"It is evident, by both Scripture and reason, that God is infinitely, eternally, unchangeably, and independently glorious and happy: that He cannot be profited by, or receive any thing from, the creature." -- Jonathan EdwardsI have a new gadget on my iGoogle page, that is Christian Quotes Past and Present. This one came on there today, and I thought I would comment on it. I love Jonathan Edwards, ever since I did a report on him in an Institute class a while ago. My thoughts on this quote:
The principle of what he is saying is that God is not made better by anything that we do for Him. God does not become more powerful if He has more people serving Him. God does not become less powerful if He has fewer people doing His will. He does not learn or know more things when we pray to Him. He does not improve when we praise Him more. He does not need us. God is already perfect in every way!
Here's the thing, we can take that idea and throw everything away, knowing that our actions aren't going to make God any better. Or, we can look at His independence, and realize that in spite of it, He still loves us and works through us! What a privilege that we can serve this absolutely perfect God, even though He doesn't need us to. He wants us to.
I will disagree with Edwards in a point. He says that God does is "independently glorious and happy." That is true, in that He does not need us to be happy. However, it is not true, in that, our actions do bring joy or bring sorrow to God. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; we can grieve the Holy Ghost; He is pleased when children obey their parents. Our actions do affect the happiness or grief of God - for the Bible tells me so.
It is true that God does not need us in order to be happy. However, He has chosen to tie His happiness with His creation's actions. We have the ability to bring pleasure or to bring grief to the Almighty, Independent, Eternal, Creator God of the Universe.
I think we ought to work on the bringing Him pleasure part. He is so worth it!
Just a thought...
2 comments:
A.W. Tozer writes similarly in his book "The Knowledge of the Holy".
I also agree with your comments. The thing that we often overlook is that aspect of worship. While we know that God does not need anything from us, we were created to worship Him and Him alone so, the battleground is there. Who are we going to worship with our thoughts, actions, life. T. Austin Sparks wrote a short book called "The Ultimate Issue of the Universe" which can be read online at http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/ultimate_issue_of_the_universe_the.html
A great read.
Thanks for the quote and the post.
Revelation 4:11 - 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.
Good post. If he needed something, he wouldn't be God, cause he would be dependent on something else. The above verse tells us we are created for his pleasure - to please, to worship Him. Again, not that he needed this, but he chose it. We can and should be thankful he gave us the opportunity to exist to be able to worship Him.
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