| Reformed Perspectives Magazine, Volume 4, Number 29, October 29-November 6, 2002 |
Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of Deity. The proper study of the Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can engage a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the doings, and the existence of the Great God, which he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can comprehend and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go on our way with the thought, "Behold I am wise." But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, "I am but of yesterday and know nothing."
During a past eternity, 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, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal. 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished. 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 manifestative glory.
POINT: There was never any lack in the person of God. He was complete before any creative activity. In creating He gains nothing from His creatures. He did not have to create things or men and did not have to save anyone. If he did so it was for His own good pleasure and for His own glory.
