The Glory of God Series
April 13th 2008
The Glory of God: In His Being
Man was made to give glory to God. Of all of the things in this world nothing or no one is more deserving of glory than God. So over the next few weeks we are going to be looking at the glory of God found in His different characteristics. We are going to look at these traits of God and see what they show us about the uniqueness and majesty of the God that we serve. This week we are focusing on the glory of God in His being. God should be glorified not just for what He does, in the world or in lives, or how He acts, but simply for who He is. God is worthy of praise simply because He is God. Let’s pray:
The ontological argument for the existence of God basically states: I can conceive therefore it is. If we can think of it than that is proof that it exists. Thus if this argument is right we know that there is a God because we can conceive of God. If there was no God then it would be impossible for man to conceive of a being or entity that could be God because we cannot conceive of something that does not exist. You are welcome to try, but you will fail. Take a square triangle for example. You cannot conceive of it. You cannot picture it. It is impossible because a square triangle does not exist. You can picture a triangle…you can picture a square. But it is impossible to picture a square triangle. You cannot conceive of something that does not exist. By this logic anything that we can imagine or think of would in turn to some degree have to exist. So let’s try it. I want you to think of some imaginary thing that does not exist and tell me what you come up with. (GIVE TIME).
An opposition to this view would be that this argument does not prove the existence of God, God could just be a unicorn. By its own logic what we picture as God are really just inflated traits of man: love, knowledge, wisdom, power, truth. But there is one exception. That is creation ex nihilo or out of nothing. Man does not have the ability to create something out of nothing but we can conceive of it. So this trait gives some validity to this argument and while it does have its flaws serves as a quality support for the existence of God.
I had a professor in college that I really respected. I really enjoyed his classes. Not everyone did. Some people really didn’t like him. He is not the most social or friendly person and sometimes he can come across as rude. Someone once asked me: “Why do you like him so much? What makes him so great?” I told my friend: “He doesn’t play nice. He challenges you. If you slack off he calls you on it. He does not accept laziness and pushes you to be the best that you can be.” To me this professor was great because of what he did for me: Challenging me, calling me out, never accepting poor work. What he did made me think of him as a great teacher.
But what makes God so great? What makes Him so deserving of glory and honor and praise? Why is God great? The glory of God is found not just in what He does, but in who He is. God is so great that His very existence is the source of His glory. God is great because He is not like us. We are created…God…is not. God is eternal. He is without beginning and without end. Or is He?
Are you sure that God has no beginning? Are we sure that God was not created? Are you sure that God has always existed? 1Ti 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” So we know that God is eternal. But His being eternal could just be that He has no end, not that He has no beginning. Just think those who believe in Jesus Christ will inherit eternal life but that life still has a beginning. Each and every one of us who will inherit eternal life was born, we had a beginning. We might have eternal life but that does not mean we always existed. Something can be eternal and still have a beginning. So what makes us so sure that God has no beginning? What makes us so sure He was not created?
Well, God was there in the beginning. Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 both show that God was there in the beginning. But to say that means He has no beginning is an assumption. Just because God was around at the beginning of time and for the creation of the world does not mean that God has always been around does it? All this proves is that God has existed from the beginning of the world and will continue to exist for eternity.
Can you think of a single scripture that indicates that God has always existed? Can you think of a single verse that says that God has no beginning? The concept that God is without a beginning and without an end is universally accepted within the church but is it true? Is there any scripture to support this view? Any verse to validate this assumption? Let’s take a look:
1Co 2:7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
2Ti 1:9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
Tit 1:2 a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
So these verses indicate that God was around before the beginning of time. What does that say? God created time. Obviously He was around before that. But how long? This does not say that God existed eternally before the beginning of time, it just says that God was around before the beginning of time. Do you see? There is not a clear verse that indicates that God has no beginning. Scripture shows that God is forever and that He has no end. It does not show with any certainty that He has no beginning. What if we got it wrong? What if God does have a beginning just like we do? Maybe there was a time where God was created or birthed or whatever. After His creation God then developed His plan for the world. When everything was planned out God created time and then the world and everything in it. This is not to deny the eternality of God, but simply to note that we cannot prove that God has no beginning. Can you think of a single Scripture verse that proves God is without beginning?
Think about it: we can conceive of a life without end to some degree. We can picture and eternal life where no one dies and everyone lives forever. So we can to some degree understand eternality in a sense that once something has life it will never die. But we are completely incapable of understanding the idea that something has no beginning. We cannot conceive of it. We cannot understand it or wrap our minds around it. When we think of immortality we do not think of someone who has always been, but simply someone who will always be. In fact all of our understandings of immortality have nothing to do with having no beginning. A beginning is assumed. There are plenty of people who are obsessed with the idea of their life having no end. Pounce De Leon was searching for the fountain of youth not to go back and make sure he had always existed, but to ensure that from that point on he would always exist. Famous heroes of folklore and legend such as Beowulf devoted their lives to achieving immortality. Let’s face it, the idea of living on through the ages has always been appealing to the nature of man. We are fascinated, perhaps even obsessed with the idea that we could live forever. Our idea of eternity does not require something having no beginning, just something having no end.
Scripture does not prove God had no beginning. We cannot conceive of something having no beginning. So why do we believe it? Why do we just accept that God has always been when there is not a Biblical case to be made for it? Is it just tradition? Is it blind faith? Or perhaps it is an assumption we make that we have never taken the time to verify. Why believe that God has no beginnings if the Scriptures do not clearly show that? All the Scriptures say is that from the beginning God will always be. But maybe God had a beginning as well.
Let’s look at another Scripture from John 1:1:
Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jn 1:2 He was with God in the beginning. Jn 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. Jn 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. Jn 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
In the beginning: what a helpful little phrase. We see a time that is given to describe something that is timeless. When? In the beginning. Without this little phrase God would be much harder to understand. We are finite beings. Everything that we know has a beginning and an end. While we can conceive of something having no end, we don’t really know anything that does. Nothing that we know nothing that we understand lives forever. We cannot even truly understand forever. Life has a beginning. The beginning of your life is your birth. We cannot imagine something that does not have a beginning because everything that we see and know has a beginning. We then get older. We grow up. We go from infant to elder. Just as birth is the beginning of life, death is the end. Everyone that is born will die. Everything that has a beginning must then have an end. The problem is not what Scriptures prove, but our way of viewing things. We base our understanding of God off of our understanding of life and how it works. Everything we know has a beginning. To help us in our understanding the book of Genesis and the book of John start off: in the beginning. That way we know when the events transpired. So in the beginning was the word and was God. So God existed in the beginning. But that is not really where it begins. Scriptures can prove that God has always existed, we just have to understand what they are saying.
In the beginning is our way of understanding something that we cannot understand. We cannot understand something that is infinite because we are not infinite. We cannot understand something that exists outside of time because we live inside of time. Time is a construct of man not a reality of God. We look at time as a measurement for life. Time is by its very definition a limited interval between two events. Eternity is just a word to describe limitless time. God is not bound by time. He created it. Before there was time there just was. God is eternal. He always has been. The fact that God is outside of time proves that He has no beginning. For something to have a beginning it has to exist inside of time. Only things that exist inside of time have a beginning and an end. Before there was time, there was no beginning…there just was. When we die and enter into eternal life we will have no end, but if we had always been in eternity we would not have a beginning either. Everything in time has a beginning and an end. Eternity by its very definition is without beginning or end. The only reason we have a beginning is because we were not always eternal. In the beginning does not describe God’s beginning but our beginning. God does not have a beginning.
God existed not just in the beginning but before there was a beginning. Before there was time, before there was life, before there was a sun, or moon, or stars, before there were heavens, before there was the earth, there was God. God has always existed. He is not created, He is not finite. He just is. God is… In this trait He is unique from everything else in the world. Man is a creation. The world is a creation. Animals are a creation. Buildings are a creation. Cars are a creation. Everything that we know, everything that we see, is a creation. In order for something to be created, there has to be something there to create it. We have a beginning because God gave us a beginning. God however, has no beginning. The only thing in this world that has not been created is God.
Do you see now why He is worthy of praise? Do you see why He is so glorified? God is the only thing in existence that has no beginning. He just is. He is so great, so magnificent that we cannot even fathom all that He is. The ontological argument supports the idea of God, but in addition to that it shows us something very interesting. God is unique in that He is beyond our understanding. Why is God so great? Because no matter how smart, or how clever, or how educated we are, we cannot even begin to understand just how great He is. God is so great, we don’t even know how great He is, and if He wasn’t…He really wouldn’t be God.
Do you understand what this means in your life? Do you understand why this matters to you? Understanding the greatness of God is essential for appreciating how great He is. Don’t you see? The more we understand the greatness of God simply in His being God the better and more powerful our worship to Him will be.
Ps 113:5 Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, Ps 113:6 who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? Ps 113:7 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; Ps 113:8 he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people.
Understanding how great God is, how He has had no beginning and exists outside of time shows us just how great His sending His Son to earth was. God is not bound by time yet He entered into time for us. He sent Jesus to this world to be born. To live. To die. Jesus who had always existed did not just submit Himself to a beginning, but always to an end. He lived a finite life. The infinite clothed Himself with mortality. The glorious God covered Himself with the ordinary.
Ro 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, Ro 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Ro 3:24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
God who is not like man and far greater than we could understand made Himself like man in order to bring man to a life with Him. Do you see? The power of the love that God has for you? That He the uncreated, who exists outside of time was willing to leave behind His glory and His power, and step into time and submit Himself to the painful life of man.
