Often when I am alone with my wonderful LORD, I meditate upon His perfections, upon His unmatched character. Very few of those who only occasionally read the Bible are aware of the awe-inspiring and worship-provoking grandeur of His divine character. That God is great in wisdom, wondrous in power, yet full of mercy, by many it is thought to be almost common knowledge of what His character is like. But, to grasp anything approaching a true ideal of His being, His nature, and His attributes, as these are revealed in Holy Scripture, is something which very, very few people in these degenerate times have attained unto. God is solitary in His excellency. “Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exo 15:11).
"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." (Ps. 90:2). Before there was anything in existance in the whole universe, before any star burned in space, there was God...HE existed. “In the beginning God” (Gen 1:1). There was a time when God in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three divine persons), dwelt all alone. “In the beginning God.” There was no heaven, where His glory is now revealed to all of the unfallen universe. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to sing His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, “from everlasting.” During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied,; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also would have been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did so, added nothing to God. He had no need of anything else. He was complete in Himself. Though He alone was in existance, He was complete in love. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His glory can be neither added to, nor diminished.
Why did God create anything...especially sinful, unfaithfull Man? He tells us: "for I have created him for My glory. I have formed him; yea I have made him." (Isa. 43:7). For His glory do we exist! God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own mere good pleasure; for He “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11). That He did create was simply for His glory. “Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever: and blessed be Thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise” (Neh 9:5). God gains nothing even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of His grace which arises from His redeemed on earth or from all the unfallen worlds, for He is glorious enough in Himself without that. What was it that moved Him to predestinate His elect to the praise of the glory of His grace? It was, as Ephesians 1:5 tells us, “according to the good pleasure of His will.”
At the end of Romans 11, where the Paul brings to a close his long argument on salvation by pure and sovereign grace, he asks, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” (vv. 34-35). The truth of this is, it is impossible to bring the Almighty under obligations to the creature; God gains nothing from us. “If thou be righteous, what givest thou Him? Or what receiveth He of thine hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man” (Job 35:7-8), but it certainly cannot affect God, who is all-blessed in Himself. “When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10)—our obedience has profited God nothing.
Our Lord Jesus Christ added nothing to God in His human existance on earth, either by what He did or suffered. True, blessedly and gloriously true, He manifested the glory of God to us, but He added nothing to God. He Himself declares so, and there is no appeal from His words: “My goodness extendeth not to Thee” (Psa 16:2). The whole of that Psalm is a Psalm of Christ. Christ’s goodness or righteousness reached unto His saints in the earth (v.3), but God was high above and beyond it all. God only is “the Blessed" One (Mark 14:61).
It is true that God is both honored and dishonored by men; not in His being, but in His character. It is also true that God has been “glorified” by creation, by providence, and by redemption. This we can not and dare not dispute in the least. But all of this has to do with His manifest glory and the recognition of it by us. Yet had God so pleased He might have continued alone for all eternity, without making known His glory unto creatures. Whether He should do so or not was determined solely by His own will. He was perfectly blessed in Himself before the first creature was called into being. "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before Him are as nothing ; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto Him? (Isa 40:15-18). This is the God of Holy Scripture; but, He is still “the unknown God” (Acts 17:23) to the multitudes who reject or deny Him.
"It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: that bringeth the princes to nothing; He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity (Isa 40:22,23). In the New Testament we read, “Which in His times He shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords: Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen” (I Tim 6:15,16). Such an One is to be revered, worshipped, adored. He is solitary in His majesty, unique in His excellency, peerless in His perfections. He sustains all, but is Himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is enriched by none.
In the widest thoughts of Man, could we ever invent a god like unto the LORD? He is far beyond all imagination! "O God, who is like unto Thee!" He had no need of us or our weak, sin tainted devotions and worship to make Himself complete. Yet, He gave us existance and grace that we should be able to become like Him in character through faith in the righteousness of Christ. O, how I love Him! How can we all not love Him with our deepest devotion? Let us praise Him with all heavenly creatures! "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." (Re. 4:11). Let us strive to please Him in all that we do.
If God has our love, he has our all; and God never has what he deserves from us, until He has our love. True love withholds nothing from Christ, when it is sincerely set upon Him. If we actually love him, he will have our everything, our very lives, whenever he calls for them. In the same way, when God loves any of us, he will withhold nothing from us that is good for us. He does not hold back his own only begotten Son, Rom.8:32. When Christ loves us, he gives us everything we need-- his merits to justify us, his Spirit to sanctify us, his grace to adorn us, and his glory to crown us. Therefore, when any of us love God sincerely, we lay everything down at his feet, and give up all to be at his command and service: "And they loved not their lives unto the death," Rev. 12:11.
Come soon, dear LORD...O please come soon!