What does it mean that God is great?
Scripture declares again and again that God is great — "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised" (1 Chronicles 16:25). But what does this greatness actually consist in? Several writers unfold distinct facets of this truth.
God Is Great as Creator
The most fundamental aspect of God's greatness is that He alone brought all things into existence. F. A. Hughes opens his meditation on Genesis 1:1 by grounding everything in this:
F. A. Hughes"In the beginning God created". These first "five words" of the Bible reveal a glory which is peculiar to God — He is the Creator. He alone has "brought into existence" (created) all that does exist. The word used in Genesis 1 — Elohim — is a plural word and indicates that the Godhead was engaged in the mighty act of creation.
Frank Hole, commenting on Elihu's argument in the book of Job, brings the same point into focus — God's supreme greatness is seen first and foremost in the fact that He made all things:
Frank HoleThe answer Elihu gave was based upon the supreme greatness of God as the Creator. Further than this he could not go, but that knowledge he had in common with all men after the flood. From that primeval knowledge the mass of mankind soon departed, as Romans 1:20-21, declares.
Elihu turned to dwell upon the things that lie wholly out of man's control — the clouds, the winds, the thunder, the lightning, the rain, the snow, the frost — and as Hole notes, "his heart trembled and was deeply moved."
God Is Greater Than Man — His Sovereignty and Rightness
One of the most searching aspects of God's greatness is that it places man in his proper position. C. H. Mackintosh draws out the simple but devastating truth of Job 33:12:
C. H. Mackintosh"Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man." What a simple truth! And yet how little understood! If God is greater than man, then, obviously, He, and not man, must be the Judge of what is right. This the infidel heart refuses; and hence the constant tendency to sit in judgment upon the works and ways and word of God — upon God Himself.
Frank Hole expands on this, showing that God's greatness encompasses both His absolute rightness and His sustaining power:
Frank HoleThe absolute perfection and rightness of all God's ways is what Elihu asserts; a matter of the greatest importance, seeing He is supreme in all the earth... If He only thought of Himself, and gathered to Him His spirit and His breath; then the result would be that all flesh would expire together and man return to the dust. Such is the greatness as well as the rightness of God.
God's greatness is not raw power alone — it is power exercised always in perfect justice. He sustains all life moment by moment, and every act of His government is right.
God's Greatness Seen in the Power of Resurrection
The greatness of God reaches its supreme display in raising Christ from the dead. Frank Hole, commenting on Ephesians 1, traces this carefully:
Frank HoleHere clearly resurrection comes before us in this light: His resurrection is the test case, and we learn the greatness of God's power toward us according to that. Small wonder therefore that the apostle uses the forcible language he does. God's power towards us — His people — is exceeding (or surpassing) great because measured according to the working of the might of His power (margin) which He wrought in Christ.
This is the "exceeding greatness" of Ephesians 1:19 — power that overcame sin, death, and Satan's full opposition, and raised Christ not merely from the grave but to the right hand of God, "far above all principality and power."
God's Greatness Displayed in His Love and Provision
God's greatness is not abstract or remote — it is displayed in what He gives. Hugo Bouter writes of how God Himself provided the sacrificial lamb:
Hugo BouterHow great is our God that He Himself provided this sacrificial lamb! Adam and Eve experienced this when they were clothed with garments of skin in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:21). Not man but God was the first One to bring a sacrifice, and He clothed the first human couple with the skins of these animals in order to cover their nakedness.
F. A. Hughes gathers many of these threads together, moving from God's greatness as Creator to the "everlasting arms" that flow from this great God toward His people:
F. A. HughesAs we read such Scriptures we are led to exclaim with David — "Great is the Lord (Jehovah) and greatly to be praised" (1 Chronicles 16:25). "He also is to be feared above all gods." Such holy sentiments engaged also the heart of Solomon his son as he commenced to build the House of God — "The house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods" (2 Chronicles 2:5).
And further:
This mighty God, He who is "from everlasting to everlasting," has been revealed in Christ in perfect love, and His movements in grace towards us are characterized by what He is in Himself... "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."
God's Greatness Humbles Man and Transforms the Heart
A thread running through all these writers is that encountering God's greatness produces a moral revolution. F. A. Hughes states this with great directness:
The greatness of God and the worthlessness of the flesh are truths learned only in the presence of God Himself!
J. T. Mawson writes of how the believer who has been "refreshed in the sanctuary" is changed, and life's burdens become opportunities rather than grievances:
J. T. MawsonYes, and we shall be changed as we behold the glory of the Lord in His sanctuary. The burdens and buffetings of life may remain, and circumstances be unchanged, but we shall be changed, and become rich in faith, and they will become the opportunities for us to show how great is our God. No longer shall we murmur at the inequalities of life but refreshed in the sanctuary we shall joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That God is great means, at its core, that He is above all — above all gods, all powers, all creation — and yet intimately concerned with the smallest details of human life. His greatness is seen in the work of creation, in the power that raised Christ from the dead, in the justice and rightness of all His government, and in the depth of love that led Him to provide His own Lamb for sinners. But this is not a doctrine to be merely affirmed; it is a reality to be experienced. It is in the presence of God — in the sanctuary, in the reading of His Word, in the contemplation of Christ — that a person truly grasps both how great God is and how small he is himself. And that discovery, far from being crushing, is the beginning of true spiritual freedom: the "everlasting arms" that uphold the universe are underneath the one who learns to rest there.