Why is God Consumed with Himself?

I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. -Is 42:8


There is a confession of the Christian faith that I have struggled with over the years. It has always been a nagging dissatisfaction in the back of my mind, a thought that I have never given much expression to, but which has nevertheless remained a firm fixture over the years. I do believe that I am not the only Christian that has had this question; indeed, I believe that many Christians either flat out reject the idea or, like myself, are quietly provoked by it.

The confession is this: God, Creator of the heavens and the earth, is consumed with His own glorification.

The sound of this statement is disturbing, but why? I believe that our disturbance lies in error on our behalf, rather than on God’s. In the Scriptures, God condescends to use anthropomorphizing terms to describe Himself. That is, to enable our getting to know Him better, He has used language to describe Himself in human terms though He is not a human. There are a plethora of examples in Scripture of this; the Psalms are ripe with them, as are the Prophets. Indeed, God does not only use anthropomorphic terms to describe Himself, He has taken on human nature to save us. But He is still not a human being.

As a caveat, I am not denying the divinity of Christ, what I am denying is that God shares the same status as human beings. He alone exists uncreated, in a class separate from every other thing in existence. Unlike any human, His power is limitless, His knowledge knows no end, and His existence has no origin or termination.

That said, our balking at the original statement comes, I believe, when we forget who God is. For any man or woman to have their personal glorification as the vision for their existence would be narcissism at its purest and a value which humanity would universally reject as taboo and loathsome.

Yet God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is different. Consider this, who does a man or woman have to thank for their accomplishments? If they succeed in their job, if they raise their children well, if they reach any other goal in life, the thanks will lie somewhere outside themselves, if they are honest.

Take a persons career, for instance. To succeed in a career, one has to be trained to some degree by another. Circumstances must also be favorable and the right opportunities need to open up at the right times. In other words, success in a career is dependent on many variables external to the individual. There may be some measure of talent inherent in an individual that will make success in a career more likely, but that talent is not something they have bestowed on themselves. If we believe what the Bible does say, we must admit that God gives individuals the talents they have to succeed. Not only that, He also gives the training and the opportunities for success, through various mediums to be sure, but all these blessings originate from Him. So, a person has little to thank him or herself for when they succeed.

On the other hand, no one has trained God, no one has given Him opportunities, and no one has made Him with certain talents that will help Him succeed at being God. There is no one higher than God for God to thank. We delight in Him because He is the originator of the good in us. Logically, He can delight in Himself because He is the originator of the good that He is. He is consumed with the best thing that exists: Himself!