of His grace includes the beauty of His grace. God has saved sinners to the praise of the beauty and loveliness of His grace. If we do not see the beauty of His grace which is based on His love for His own name and glory, then we don’t truly understand the glory/beauty of the Gospel. In the Gospel and by the beauty of His grace in the Gospel God has set forth the majestic beauty of His whole character. Surely we can see that it is far better and glorious for God to be more concerned about the holiness, glory, and beauty of His own name than the welfare of sinners. Surely we can see that if God was not concerned about the glory and beauty of His name He would not have been just in justifying sinners and He would not have sent His Son to be the propitiation for the sins of sinners. There is no way that God the Father would send His Beloved God the Son for sinners who deserved nothing but hell apart from a desire to shine forth the beauty and glory of His own holy name out of love for His name. After all, we are to pray that our sins would be forgiven for the sake of His name.
God Loves... Himself 
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