Reflections on and Admirations of God 11

Hence we learn [see quote from Reflections on and Admirations of God 6] how all God’s love may be resolved into His love for and delight in Himself. His love to the creature is only His inclination to glorify Himself and communicate Himself, and His delight is in Himself glorified and in Himself communicated. There is His delight in the act and in the fruit. The act is the exercise of His own perfection, and the fruit is Himself expressed and communicated.       Jonathan Edwards

In this section we see many beautiful aspects of God on display. In this we can behold the glory of a Being that is so beautiful and glorious that His obligations and beauty of justice and holiness are to manifest His own glory and to seek Himself in all things. For creatures that are still in the bondage of pride and self-centeredness, that will be hateful to them and they will resist based on (even) their view of the Scriptures, morality, and of the nature of love. But that shows the basic problem of sin. Man starts with himself and ends with himself, but true holiness starts with God and ends with God. God, who is thrice holy, will always love Himself as triune because He is the basis and source of true love. There can be no other object of a perfectly holy and infinite love other than Himself, so the perfect God loves Himself within the Trinity.

We can see the perfection of God in having Himself as His highest love and His glory as His highest end. We can see this perfection in the fact that when God loves the creature it is not opposite to His highest love and end, but in fact it is in perfect accord with it. When God loves Himself and makes Himself the object of His highest goal and love, He can love sinful men out of a love for Himself. When God loves Himself in such a way that He loves sinful men, sinful men see this as grace. In the glorious perfection of that love for Himself we can stand back and admire the glory of God as it shines out in His grace to sinners. One of the if not the most beautiful glories of grace is that there is no cause in God shining forth His grace to sinners but what is found in Himself. God delights in showing grace because His ultimate delight is in the perfection of His own love for Himself and His own glory.

We can see that God is a God of perfect delight and joy. His delight is always in Himself (primarily) and as such it is a delight with a perfect object and a perfect source and that requires that the delight itself be perfect in all ways. Sinners should behold the delight the Father has in the Son and bow in worship and adoration. When we read the passages concerning the spoken words of the Father about the Son (see below), we should be struck with the understanding and glory of a perfect delight that flows within the Trinity. When we read the words of John 14:31 (see below), we should see the love that the Son has for the Father and understand something of the perfection and glory of Divine love. What was Christ referring to when He spoke of love to the Father? He was referring to Himself getting up and then going to the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ who was and is the very shining forth of the glory of God went to the cross in perfect obedience to the Great Commandment and He loved the Father even as the Father poured out His wrath upon the Son for the sins of sinners.

Matthew 3:17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”

Matthew 17:5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”

John 14:31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

We miss more than the mind can comprehend when we don’t look at the Scriptures for the glory of God and how He does all things for Himself. We miss the real teaching of Scripture on what love is, what holiness is, and what grace is. In other words, we miss out on the revelation of God about God. We take the Scriptures and conform them to our ideas of love and holiness are, thus we think of grace in a man-centered way as well. God created all things for His own glory and that shows that God loves Himself and His own glory above all. The chief end (purpose) of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, which shows that the chief end of man is in line with God’s greatest love and that is that all would be out of His love for Himself and all would be for His glory.

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