THE TRIAL

DEFENDANT:  God

OCCUPATION:  Maker, ruler, judge of heavens and earth

ADDRESS:  Everywhere, particularly “the heavens” 

CHARGE:  Being selfish

THE EVIDENCE:

1.  Hell, Fires of.  Billions will suffer there, and the Defendant says he will do it to “display his wrath.” 

2.  Intolerance of non-Christian religions.  He calls them idolatry and says he will punish them.

3.  Intolerance of numerous behaviors that people enjoy.

4.  Insistence that people focus all attention on Defendant all the time.  Intolerant of those who do otherwise.

5.  Multiple unexpected outbursts of anger.

6.  Repeated remarks that everything must happen for Defendants own glory.  Refusal to share glory with others.

DEFENDANTS PLEA:  Guilty as charged.

 Jonathan Edwards (1707-58)

There are lots of passages in the Bible that honestly trouble a lot of Christians—passages where God kills people, punishes people, says things that seem intolerant, offensive, even selfish.  Whenever a passage in the Bible rubs us the wrong way, it should give us pause, because the problem is not with the Bible, but with us.  What is it we don’t understand about God’s character that makes some of God’s actions seem so unfair?  There is one simple truth that—once grasped—makes us see things as God sees them and unlocks a renewed understanding of God and God’s ways.  One single passion drives God’s heart.  That passion, as teachers like Augustine and Jonathan Edwards have helped us to see, is this:  God’s primary concern in everything he does is to bring glory to himself.

God is chiefly concerned with his own fame.  God is self-centered.  Selfish, one might even say.  If there's one thing we know from the Bible, it's that God is chiefly concerned with the honor of his name—just look at the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.  Before ever getting to ourselves and our needs, we pray for God’s name to be honored, for God’s rule (kingdom) to be furthered and for God’s will to be done.  Even when God saves sinners from their sins—a supreme act of generosity—God insists that he's doing it for his own benefit more than for theirs.  Observe how God speaks of salvation in Isaiah 48:11:

"For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.  How can I let myself be defamed?  I will not yield my glory to another."

Think about it.  If it is man's highest purpose that he glorify God, how can we expect God to have a lesser purpose?  Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength.  God has not disobeyed this commandment.  The first commandment was to have no other gods before the LORD.  God is not an idolater.  The most passionate heart for God in all the universe is God's heart.  God's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy himself forever.  God is not an instrument, but the end for which we exist.  This is why the English revivalist George Whitefield cried, “Let the name of Whitefield perish, so long as God is glorified!”

George Whitefield (1713-70)

God is ultimate, not us.  And true religion ultimately exists not for humanity, but for God.  This is only reasonable.  It is wrong for a man to be self-centered because man is not actually the center of the universe.  God is, has always been, and always shall be the center of the universe.  Were God to act as if another were central to the universe, that "other" would be God.  It is wrong for man to judge, as if he were God, because he isn't God.  But God is God, and it is right for him to perform the functions that are only worthy of God.  Besides, God is God, and his perfect character is the very standard of good and evil.  Whatever God desires is good.  And God chiefly desires himself.  The biblical doctrine of predestination will make no sense until we grasp this central aspect of God’s heart.

The ultimate answer to every question is “to glorify of God”:

God even ordains evil for the greater good of the display of God's character.  Look at Romans 9:19-24.  God ordains human sin so he can make his wrath known.  This display would be impossible without evil.  God also allows our evil choices so he can make his mercy known.  This too would be impossible without evil.  A world with evil is thus eternally significant in a way that a world without evil would not be.  It can bring a greater display of God’s character.  Again, in all he does, God’s chief concern is to bring honor to himself.

This teaching tends to hit people like a ton of bricks.  Why?  Is this a terrible notion?  Not at all—this is it a cause for joy!  Granted, if we’re living for ourselves, then we should be depressed.  But if what we really want is for our Father to be honored, then no teaching should thrill us more!  God’s self-centered majesty is what I find most beautiful about God—that God is God and there is no other!  Jonathan Edwards suggested that until God's selfishness is precisely what attracts us to God, we may not yet have begun to love God at all, but only ourselves.  The heart of true worship is in line with God’s heart, and wants nothing more than for the King to be magnified.  Let us remember Henry Blamires’ warning:

“If we try to change the face of eternal God, we indulge in the supreme idolatry, beside which perhaps, in the scale of sin, adultery weighs like a feather and murder like a farthing.  Yet the sin is committed among us, within Christendom, within the Church-- maybe within ourselves; for are we sure, after all, that we prayed to the true God this morning?”