Looking for a Lover?

A Response to the Lonely God
by James Hescock

There’s that song again! I thought. Sounds so cool, this melodious sound of like, indie rock? And the girl’s voice! It plagued me. Who is this? I thought. It was later that day that I heard it playing from a friend’s desk. So at this point, I couldn’t take it any longer. So I went over, I got up real close, and leaned my ear in to hear what she was saying. There it was, that familiar melody, but now with words about God forming the heavens with his word, the universe with his breath. My anticipation was building, Finally! This is gonna be cool. Here came the chorus: “God is a lover, looking for a lover, so He fashioned me. God is a lover looking for a lover, so He formed my heart.”

I winced, and my heart sank. Wait a minute. I know this, I thought. “God made us because he was lonely. He is Love and God being Love, he needs someone to love, right? So, he made you and me.” Have you ever heard this? Many of us probably have. But is this the truth? Is this really what the Bible tells us?

Well, no. It’s not. And before I lay out before you reasons why God is not a lonely God, it’s vital for us to see why this debate is so important. It is important for two reasons:

One, the glory of God is at stake. I think this one is obvious to most people. Our very image of God is what’s on the line here in this debate. If at any point we ascribe God to be something that he is not, his true glory is denied; hidden from us to be seen and savored, and furthermore, to be spread to the nations. Therefore, what’s at stake here is God’s glory.

Two, eternal life hangs in the balance. Scripture tells us that the saints are sanctified by “beholding the glory of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). “Without holiness, no man will see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14). Now, do you see what’s at stake here? Sanctification is the process by which God’s people are made more and more into his own image, that is, made holy. And this holiness is crucial in order to “see the Lord” and without it, they won’t—ever. Therefore, if the glory of God is hidden from being beheld by his saints — at any point — it threatens to shut down this process of sanctification, and furthermore, choke eternal life. Do you see it now? This is serious. Eternal life hangs in the balance.

So here’s what I hope to do: I hope, in this short essay, to at least plant enough doubt in your mind to put in check your confidence in this notion of a lonely God and then point you to resources that will help fill in all the gaps I overlook. Yet beyond that, what I really hope to do, under God, is to free you from the terrible trappings of this man-centered, codependent, lonely God, and to set you to lose yourself in continual, self-forgetful moments of sheer wonder and awe in view of an all-sufficient, God-centered, and glorious God. That’s what I’m really out to kick-start here in this essay.

So let’s get this straight: God is infinitely satisfied in God. God is not “a lover looking for a lover.” That’s not why he fashioned you.[1] God the Father says of God the Son in Matthew 3:17, “This is my Son, My Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” (emphasis mine). Literally: “With whom I am and have always been pleased.” For all eternity God the Father has delighted in his Son, brim-full with pleasure upon pleasure, moment after moment, forever and ever without end. God loves — delights in — his Son and there is no deficiency in God which the Son could not satisfy.

And so it has been that each person in the Trinity has been perfectly fulfilled by one another moment after moment in ever increasing pleasure as they behold in each other the glory of each person in the Godhead. It is an insult to the Almighty to say that he was lonely before there was man. God was not and is not lonely.

Furthermore, it wasn’t love that God was looking for in Creation, but mirrors. You were made to for the glory of God. “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.” (Is. 43:7, emphasis mine.) One pastor puts it like this:

“[Creation:] The Son and the Father beholding in each other their mutual perfections, and delighting in infinite energy in each other overflowed or exploded with superabundance in the creation of the world, so that the world is the spin-off of the joy and the life and the love that God has in himself.” (emphasis mine.)[2]

You and I are the spin off — or, the demonstration — of the joy God has in himself; each person a parable of the glory of God. (Ps.19:1; John 1:1;) Though tainted by the Fall, every aspect of the Created Order is meant to tell of the glory of God. (Ps. 19:1) That’s the “why” behind our creation—not to fulfill a lack of love in the Father’s heart, but to display the glory of God.

So, brethren, let Jesus Christ receive all his glory! To that end, in view of God’s bountiful sufficiency and the ineffable beauty of his Son Jesus, let us give ourselves to gazing upon, and beholding the glory of God, raptured in his own delight in himself that he’s always had since before the foundation of the world. And do so, until the wind of your joy in God sets you to be blown about to great endeavors of missions and mercy for his name’s sake and the good of his people.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 25, 26)



Resources

· John Piper (www.desiringgod.org)
o “God Created Us for His Glory”
o “The Pleasure of God in His Creation”
o “Is God for Us or for Himself?”
§ Shows everything God does is for his glory.
§ Objections Answered:
· God is arrogant if he pursues his own glory.
· God is unloving if he pursues his own glory.

· Wayne Grudem
o Systematic Theology; pg. 272

· Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
o “A Slice of Infinity: God in Three Persons”, by Betsy Childs

[1] Lyrics from Misty Edward’s song “See the Way”. (Edwards, Misty. See the Way. Forerunner Music. 2005)
[2] Piper, John. The Pleasure of God in His Creation. Desiring God Radio. 2005