RTS Papers / Evangelism / Summer 2016
Why did God create anything outside of Himself? God did not need anything. God was not bored. God did not even need to create persons in order to experience love. He already had a perfect community of love within the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So why did God decide to create the world and all the people in it? The biblical answer is that He did it for His own GLORY. But I do not want to assume that we all know what that means. Let me explain.
God Made All Things to Speak About Himself
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). This is what I mean by saying that God made everything to speak about Himself, or glorify Himself — to tell everyone how wonderful He is. That may seem self-centered at first glance. Indeed when we humans draw attention to ourselves we rightly consider that to be a moral defect. Not so with God! If our souls were really designed to be happy in our Creator, then it is better for us to behold more of Him. Consequently God is the only being in the universe for whom self-centeredness is others-oriented! God’s glory is the first good news.
God Made You to Speak About Himself
During those six days of creation we may notice that six times God looks at what He was making. He keeps saying “It is good” and then God made something that especially reflected His glory on Day Six.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).
When God created the first man and woman, He was making something a little like Himself. IMAGE means a copy or reflection or picture. Except that we image-bearers are motion pictures. While everything in creation speaks of God, human beings are made to do this in a way that is unique. Unlike stars or mountains or trees or horses, we are persons with souls: minds that can think about God’s worth, emotions that can move us within toward God, and wills that can act outwardly on the stage as if we are for or against God’s script. We have been designed to find ultimate happiness in Him. This is what God requires of us. When Jesus was asked what is the Greatest Commandment, He answered in this way,
The most important is, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:29-31).
Every part of us was made to move in a way that says something great about God.
God is Good and Only Does Good
If God is good and made the world to reflect His own character, then it stands to reason that creation is good. And so it is. Skeptics often bring up the problem of evil. If a good God made the world, then why has it gone wrong? There is an answer. However there is also an important truth to the question. The ultimate thing that God has done, and is continuing to bring to completion, is absolutely good! We will come back to evil and suffering. But for now we must see that God’s ultimate good design will not be frustrated. God has always been fully committed to all the works of His hands: “The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11).
So the goodness of God excludes any defect of any kind. At the very least that means that God must be both holy and loving. We cannot say that He is only one and not the other. Many people say that if there is a God then He must love us unconditionally, that He must forgive us, that He must only do good to us no matter what we do. After all, God must be “bigger” than other beings that take offense at wrongdoing. I would like to ask anyone who shares that sentiment only one thing. Would you say the same of a much smaller human judge? In other words, what kind of a judge would sentence the guilty to exactly what they deserve? The answer is a good judge.
The one true God is both holy and loving. That means that He exercises justice and mercy, but that He is under no obligation to have mercy. We will come back to that.
He says, “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44) and “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This is what we ought to do. This is what God deserves. But do you know anyone who has ever pulled off that perfection? Have you? God’s standard is not perfection because He is mean. His standard is perfection because perfection is His own character.
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