How do God's love and God's desire to bring glory to Himself relate to one another?

The Bible frequently refers to God loving, and God wanting to bring glory to Himself. At various points in Christian history, each of these aims have been seen as merely means to the end of achieving the other. (For an example of God's desire to bring glory to Himself as the ultimate one, see, for example, Perkins.[1] For an example of God's love as the ultimate one, see, for example, W. H. Vanstone.[2]) In this essay, I will analyse the likelihood of each of these positions.

Throughout, I will assume that everything in the bible, when correctly interpreted, infallibly reveals God. Although I am aware that this is far from universally held, I will simply assume this and regard any justification of this as beyond the scope of this essay.

In order to answer the question posed in the title, I will have to understand what it means to seek ones glory, and to love. As we shall see, variant ideas about what it means to love are integral to much discussion on this topic, and it would be difficult to discuss the nature of love without discussing other issues concerned, so I shall discuss what it means to love where it is relevant in the essay. However, it will be best to deal with the definition of God's desire to bring Himself glory at the beginning.

"While holiness expresses God's transcendence, his glory concerns rather his immanence to the world."[3] God's glory means God revealing his nature to his creation.[4] God's desire to bring glory to Himself therefore means effectively His desire to display His qualities of greatness, power, moral perfection, etc. Closely related to this concept is the idea of God doing things "for the sake of His name"; the idea of God doing things in order to enable people to recognise and respect His greatness. In this essay, I shall treat the two as effectively one aspect of the divine character.

I will begin this essay by arguing that all of God's deeds and actions are motivated by love. I believe that this can be proven[5] by a proper exegesis of 1 John 4:8 and 16, both of which contain the statement "God is love." I do not know whether or not we can argue from this that God's substance is love, but we can certainly argue from it a good deal about God's character. I will do this by looking at the passage in context of John's wider argument in 1 John.

1 John "presents to its readers a series of tests whereby their lives, and the lives of other professing Christians, can be judged."[6] "In the light of all these tests the readers of the letter are called to examine their lives and attitudes, and at all points to return to, or adhere to, the original basic fundamentals of the faith."[7] In other words, much of the letter consists of antitheses between two differing doctrines or practices - one right, one wrong.[8] The phrase "God is love" must be therefore be interpreted from within this context of comparing whether the lives of professing Christians are consistent with the fundamentals of faith.

More particularly, it must be interpreted in the sense of comparing whether the actions of the individuals are consistent with the nature of the God whom they profess to serve. John believes that Christians are called to dwell in God, and God in them (see verse 16), and therefore that any true Christian should act out of the same kind of character as that which exists within God.

It therefore seems extremely far fetched to suggest that John was not saying, in the form of "God is Love", at the very least that God's actions are all expressions of love. If God acted in ways that were not expressions of love, then actions which were not based upon love could otherwise easily be justified by claiming that such actions were expressions of other aspects of the divine character.

It could be said to imply further that there is no attribute of character (including glory-seeking) in God that is not actually a secondary expression of love, since one could argue that the text is saying that the way of telling whether something is of God is if it is loving - therefore, those aspects of character which are based upon love are of God, and those which are not, are not of God.

However, I would argue that this is not necessarily the case in order to make sense of the text, because in order for the argument to work all that is required is for individual readers to attempt to imitate God in loving in all actions. God could in theory have two or more potential motives for an act (e.g. love and glory-seeking), and John's argument could be stretched as simply saying (in a hyperbolic manner) that all of our actions should stem from love in the same way that all of God's do. Nonetheless, the interpretation of it which requires that all of God's moral attributes are subsets of love does seem very likely from this text (when taken alone, at least); however, it is not absolutely required and thus we must investigate other ideas before coming to conclusions about how likely it is to be true.

The obvious type of position which opposes the stronger exegesis of John 4:8 is that which states that love is actually a part or aspect of God's desire to bring glory to Himself. This is the position which was held by Perkins,[9] and is today held by for example the "Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals."[10] The most passionate modern proponent of this view is John Piper, who states that, "God's saving designs are penultimate, not ultimate. Redemption, salvation, and restoration are not God's ultimate goal. These He performs for the sake of something greater: namely, the enjoyment He has in glorifying Himself. The bedrock of Christian hedonism is not God's allegiance to us, but to Himself."[11] In this quote, Piper is suggesting that God's acts of love are done not for us, but for Himself. As such, he is suggesting (though he does not state this - it is merely the natural outcome of what he is saying) they are not actually acts of love, as I (or most English speakers) would define the word love.

However, although it contradicts the view of love as understood by most English speakers, that does not necessarily imply that it contradicts biblical ideas of love, so we shall now investigate this. Many times scripture discusses the love of God by discussing the role of the cross of Christ, and I will focus around this at this point. I will specifically exegete Romans 5:8 as a particularly relevant sample passage.

In Romans 5:8, Paul is contrasting the love of God in the death of Christ with the fact that he has just said that "rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die" (v7). Paul cannot be thinking of someone dying for another person in order to achieve another end, since the passage assumes that one would only do this for a good person. It must therefore be a death motivated by love (of my definition), and since Paul is saying that God's love is like this, the same must be true of God.

However, my exegesis of this passage is reliant upon the English translation of the passage. In fact, this is not certain - the words translated as "righteous person" and "good person" (του αγαθου) are not necessarily best translated as involving people at all. Both words can be translated in the masculine,[12] but they can also be translated in the neuter.[13]

If they are in the neuter, my case is weakened, since although the inherent unselfishness of the man dying is still entirely present, the object of his will to die is no longer a person whom he loves, but a concept or ideal which can hardly be said to loved in the same sense, and therefore the analogy which Paul is using would necessarily involve less correspondence on that level and my case would be significantly weakened.

However, if Paul is here referring to people dying for ideals such as the general good, Paul is majorly understating his case here - "many have voluntarily died for their countries".[14] It therefore seems very unlikely that this is the case. The only other potential translation that has been raised is that του αγαθου could indicate a benefactor[15] rather than just a good man, and thus that the sentence would mean something more like "rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, and not very much more often would someone dare to die for their benefactor."

If the NRSV's translation is true, my initial exegesis is sound; if my alternative translation is true, the argument based upon my exegesis is even stronger, since there would be an element of contrast between the one dying for the benefactor (which is very vaguely close to dying in order to get something out of it) and the death of Christ which is viewed as closer to dying for the good man. Therefore there seems to be strong evidence from this passage against the idea of love being an aspect of God's desire to bring glory to Himself.

Piper's central logical defence of his claim that God's glory is the ultimate end of all that he does is that it is morally necessary for God to value God above all else - "If God should turn away from Himself as the Source of infinite joy, He would cease to be God. He would deny the infinite worth of His own glory. He would imply that there is something more valuable outside Himself. He would commit idolatry.[16]

This, however, does not really provide much of a problem for the concept of God's love for us as an end in itself - although it might suggest that this end is less powerful than God's self-centred 'desires'.However, I would argue the contrary - that God's self-centred nature is seen in God the Father's love for God the Son, as indeed Piper claims,[17] and also within the Son's love for the Father, and indeed the entire inter-Trinitarian dynamic of love involving the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God's love can be seen as the ultimate moral quality within God without it detracting from the necessarily non-self-centred aspect of love.

However, this poses an immediate problem. Up until now, I have discussed the role of God's love towards humans, and have spoken of the fact that it is manifested in the cross of Christ That is, God's love towards humans is manifested in the fact that God chose for Christ to suffer and die for the sake of the human race. While it makes complete sense for the Son to choose to die out of love, it makes less sense for the Father to choose for the Son to die out of love, if we are to say that the Father's love for the Son is greater than His love for us. The question is: even if the Son wished to suffer for the sake of him who He loved, why would the Father wish to see the object of His love suffer?

When stated like that, two answers seem fairly obvious. The first is the relatively simple conclusion that because death and short term suffering will make the Son happier in the long run, because of His love for humans. However, I would question this; I would argue that the infinite bliss of infinitely knowing God, and permanently being in the ultimate relationship with Him, is so great that any emotions directly based upon love for humanity - no matter how great they are when compared to human love and emotions - are but a single drop in an infinite ocean, and although they exist they actually have no affect upon the infinite happiness of God. Compared to this, the infinite sacrifice of giving up this special relationship with God, and giving up ones life upon the cross, is very great.

However, I think that there is another explanation for how a God-centred theory of the Love of God might be compatible with the cross of Christ. The Father loves the Son, and that love consists of more than simply wishing for the Son to have pleasant emotions; it consists of a profound valuing of the Son in all His aspects, including that of His will. Since the will of the Son is a loving choice to die for humanity, the Father's love for the Son involves respecting that will, and sending the Son to do that.[18] Similarly, we can say that the Son wants to follow the will of the Father, who longs to see the human problem of sin resolved. In short, I think that the death of Christ reveals a love for us in God which is at once worthy of the name love - which is for our sake - and yet is entirely theocentric.

So, to recap, we can say that God's love for us is not simply an aspect of His desire to bring glory to Himself. God's love for us is truly for us, for our sake; however, it is nonetheless centred upon Him. I will now evaluate the suggestion that God's desire to bring glory to Himself is an aspect of His love.

The most obvious explanation for why God's desire to bring glory to Himself could be a part of His love is simply that it is for our benefit to know God. God is the source of all that is good in the universe, and the highest joy that could possibly be would be to "see" God. Therefore it is surely positive for us to have the greatness of God revealed to us.

However, while it may be that God wishes for us to know His glory partly for our own sake, it seems very likely that His desire to bring glory to Himself can mean something else - at least in some cases. Jonathan Edwards wrote, "How absurd would it be to say that he promotes their happiness for his name's sake, in subordination to their good, and that his name may be exalted only for their sakes, as a means of promoting their happiness! Especially when such expressions as these are used, 'For mine own sake, even for mine own sake will I do it; for how should my name be polluted?' and 'Not for your sakes do I this, but for my holy name's sake.'"[19]The second of these is the only one which states rather than implies what Edwards is trying to say, and therefore I shall exegete it more thoroughly.

Ezekiel 36:22-23 states that "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes." This passage explicitly states God is doing good to Israel not for their own sake, but rather in order to "sanctify" the name of YHVH in "the nations."

This could (at a stretch) be interpreted as being not for the sake of the people of Israel, but rather for the sake of the nations. However, this kind of thought would be extremely foreign to the thought of Ezekiel - to whom "Yahweh is so awesome that his holiness hardly allows any glimmering of his love for his people to shine through",[20] and given that there is no hint of this being an act of love for the nations in either this particular passage or the rest of Ezekiel, it can be safely said that this passage cannot be speaking of God doing this for the sake of love for the nations.

Given that it has been demonstrated that God's desire to seek His glory is not (always, at least) out of love for humanity, if we are to say that God's desire to bring glory to Himself is a part of His love, we must suggest another potential object for this love. The obvious object of love other than humanity is God - God the Father's love for the Son, and the Son's love for the Father, etc.

Immediately, we are presented with an obvious problem with this solution - if (say) bringing glory to the Son is the Father's act of love towards the Son, it seems that we need to assume that the Son would like to have glory brought towards Him, which leads us to ask why this would be so. It seems rather unlikely that the Son would not be happy enough without this (indeed, I have already argued that the Son in perfect relationship with the Father could not be happier), and it would in any case suggest that there is some attribute of character other than love present within the Son (i.e. desire for glory).

However, my exegesis of 1 John 4:8 at the beginning of this essay demonstrated that all of God's actions must be motivated by love, even if not only by love, so there must certainly be an explanation for this passage which is dependent upon love. I have already argued that perhaps love involves more than a desire to bring positive emotions to the other, and have suggested that it may well involve a profound valuing of the other, in all their nature, ways, and will. My own tentative suggestion is that perhaps the Father values the Son so much that He desires that the whole of creation value the Son (and the same is true of the Son towards the Father, and the Spirit towards both.)

On a purely human level, I am likely be hurt if another person insults someone I love, and pleased if another person compliments someone I love; I suspect that this would be true even if one took away attributes from me that are unlikely to be attributes of God (such as uncertainty over the value of the beloved, or gaining pleasure because of the complimenting of the beloved because (s)he is associated with the pride of the self.) I would suggest that something analogous exists in the relationships of the persons of the trinity. This would indicate that this passage is no reason not to believe what my exegesis of 1 John 4:8 has indicated - that God's love is the source of all his attributes of character, including His desire to bring glory to Himself.

However, this is only a tentative suggestion; in order to be more confident, one would need to investigate the nature of these phenomenons of human love and how far forms similar to these could be present in the God of Jesus Christ, and/or investigate how far my idea of wanting things which one loved to be valued by others is consistent with the biblical revelation of God and of love. Also worthy of being discussed is how the idea of God's wrath fits in. However, these issues are certainly far beyond the scope of this essay.

However, although I have clearly not discussed everything I could have discussed, I have discussed enough to argue that[21] there is a strong case to say that the statement that "God is love" indicates that all of God's attributes are aspects of His love, and a virtually unassailable case to say that all of God's actions are motivated by love, at least partly. We cannot say that God's love is an aspect of His desire to bring glory to Himself, because the cross is God offering Himself out of self-giving love. Nor can we say that God's desire to bring glory to Himself is a part of His love for humanity. However, we can say that it seems entirely plausible that it is a part of His inter-Trinitarian love for Himself. I would therefore argue that I have not yet found any good arguments against the suggestion that "God is Love" means that all of God's attributes of character are aspects of His love. In short, it is extremely likely that God's desire to bring glory to Himself is an aspect of His love.