Is God selfish?

We greatly need the same truth presented by Mr. Haldane, and so much owned of God. When we love ourselves it is because we are selfish, but God in loving Himself shews His unselfishness. He is all that is perfect, He must love Himself, and He must labour unceasingly for the gratification of His own love. He must have the happiness of blessing, we may have all the happiness of being blessed. Would that we understood this better.

It may however be asked, What scripture do you give for this? The answer is that God says, "My glory will I not give to another." What is God's glory which He cannot give to another? The glory surely of being the source of all goodness and blessing. He cannot be otherwise than what He has ever been. "God is Love," and He cannot but sustain that character. This is His glory. Ours is to know Him in the love and to reflect that character.

Now this relationship of wants to that which supplies them in another is the link between my nature and all the qualities of the nature I lean on, and which supplies these wants. I know its qualities by the way it meets my not having them — my want of power. It is a moral link too. I know love by it, and all the unfolding of goodness; self-power never does. The exaltation of what is human in itself is the positive loss of what is divine, that is, infinite positive loss. There is immense moral depth in the apostle's word: When I am weak, then am I strong. And the more I have of God, and the more absolutely it is so, the more I gain. All is appropriated, but self is destroyed. It is not that I cease to exist, or to enjoy. It is not a Buddhist or stoical pantheistic absorption into God. I am always the conscious I for ever; yet an I which does not think of I, but of God in whom its delight is. It is a wonderful perfection — an absolute delight in what is perfect, but in what is perfect out of ourselves, so that self is morally annihilated, though it always is there personally to enjoy. This is partly now in the form of thirst, though there be enjoyment — hereafter, for those who have it, perfect enjoyment face to face. God alone is sufficient for Himself, is αὐταρχες, and hence not self-seeking, for that comes from not being satisfied, not sufficient for self. Out of Him the αὐταρχεια is pride, satisfaction with misery, and itself a sin; dependence is the right, holy, loving, excellent place. To be independent, if we are not God, is folly, stupidity, and a lie, living in a lie. If we are God, we must be the only one, or we are not it at all. Yet in Christianity we are made partakers of the divine nature, in order to our having the fullest capacity of enjoyment; but for that very reason we have (He being perfectly revealed) such a knowledge of Him as makes us undividedly delight in His infinite excellence, and makes our dependence to be our deriving in love from infinite excellence, and in our normal state unmingled delight in it.

Here, then, is the ground of redemption ― that upon which a soul can surely rest, revealed in God's covenant-name. He is the Self-existent One, who acts necessarily from Himself and according to His own nature: "all things were created by Him and for Him." (Col. 1:16.) That this is said of Christ shows at once who Christ is, and how truly He is the full expression of the divine mind. God is revealing Himself, acting for the display of Himself, — the joy and blessing of His creatures. And this is the true thought of His glorifying Himself, not as if glory could be conferred upon Him, or as if He craved or had need of something from His creatures. "Love seeketh not her own "(1 Cor. 13:5), and "God is love." If He seek His own glory, it is to fill as the sun the heavens with His brightness. This is grace, and the theme of His people's praise forever.

The end and object of all is the glory of God. It is perfectly, divinely true, that "God hath ordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass." In order to guard this from all possibility of mistake, we have only to remember who is this God, and what the glory that He seeks. It is He who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, — of Him in whom divine love came seeking not her own, among us as "One that serveth." It is He who, sufficient to Himself, can receive no real accession of glory from His creatures, but from whom" Love," as He is "Light," — cometh down every good and every perfect gift, in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Of His own alone can His creatures give to Him.

Can His creatures add aught to Him? Did the making of a universe put more into His treasury than it had before? Being sufficient to Himself from all eternity, if He would display His glory it must be from love's delight to fill with happiness the vessels which His hands prepared for this.

Now the blessing of the creature lies in his knowledge and enjoyment of God. He cannot do without an object; and to be happy that object must be something greater than himself. His moral and spiritual being is capable of being greatly and pleasantly excited, but if this pleasurable excitement springs from the enjoyment of things on a level with himself, not to say anything of things beneath him, it is not lasting, and his subsequent depression is often greater than it would have been had he not partaken of the stimulant. His object must be something greatly above him; and not only that, but it must be infinite; something that is inexhaustible; something in which he will be finding for a whole eternity fresh delight.

God alone is sufficient for Himself. He requires nothing external to Himself to make His happiness supreme. The creation, which is the work of His hands, has added nothing to His happiness. He brought it into existence for His own pleasure. But that fact does not prove that He could not have done without it. He created it to please Himself, and when created, He had pleasure in it, for His thought was expressed in it; and that thought could not be otherwise than pleasing to Him. But it could not increase His happiness, for all that He saw in it was, so far as it went, the reflex of Himself, and by it nothing was added to the infinite wealth of felicity which lay in Himself.

But it is different with the creature who is set in relationship with his Creator. He is not sufficient for himself, but must find all his delight in God. All he has is from the bounty of God, but God is greater than all He gives; and it is Himself, and not merely that which He gives, that makes man’s cup of happiness overflow. Our Lord, when here upon earth, in the days of His humiliation, found all His delight in God. He says, “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup” (Ps. 16:5). And this was not to end upon earth, for He also says, “In Thy presence is fullness of joy: at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” True happiness, therefore, is found in the knowledge and enjoyment of God Himself; and that His creature might find his happiness here, He has made Himself manifest in His beloved Son. In Him we find God, and in Him we are brought to the fountain of all blessing.

It is strange, but I suppose it is because we are so largely under the influence of the fleshly mind, that we so persistently keep ourselves in sight, and this well nigh to the exclusion of God. Ourselves, our own blessing, and our own glorification, are often in our minds. The objects to which all the ways of God lead up, and the glory of God, though religiously admitted, is very dimly before our minds. And as we are to such a large extent our own object, we are liable to think we must be God’s object also. In this way we in measure deify ourselves. What Adam grasped at in the beginning (equality with God), seems ingrained in the flesh, and refuses to be expelled. But from this, a merciful and gracious God would deliver us, and give us to see that His own glory and satisfaction must be the end which He has in view in everything that He does. The eternal blessing of the creature who submits with all his heart to the decrees of God is certain, and the everlasting confusion of the rebellious is just as sure. God must be His own Object in everything He does, and this anyone can understand, for when He began His works, (and whatever men may say to the contrary there was a beginning), there was nothing to influence His mind; He wrought from Himself and for His own glory, and “of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things” (Rom. 11:36), and “Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev. 4:11). Until we see this we are not upon our proper basis; our minds vacillate and our movements are eccentric; man has undue importance in our eyes, and in our attempts to serve his we are in danger of turning to human methods, and forget for the moment what is due to God. But the blessed God has placed Himself before us in Christ that we may be attracted to Him, and find in Him an Object that completely fills our vision and captivates our heart, so that there may be no room for an idol in whatever guise it may approach us. And it is to this end He has declared Himself in Christ.

Most surely. There never can be any other purpose before God than His own glory, because when His counsels were brought forth there was no one whose blessing needed to be considered. His counsels were before all His works, and therefore, there was no one to take into consideration except Himself. But He has been pleased to create myriads to be spectators of His glory, and others to share the glory that can be shared by the creature. He has bound up our blessing with His glory. And as we have it in this chapter, "That we should be to the praise of His glory," and as the hymn has it: —

There is but one only sense in which God cannot suffice to Himself, that is, in His love; His love needs other beings besides Himself to render them happy. He will render others happy.

And, oh, dear brethren, what principles are here disclosed to us! Our God is asserting for Himself the place of supreme power and supreme goodness, and He will have us debtors to Him. Our sense of His fulness is more precious to Him than all the service we can render Him. Entitled, as He is, to more than all creation could give Him, yet above all things does He desire that we should use His love, and draw from His treasures. The honour which our confidence puts upon Him is His highest honour; for it is the divine glory to be still giving, still blessing, still pouring forth from unexhausted fulness. Under the law He had to receive from us, but in the gospel He is giving to us; and the words of the Lord Jesus are these — "It is more blessed to give than to receive." And this place He will fill for ever; for, "without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better." Praise shall, it is true, arise to Him from every thing that hath breath; but forth from Himself, and from the seat of His glory, shall go the constant flow of blessing, the light to cheer, the waters to refresh, and the leaves of the tree to heal; and our God shall have His own joy, and display His own glory, in being a Giver for ever.