Glory Be to Our Great God | Conclusion
Why We'll Never Stop Thinking of, Thanking, and Beholding Our Great God
Hallelujah
Glory be to our great God
Hallelujah
Glory be to our great God
- Fernando Ortega, “Our Great God”O praise the name of the Lord our God
O praise His name forever more
For endless days we will sing Your praise
Oh Lord, oh Lord our God
- Hillsong Worship, “O Praise the Name (Anástasis)Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
- Anonymous (2nd Century), “Gloria Patri”Go on up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!” - Isaiah 40:9God is the one God and the only God only if no one and no thing can be what he is alongside of Him or under Him. And only if He is independent and unchangeable, eternal and omnipresent, can He be the God of our unconditional faith, of our absolute trust, and our perfect salvation. - Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God, 120.
Trying to describe the incomprehensible God is no easy task, but it is the wondrous task that we will have the privilege of doing for all eternity; indeed, there is no higher calling for the church than to know and glorify God. - Stephen Wellum, Systematic Theology Vol. 1, 668.
To Whom Will You Compare God?
I don’t think any of us has ever been as depressed and hopeless as the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Put yourself in the dusty sandals of a Jewish captive in the year 586 BC, looking back at the city of Jerusalem with its walls demolished and Solomon’s Temple desecrated, with all its treasures being carried away by filthy pagan hands. You and your fellow captives who survived the slaughter are brought back to the Babylonian Empire. Can you imagine the emotions you might have felt as days, weeks, months, and even years pass by as you think about your former home? Moreover, how would you feel when reflecting on how God promised to give the Israelites a home in the land of Canaan? You would probably feel the same way as the psalmist did when he wrote:
By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? - Psalm 137:1-4
How devastating! How can you sing a song of praise to God when it feels like God has abandoned you and thrown away his promises? But why were these Jews now exiles to begin with? It was due to their sin, specifically their constant idolatry. In light of their sin—from rejecting his prophets to constant idol worship—God has every right to punish his people for their sin. They deserve to be exiled and even abandoned by God for sin. Idolaters deserve no mercy from the one, true, and living God, the LORD. It’s no wonder the exiles were saying, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God” (Isa. 40:27)
But what if the LORD God didn’t abandon you? In fact, what if, through one prophet, Isaiah, God spoke words not of judgment but of comfort? Isaiah foretells how the glory of the Lord will be revealed and how the strife of Israel against God has ceased (Isa. 40:1-8), but he then commands the ruined city of Jerusalem to proclaim this good news to all of Judah. But notice what he commands the cities of Judah to do:
“Behold your God!”
Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young. - Isaiah 40:9-11
It is by beholding God in all his glory that the exiles will find comfort, healing, and renewal. Throughout the rest of Isaiah 40, Isaiah shows how God, because of all that he is, cannot be compared to the idols and is the ultimate source of comfort. This is no “god” like the rest of the nations It is this God who not only is the true God but also the one whose glory will be revealed through Jesus Christ.
This is what we have been doing in this series—beholding God.
Some Reflections on 31 Days Reflecting on God
In these 31 articles (32 including the introduction post), I have sought to reflect on the key aspects of the doctrine of God—his nature, persons, and works—and apply them to life. Looking back, I’ve been deeply encouraged in my walk with God as I’ve reflected on who and what he is and how that affects my day-to-day experience. You will never waste any time when meditating on God, and there are several highlights that I want to bring before you in conclusion to the best project I’ve worked on thus far.
1. God is the Foundation for all Systematic Theology.
John Webster has defined Christian theology as “a work of regenerate intelligence, awakened and illuminated by divine instruction to consider a twofold object. This object is, first, God in himself in the unsurpassable perfection of his inner being and work as Father, Son and Spirit and in his outer operations, and second and by derivation, all other things relative to him.”1 This is a helpful definition for the task that systematic theology is seeking to do, but notice what (or in this case, who) is the main focus and subject of theology? God. Yes, other doctrines make up the rest of Christian belief, but all of them are not only interconnected with each other but also find their foundation in the nature and works of God.
I wonder if you noticed many theological connections as we explored each aspect of the doctrine of God. Here are some connections I’ve thought up at the top of my head:
Because God is one, simple, undivided Lord, there is no other name by which we must be saved.
Because God is incomprehensible and knowable, he freely and graciously chose to reveal himself to us not just through creation but also through his speech to us (especially his written word).
Because God is the Creator of all things, we recognize that we were created by him in his image for glorifying and enjoying him.
Because God is holy, good, and righteous, he is the source of absolute morality, and sin can be defined as anything that is in opposition to his character, design, and commands.
Because God is immutable and impassible, all of his plans are fixed, and thus his actions are not done under coercion by outside influences.
Because God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and sovereign, nothing that happens in life is an accident that is outside of his purposes.
Because God is Triune, the Father sent his Son into creation to take on a truly human nature to accomplish the plan of salvation. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to personally reside in the lives of sinners to transform them into saints.
Because God is Covenantal, he chose to set apart a people for his own possession, and in Christ, the church is the bride of Christ and the means for his Great Commission.
Because God is eternal and all-sufficient, all who are saved by Christ will one day enjoy the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
This is only a handful of theological implications, but it is clear that without God, we can’t do theology. Because God is all that he is, all of theological inquiry starts with him.
2. No Great God = No Great Salvation
Speaking of starting with God, the doctrine of God leads us to see the doctrine of salvation in full color. I mentioned in the introductory article of this series how we often study theology by starting with the doctrine of salvation. However, although it is good to know the nature of how we experience God’s saving work in our lives, we can easily short-circuit our understanding of salvation by neglecting our understanding of the God who saves us.2
Imagine yourself in this scenario. You have just started getting into theology because your friends at church were talking about a sermon they heard about how God chooses those whom he will save. You are shocked at first, but then you ask for that sermon and later watch it. You then start running down the rabbit trail of looking up sermons and bible passages about how God chose to save sinners, not because of what they have done or how they would respond, but out of sheer grace. You then connect the dots that if God is the one who chooses to save sinners, those who are saved have to be born again to trust in Christ for their salvation. By the end of a month or two, you’ve finally realized that your salvation, from start to finish, can only be a work of God. Praise the Lord!
But here’s the question: What kind of God can accomplish this kind of salvation? It can’t be the “gods” of this world or how you used to view God before you got saved. It has to be the God of the Bible who is all that he says he is. You see, if God is not the all-sufficient, simple, infinite LORD who is perfect in all that he is, then how can we believe in a Jesus who truly saves sinners? You can’t. As I’ve worked through each aspect of Theology Proper, I’ve realized more and more both the necessity of rightly knowing God for our salvation and the magnificence of our salvation because God is what he is.3 Therefore, our salvation is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit giving himself to us.
This changes everything for us.
3. The Doctrine of God Grounds Gospel Sanity in the Christian Life.
I remember telling a group of guys, “The Doctrine of God isn’t for theological gymnastics. It is for Gospel sanity. The Doctrine of God is the difference between Gospel sanity in the sovereign grace of God and suicide.”4 This sounds hyperbolic, but I’m serious.
What will keep you sane in life when everything around you is falling apart?
What will enable you to get up and shake off all guilty fears and despair when all you want to do is just sit in them?
What will empower you to persevere through the toughest of trials, temptations, and struggles?
What will turn your curses against God into “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 12:15)?
When life feels like a living hell due to your sins and failures or the circumstances you are in, to whom will you turn for relief and hope? It cannot be in ourselves since we are not only creatures but also sinners who can’t save ourselves. If left to ourselves, then we ought to despair because we and everything around us will fail at some point.
But if God is who he says he is, then we have not just any ordinary hope but an everlasting hope. As Asaph declares, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:8). Notice, God alone is the source of strength for our hearts and ought to be our portion forever. If that is the case, then our growth in knowing who and what he is will only increase our confidence in him as our sure and steady anchor of hope throughout our lives. And think about all that we’ve reflected on about him? If God is infinite in all of his perfections—power, knowledge, sovereignty, presence, goodness—, then we can be “sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).
This might be the most important takeaway from the doctrine of God, because the battle for the Christian’s daily life as Coram Deo (living “before the face of God”) starts with fighting to believe that God is all that he is over the lies of our sin, Satan, and this world throw at us. Will we fix the eyes of our hearts and minds to meditate on the richness of God’s awesomeness, or will we believe that he is not enough and not for us?
4. Are Our Churches in Awe of the God-ness of God?
Here is a sobering question for us to ask ourselves: Are we as Christians and churches deeply in awe of God? I have mentioned this quote from Stephen Wellum a few times in previous posts, but I believe that what he states is necessary for every generation of Christians:
In a day when we are often consumed by many ‘good’ things but not primarily the glory of God, we need to turn from our self-absorpotion to the centrality of God and the lordship of Christ in every area of our lives. As the church, we need to once again call out to our God in repentance and faith and petition him to renew us, to continue to bring new life to the spiritually dead, and to turn us from our self-centeredness to love and adoration of the only true God, who alone worthy of our devotion.5
In 1973, J. I. Packer warned in the preface of his book, Knowing God, that “ignorance of God—ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him—lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.”6 This indictment still rings true today, as many churches seem to be more focused on cultural relevance and viral attraction rather than thinking deeply about the deep things of God. However, tied deeply in the mission of the Church is the reality of who God is, as Jesus commissioned the universal church to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19, emphasis added). As Gregg Allison writes, “ The church is the people of God who have been saved through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and have been incorporated into his body through baptism with the Holy Spirit.”7 The nature of God is central to the nature and discipleship of the church because he is the one who saved it and to whom all her praises are due. Therefore, to be the church God has made us to be, why wouldn’t our local churches want to seek to be in awe of how glorious God is and all that he has done?
So, how should this affect our local churches? In every single way! The God-ness of God should touch every facet of a local church’s life. Let’s start with the Sunday worship service. When the congregation is called to worship, are they called to behold their God? Throughout the service, are they hearing the written word of God being read? Is the holiness and righteousness of God evidenced by the call to confess sin and repent corporately? Is the goodness and love of God displayed in the prayers of gospel assurance? Are the songs being sung not only played with human excellence but full of the riches of the character, nature, and works of God? Does the pastor preaching the Bible proclaim the greatness of God and his gospel of grace demonstrated through the Father sending the Son to save sinners who are made alive by the Holy Spirit? Is there an expectation that when God’s Word is preached, the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of hearers to call them to respond to the preached Word? I could expand on the doctrine of God not only in connection with the worship service but also in various other ministries, including teaching, counseling, youth discipleship, music ministry, evangelism, missions,8 and many more.
I think you get the picture now: The Triune God is LORD of the church with Christ as her head.
5. Because God is All that He is, He is the Joy that We’ve Been Longing For.
As I worked on this series, I could not help but think about when I picked up John Piper’s books, Don’t Waste Your Life and Desiring God, because as I wrote each post, I would think to myself, “And this reality about God is for joy in him.”9 If, as Piper has said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,”10 our joy only increases when we grow in beholding our great God. If God alone makes known to us “the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11), then the path of true happiness can be experienced today when we seek to know God more than before. Why wouldn’t you want to get lost in the wonders of God’s Triunity as Father, Son, and Spirit, the mysteries of his all-sufficiency and simplicity, and his works of providence and salvation? Jesus was right when he prayed to the Father, saying, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
If the Christian life’s purpose statement is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever,”11 then this is a life that can only be fueled by the infinite Triune God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The fuel for Christian living is not the newest trend on TikTok or a 12-step self-help guide but knowing and being known by God, who is our joy. With us being surrounded by so many distractions trying to capture our attention, whether from our workplaces to our phones, there is only one who is worthy of all attention, acknowledgement, and glory. Whereas everything in this world will only leave us empty, there is only one thing, no, person, not only deserves all glory but also is our joy, life, satisfaction, and, ultimately, salvation, which drives our entire lives: God, the Triune, Covenant LORD. It is this God who not only empowers but also satisfies us because we were made by him and for him (Col. 1:17).
To God be Glory Forever. Amen.
So what now? Have we arrived at a total understanding of the nature, persons, and works of God?
Answer: Absolutely, no!
But have we grown in our knowledge of God more than before?
Answer: Of course!
And this isn’t the end of our time in reflecting on the nature, persons, and works of God. There is so much more to the doctrine of God that we could’ve explored, but that is why, every year, new books are being published and older ones are republished. We are living in a wonderful time when the doctrine of God is being retrieved from church history, and many are discovering for the first time how vast knowing God in himself and his works is. But if eternal life is all about knowing God and being known by him through Jesus Christ (John 17:3), then studying Theology Proper is not merely an academic exercise but a lifelong journey of building a relationship with our maker, king, savior, and friend.
It is this God who not only is the subject matter of all theology but also the source of our joy and our unending need. He alone is the one who deserves all our praise and devotion. He alone is our comfort and healing for us who, like the Jewish exiles Isaiah prophesied to, need God to save us sinners. He alone is our highest good, who never gets boring when we seek him.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. - Romans 11:33–36
John Webster, God without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology, Vol. 1: God and the Works of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 3.
Sidenote: I hold to a classical Calvinist view of the doctrine of salvation, and I’m convinced that the historic classical doctrine of God, as rooted in the Great Tradition, should lead you to a Reformed doctrine of salvation. If all that is in God is God, then our salvation must be completely his work, not ours.
Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1: From Canon to Concept (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 669.
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 12.
Gregg R. Allison, Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 29.
Sidenote: I really, REALLY want to write a post on how much John Piper played a huge role in my early development as a Christian.
John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, rev. ed. (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2011), 287.
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 1.