God Loves… Himself

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.

In the last post I gave a quote from Jonathan Edwards regarding the beauty of God. “His infinite beauty is his infinite mutual love of himself.” This quote, if true, is a massive paradigm shift from what we hear in our day. If it was indeed the paradigm in days past, it also shows what a massive paradigm shift we have had previous to our day and one that has brought destruction and judgment to the professing Church. If we do not truly see the beauty of God until we see to some degree His infinite mutual love of Himself, then we are blind to the beauty of God in our day. This includes orthodox theology and modern versions of Reformed theology as well.

Reformed theology in the modern day is highly exegetical in some circles and highly logical in others. It is focused on by some historians and by professional theologians. But where are those who are speaking of God as if He is truly beautiful to the soul in the manifestation of His glory now? Reformed theology appears to have been mostly captured and trapped by an intellectual alone version of it. This type of theology can appear rationally beautiful in some ways but still miss the essence of Christianity and of the Gospel. If we do nothing but speak of God as if He is bound to proper hermeneutical rules as we exegete the text, we have God bound to rules of human invention and origin. If we bind God and speak of Him only as if He worked in history and write treatises on historical issues, we have nothing but things that happened in the past. While what was true in the past about God is also true today, we must get beyond history to God Himself. We can set forth historical truths about God and simply miss who He is in His beauty and glory today. We can only give information about history, but what we must do is strive in prayer and speaking to see God in His beauty and glory today. If we are blinded to the truth of God by history and orthodoxy, what will bring light to our souls?

It will not do to simply repeat the maxim by Edwards in speaking of God that “His infinite beauty is his infinite mutual love of himself.” It is a fact that Edwards said that. It is a fact that I believe that Edwards was right. We can repeat this statement ad nausea and yet no one will really understand what he meant and no one will understand what is meant by the statement. In order for the hearts of people to see and understand the manifestation of the glory of God, this statement must be explained. But even more, the sheer beauty and glory of God must shine in the souls of people. Until a person sees something of what the statement truly means and God opens his or her eyes to it, this statement will not be understood. But we do not hear of things like this in our day. We believe that the glory of God is seen in His focus on human beings. Let me put this bluntly, though I am sure it is offensive to many as well. If God is in truth as He is presented and talked about in modern America (and that includes the Reformed), then God is as idolatrous as human beings are. If I am correct in that statement, then chills should sweep up and down our spines as He has hardened our hearts and delivered us into the power of our sins. He has hidden His face from us and we are serving false gods in the name of orthodoxy.

Let me try to explain this for the rest of this blog and then in future blogs as well. We all know that something is wrong. We try to explain it in our own lack of something, or perhaps we blame others. What we must see is that when there is a problem in the professing Church, the problem is that God is judging it. When the professing Church awakens to that, it will see that as always the real problem is its view of God. The professing Church in modern America has a frightening view of God in regards to how it views God as essentially a servant of human beings. It pictures God as looking upon those poor people who fell and then, out of nothing but concern for them, planned a way to rescue all of those poor people. It goes out and tells people that God loves them so much that He gave His own Son to die for them and He would have done so for one person alone. They then tell the people that all they need to do is to pray a prayer or exercise a choice and the God who loves them more than they can imagine will save them. Again, sad to say, this is also practiced by people who profess to be Reformed.

The view of God that is presented in the above statements is one of a God who is focused on human beings more than Himself. I say that is idolatry and is a vicious view of God. If we saw a professing believer who focused on the “good” of human beings without a supreme love for God we would consider that person an idolater. If we saw a professing believer who “loved” and wept over human beings without a specific focus on God we would consider that person an idolater as well. Why, then, do we preach and teach about a god that is focused on human beings with all of his love and might and does not focus on himself with all of his love and might? Any professing God who does not love Himself more than all human beings in accordance with the Greatest Commandment has fallen short of His own glory. That would not be a true God, but a pretend one. It also leaves us without a Savior.

Today I would like to try to get at Jonathan Edwards’ thought on what is essential in Reformed theology and Christianity as a whole. We can be as precise as we can be with our theological precision and our creeds and still miss the real issue. Doubtless there are those who rest their hopes for salvation in their theological precision and conservative belief. But if Warfield’s and Edwards’ teaching on the central theme of Scripture is right, we see that a profession of faith is not enough. There is a vast difference between believing certain truths about the Gospel and having the light shine in the heart that gives the very knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

“Wicked men and devils will see, and have a great sense of everything that appertains to the glory of God, but only the beauty of his moral perfection. They will see his infinite greatness and majesty, his infinite power, and will be fully convinced of his omniscience, and his eternity and immutability; and they will see and know everything appertaining to his moral attributes themselves, but only the beauty and amiableness of them: they will see and know that he is perfectly just and righteous and true; and that he is a holy God…and they will see the wonderful manifestations of his infinite goodness and free grace to the saints; and there is nothing will be hid from their eyes but only the beauty of these moral attributes, and that beauty of other attributes, which arises from it. And so natural men in this world are capable of having a very affecting sense of everything else that appertains to God, but this only.” (Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, p. 264)

This is truly a disturbing view of things while beautiful in another sense. Surely it is self-evident that this teaching has major ramifications for the Gospel. Edwards tells us that wicked men and even the devils can see and sense everything pertaining to the glory of God except the beauty of His moral perfection. In other words, the devil and perhaps theologians, biblical scholars, and pastors have some sight of the glory of God and are deceived by it. These people can see something of His greatness and majesty. They can see enough about the physical universe to be amazed at His power and knowledge. They can see that this perfect God cannot lie nor do anything that is not perfectly good. They see great things by the light of academics and rationality, but they did not see the true beauty and delightfulness of God and His glory because they are spiritually dead. These are men that see something of the greatness of the free grace of God and of His love, but they don’t truly see the utter beauty of what His love and grace truly are. They have a system of theology that is rational and to some degree biblical, but they do not see the beauty of God in terms of who He really is. All the beauty they see has to do with their own minds and their own self-love. Unbelievers have some delight in the intellectual study of many things, so it is not surprising that unbelievers (though professing believers) will have some delight in the intellectual study of theology, the Bible, and the creeds. But the delight is not in the beauty and true glory of God, it is in the study and the delight of the mind in intellectual things.

It is not surprising when we read of the Pharisees and others in the history of the Church that have been largely orthodox in their theology and yet have been cold and dead. Scripture tells us that the letter of the Law kills and that is true no matter how great the intellect that teaches it nor does it keep from killing when the person is orthodox. Even the teaching of very orthodox men can be dead if there is not the true beauty and glory of God in it. Quite frankly, one can go to many conferences in our day and find many orthodox men talking about things in orthodox ways. There are men who will speak highly of God. Yet what we don’t really see is the greatness and glory of God taught in such a way that the beauty and glory of God comes down and ravishes the hearts of the people there. Indeed the music might be such in some places that men will weep and shout, but music can make unbelievers weep and shout as well. What we must seek is for the beauty and glory of God to come down from heaven so that there can be no denying of Who has come into the room. Edwards is very clear in the above quote (and many others too) that natural men can have a very affecting sense of anything regarding theology and the teaching of God. They might weep and see things that exalt God and lift Him up in many ways. But they lack the true sense of His beauty and glory. Why is that? Because men still teach about God from a man-centered viewpoint. Jonathan Edwards taught that the beauty of God is “His infinite beauty is his infinite mutual love of himself.” In other words, until we see that the beauty of God is the relation of God within the Trinity and of His love for Himself as triune, we are missing what is truly beautiful about God and the Gospel. When we miss that, we are missing the true beauty of theology and are selling our birthright of His beauty and glory for a bowl of man-centered pottage.

Last time I tried to get at the issue of God-centeredness. The real issue is not that man thinks a lot about God and commits himself to God and things like that, but the real issue is over the God-centeredness of God. If God is God-centered then it changes everything in terms of what God-centeredness means for human beings. Man can be God-centered in a different sort of way if down deep he thinks that God is really focused on man. While this may sound silly to some and perhaps to many, it is perhaps the deepest and most profound difference between modern theology and at least some historical theology. It is the heart of the issue between what is Reformed and Arminian theology, but also between modern Reformed theology and true Reformed theology in history. Reformed theology has been given over to academics and scholars to state what it is and to defend it, but the reality of historical theology is that a man was Reformed if he had met with and saw the glory of God. When Reformed theology is presented in an academic way alone it is a rational system and has missed the real heart of the issue. A person that has truly seen God will see the true beauty of God. “His infinite beauty is his infinite mutual love of himself” (Jonathan Edwards in vol 6, Yale edition, p. 363).

If we take that statement as a way of understanding or at least giving insight into “God is love” (I John 4:8, 16), then we have just been given a far deeper insight into the nature of the love of God than we will ever have if we think of His love as being shown toward human beings alone. A man-centered approach to the statement “God is love” can leave man with swelling thoughts of himself, thinking that he defines whether God is love or not. That is utter nonsense and openly idolatrous. Who is puny man to think that he could possibly be the central focus of the infinite love of God when God is a triune Being who is love within three infinite Persons? Surely it is obvious that if holiness in man consists in love for God (Great Commandment) that God would not and could not love man more than Himself. If that is true, then surely it is obvious that God the Father could never love a human being or the whole mass of human beings more than His beloved Son and the Son could never love the mass of human beings more than the Father. If we but see into the glories and beauties of the living God, we will be delivered from human-centered thinking into seeing Scripture unfold the beauties of God’s love for Himself.

There are many Reformed people today wanting unity with other theological groups. But if a Reformed person is correctly defined by B. B. Warfield as one that has seen the glory of God, then we can see that the issues are different. The issue at hand is not just whether a person believes a few facts about the Gospel, but to have unity in truth we must know some things a person believes and loves about those facts. What I am trying to get at is the issue that there is a massive difference in the Gospel taught by a God-centered person than one who is man-centered. One might even be led to believe that the two are different Gospels. Let us compare the two.

Imagine the difference between a Gospel that declared the Gospel of the glory of God and one that declared the gospel of the glory of man. “Well,” one might argue, “no one really declares a gospel of the glory of man!” Perhaps not in name, but it is rampant in other ways. The facts of who Christ is and what He has done can be declared to a person by one who holds to a man-centered gospel. The one can plead with other to believe in Christ for all the wrong reasons. The person can be told that s/he is of such value to God that Christ died for him or her. The person can be told that God is standing by and weeping over how people will not accept Him. The person can be told that the only thing s/he must do is to ask Jesus into his or her heart or pray a prayer. All of these things reflect nothing but man-centeredness at the core of the message. Nothing is really said of the reality of who God is and of His true love and holiness and how by grace He changes hearts. It is all about man and what God did for man.

In contrast to that II Corinthians 4 gives us a different picture:

“(4) in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (5) For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. (6) For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

In these verses we see a focus on God and His glory. The true Gospel is all about the Gospel of the glory of Christ, not of the glory of man. The true Gospel is all about the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ and not about the glory of man. Any claim to present the Gospel that focuses on man instead of God is a false gospel. The Gospel is referred to in Scripture many times as the Gospel of God. The Gospel is all about the glory of God being manifested and His glory in justifying sinners by grace apart from works. If we trust in ourselves as worthy instead of His glorious grace, it is a different gospel.

The term “God-centered” can have differing connotations to differing people. While one could probably do an entire thesis on the subject, I will try to keep this fairly short. I have contended in past posts that Reformed theology was historically God-centered. One could understand that as simply meaning that men are to be focused on God in what they do. For some, it might simply mean that man is to refer to God in all he does and do things with some thought of honoring God in what he does. That can lead a person who is still dead in his sins to thinking that he is doing good things for God. What I mean by the term, however, is that not only is man God-centered but God is God-centered. This is a Copernican revolution in theology once a person grabs a hold of this or rather is grabbed by it. Another way to state this is to say that God is the most God-centered being that exists. Yet another way to put it is that it is only when man is God-centered that he is being like God. It is perverted and wicked to have a theology that demands God to be like man in being man-centered and to judge Him and the Gospel according to how man loves himself.

There are those in the modern day who claim to be God-centered and yet end up with a man-centered view. Without naming names, I have heard one speaker who spoke of God very highly and used many verses about God. The reason that he spoke highly of God was for man-centered reasons. The result was that he ended up with a man-centered God, which in reality leads man to being man-centered as well in the final analysis. The claim that I am making here is that until we set out God as being God-centered we are essentially presenting a God who is man-centered. When we do that our theology may be Reformed in creed and yet miss the very heart of what Reformed theology has stood for. When people who are Reformed in name without the heart of Reformed theology, which is of a God who is God-centered, those people end up trying to be gracious to men rather than speaking the truth of God and in reality distort (at best) the Gospel of the glory of God.

At this point I want to be very plain. If we think of God only in terms of what He does for man, we have a different God than Scripture. When Reformed people have a God that is man-centered, they have a different core and god than their creeds and historical theology. They also have a different gospel than the Gospel that thundered forth from Luther and the Reformers during the time of the Reformation. Let us make no mistake about the real issue during the time of the Reformation. It was over the character of God. Certainly there were the vital issues over the authority in the Church as to whether it was the Pope and councils or Scripture. There was also the issue of justification by faith alone. But at the real heart of those issues is the very character of God and whether He is centered upon Himself and His own glory or whether He is man-centered. We have much the same issue today, though it is in different language. There are the issues of the New Perspective and of the theology of the Federal Vision movement, for example. The real issue behind those has to do with the character of God and of grace. We can argue about details in exegesis, but the real issue is over God and His focus and ultimate commitment.

“And by this rule one may try his own religion. If it began in a belief that God loved him, and had bestowed salvation upon him, etc., and all his religious joy and sorrow, and darkness and light, respect his own interest in God’s favor, etc., it has the appearance of false religion. He who comes to the knowledge of the truth fixes on something infinitely more important than self, and his own personal interest, as the object of his regard and pursuit. He from that moment devotes himself to the glory of God, and the greatest general good, in the advancement of his kingdom.”

The quote above is from Samuel Hopkins a student of Jonathan Edwards. Let us reflect upon this statement for a moment and see just how important something like this is for the heart of the Gospel. Does true repentance and regeneration just leave a person in the throes of love for self and now that person has help from God in his or her self-centeredness? No, we know from Scripture that the very focus of Christ and of His people in history has been the glory of God. A person that is left in the throes of self and of self-love has not repented of the very heart of sin and has not become like Christ who did all to the glory of God the Father. The Gospel of grace is glorious in that it transfers a person from the kingdom and dominion of darkness and places that person in the kingdom of the Beloved Son and of grace. A kingdom is the place where the reign of the king is. Christ is King in the hearts of His people and He works in them so that they will walk as He walked (I John 2:3-6). If a person has joy in his or her religion and it never goes beyond his or her selfish interests, even though it may be of heaven, that person is centered upon self and has not been saved from sin.

If it is true that Christ and His people are delivered from self to where their chief love and desire is for the glory of God in all that they do, and if it is true that a person is not delivered from self is not saved, then what does that tell us about God? Is the God who saves sinners from themselves in order to become God-centered Himself no different from unregenerate and unconverted sinners? The very height of sin is to be lovers of self (II Tim 3:2), which is men loving self rather than God. It is a horrible sin to love others and their opinions more than God and His “opinion.” Is God then a lover of men more than Himself? Is God more concerned about man’s opinions of Himself than of His own? Does God need to take a public opinion poll to decide how He should behave? No, the assertion of this post is that God is not like sinful man in being man-centered. Instead, God is God-centered and the true Gospel and true sanctification are about making man like God in being God-centered. When the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, it is about a God who is centered upon Himself and His own glory. When the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, the proclamation of repentance from self and to God and His glory is part of that. When the true Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, man is left with no hope in himself and no hope that God will love him as he is. Instead God changes man from what he is to a person that loves God as God loves God. One can preach a doctrinally correct message about a gospel and miss the heart of the true Gospel. The true Gospel is all about a God who loves Himself and does all for His own glory. Without that, grace is graceless in reality.

[Note: This post is the first in a new series called “Historical Reformed Theology.” To view all the posts in this series, you can use the links on the right under the Categories heading.]

The last few posts have been on how theology must be God-centered. This is the missing element in modern theology and biblical studies. It is the missing element of preaching and the function of the local church. It is the missing element in all that goes on. It is somewhat understandable to note the missing element of God-centeredness in society due to the fallen nature of man, but it is surprising to see the depths that the professing Church has fallen into man-centeredness as well. This is true of both Arminian and Reformed theology in our day. After all, the very word “theology” starts off with “theo” which is “theos” the Greek word for God. Theology is the study of God. It does not matter the branch of theology that is being studied, God is to be the center of that study. Indeed the old phrase of “the proper study of man is man” seems to have taken over in the modern professing Church. Instead of looking at man from God-centered studies, we look at God through man-centered studies. Instead of judging man by the truth of who God is, we try to study God through the lies about who man is. Without starting with God-centeredness in all things we end up with man-centeredness in all things.

For a while on this blog I have been trying to look at what people in history have said about Arminian theology. In the modern day Reformed theology has been so weakened that there does not appear to be much of a difference. That means that I had to go back in history to find out what people in centuries past thought of it. Now I would like to look at Reformed theology in light of its lack of God-centeredness. I will make a provocative assertion at this point. Reformed theology and Arminian theology can only meet at the point where and when both are man-centered. When Reformed theology is truly focused on God and is centered upon Him rather than man, the divide between the two cannot be surmounted. When Arminianism becomes God-centered, it is not longer Arminianism. Arminian theology cannot be maintained from a God-centered and God-oriented perspective. Reformed theology as set out, loved and practiced in the past was God-centered in all that it thought and did. These statements will be argued against quite strenuously, but it is something that is relatively self-evident. If a person, no matter how much s/he uses the name of God to buttress his or her argument, starts with man and argues about who God is in light of who man is, that person is a man-centered individual. Any person who holds to the creeds of Reformed theology and yet down deep is man-centered is truly Arminian if not Pelagian at heart. In our day external and creedal Reformed theology is being used to cover over Pelagian hearts. That is being said as one who thinks that creeds are important and should be used.

Another issue at hand is that we can speak much of God and of theology and yet have a central focus on man in what we are doing. Another way to state that is to say that we can use God’s name a lot and still be focused on man in the way we are speaking of God. The way we speak to human beings and the way we treat human beings can also reflect our true focus. No pastor, theologian or biblical scholar wants to admit being man-centered and so most if not virtually all will deny that s/he is that. The biblical scholar approaching the Bible from a scholarly position and wanting to determine what the text means according to scholarship is different than approaching the text as the Word of God and determining what it means in light of Scripture being the revelation of God. Even when a scholar says that s/he believes highly in the text that does not mean that the text is being dealt with as the very words of God and as the revelation of God Himself. The text must always be approached as God’s Word and as a revelation of God Himself and not just as being about a subject matter.

When a theologian or pastor is looking to write or preach, what is the core thing that s/he is looking for? Is it something to help people? Why does that person want to help people and what is it that will help people? Helping people can be idolatry too. If we approach the issue as if God is concerned about man as a man is concerned about man, we have just committed idolatry. Our hearts must be changed to where we want to help people out of love for and from God. We must have our mindsets and hearts changed to where we know that only if we are focused on the glory of God can we then truly help people to focus on the glory of God, which is true help. We can use Scripture God’s name in man-centered ways and commit idolatry in our conservative and gracious approach. For theology to be biblical and centered upon God it must realize that God is God-centered and all that is dealt with must be dealt with in that regard and with that in mind. Reformed theology can be nothing more than an intellectual way of approaching theology in man-centeredness without the God-centeredness of God in all things taken into account. Reformed theology can be using the name of God to hide our deceitful man-centered hearts from us. Without the God-centeredness of God as in the older Reformed theology, Pelagianism hides itself in deceitful hearts that focus on self in the guise of truth and Reformed theology. This is a horrible judgment of God.

Boiled down, we can put it this way: we can talk about God a lot and we can speak of Reformed theology in an intellectual way and even with much feeling without being truly God-centered in our approach. We can speak with great feelings of Christ and the Gospel in accordance with Reformed doctrine and creeds, and yet our hearts can be focused on man instead of God. We can speak glowingly of God according to accepted theology and still be focused on man in our hearts. After all, Scripture does tell us that we love those who love us. If we are deceived into thinking that God savingly loves us when He does not, we will have what we call love toward Him. Out of that mistaken love for God, which is nothing but a virulent form of self-love and idolatry, we can pursue a theology that is Reformed in its externals and yet be built on nothing but self. God-centeredness is not just another option in the modern buffet line of theology, it is life itself.