The Eternal Dance: Is God Unjust to Command His Own Worship?
Throughout Scripture, we are given witnesses to the oracles of God that came to His people in ages past. In these proclamations we are told — even commanded — to fear, worship, serve, and love the Lord alone, because He is a jealous God who refuses to share His glory with any other (Deuteronomy 6:13–15; Isaiah 42:8).
These very words and instructions have proven to be a great scandal to many, and if we are honest with ourselves, it can be easy to see why. When these commands fall upon our ears, they can feel like a foreign object in the eye, or a jagged stone in a shoe. “Is this something a good and loving God would command?” we might ask ourselves in response.
Some, upon reading or hearing these things, find themselves stuck in a corner. They love the teachings of the gentle and lowly Jesus, yet the harsh and commanding God they think they see in the Old Testament does not add up.
To avoid the tension, some retreat into a functional “red-letter” faith—clinging to Jesus while quietly distancing themselves from the God they believe the Old Testament portrays.
Others, confronted by this picture of God, forsake faith altogether.
You can hear the protest in words like those commonly attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”
Or consider Catherine Deveny, who in an online article entitled “God has narcissistic personality disorder” argues that the Christian Lord displays, “Feelings of grandiosity and self-importance... (and) Requires excessive adulation, attention and affirmation – or, failing that, wishes to be feared (Worship me. And me only. Or you will feel my wrath. Worse still, you will not come to my party in heaven).”
And to set the cherry on top, Mark Twain employed biting satire in “Letters from the Earth” to expose what he saw as flaws in the biblical deity:
“Jealousy... is the key. With it you will come to partly understand God as we go along... he has openly held up this treasonous key himself, for all to see. He says, naïvely, outspokenly, and without suggestion of embarrassment: ‘I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.’
You see, it is only another way of saying, ‘I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things...’
He could not bear the thought of any other God getting some of the Sunday compliments of this comical little human race -- he wanted all of them for himself... To him they were riches; just as tin money is to a Zulu.”
Now, we, as Christians, don’t merely take these accusations and complaints about God on the chin. We have our go-to responses and explanations for them, and they often go something like these.
It is not vain or selfish for God to command His worship or pursue His own glory. God is the source of all creation, beauty, and truth. Since everything is derivative, and completely dependent upon Him for existence, then to give anything glory or worship that wasn’t Him, would be like to praise a mirror for the light it reflects, while ignoring the Sun that gives it.
For Him to allow worship or seek the glory of anyone but Himself He would have to be a liar. As the Author, He is the only Being for whom self-exaltation is an act of total honesty. He claims the center of the story because He is the only one who actually occupies it. To do otherwise would be to unmake the truth of reality itself.God’s self-centeredness is actually the ultimate act of altruism. If God is the most beautiful, satisfying, and perfect Being in existence, then the most loving thing He can do for us is to offer us Himself. If He pointed us toward anything else, He would be cheating us. The command of His worship and the pursuit of His own glory is the only way He can ensure our highest possible happiness. He is the Sun; so to hide His own light would be to let us freeze in the dark.
These arguments are intellectually stimulating, sure. But if we are honest with ourselves, can we actually say that they are satisfying? These arguments defend God’s right to glory, but do they defend His heart in that glory? People accuse our God of selfishness, narcissism, vainglory, and self-importance—and our most common answer can sound like:
“Well, yes. But it’s okay for Him to be that way. He’s God. So, deal with it.”
If our best defense of God is to make Him sound like a “legalized narcissist,” or a tyrant with a very skilled lawyer doing His apologetics, have we actually found the God of the Bible?
Is the God that we defend in this way the same God who, even though He may be enthroned on high, stoops down low to look upon the heavens and earth? Who enters the dust with the poor and raises them up from it? Who dives into the ash heap of the needy so that He might pull them out (Psalm 113:5–7)?
You see, those who criticize a God who is narcissistic, self-centered, and self-important, are not wrong to do so, for those are truly gross and hideous attributes to have. What they are wrong to do is to attribute those things to our God in the first place. And we do wrong when we, rather than reveal the fullness of His marvelous image, double down on their premise and tell them that, “It’s okay, because He’s God.”
For beloved, we know for a fact that God is love (1 John 4:8), and that love, by nature, is not self-seeking (1 Corinthians 13:5). Love does not curve inward onto itself, but rather pours itself out into its beloved, love lifts and glorifies the beloved over itself because that’s what love does!
Jesus said that anyone who had seen Him had also seen the Father (John 14:9), for He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature (Hebrews 1:3). So anything that He did in the flesh, is an earthly representation of the very nature of the eternal God — Love Himself in a human body.
And what did He teach us about His Father with His actions? He, even though He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men, and becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5–8).
He who holds all creation in the palm of His hand entered it, and was born into a lowly manger. He who is eternally set apart, came down to us, and dwelled among us, eating with sinners and tax collectors, meeting with and forgiving prostitutes, and walking amongst and even touching lepers. Our God has never been, is not, nor will ever be self-centered. Because our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Yet, even in this light, we are still left asking ourselves some pressing questions. If God never changes, and God is humble and selfless, then how is it okay for God to command worship for Himself, and to be jealous over His own glory? Is God contradicting His own nature? Is the Old Testament an unreliable account of His character? Are those who forsake it for a “red-letter” faith correct to do so?
To answer these questions I want to first uncover an important fact about God. In the narrative of Exodus, Moses asks God that He might show His glory to him, and in response we are given a revelation of the Lord’s character, namely that He is merciful and forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet, somehow, also that He will never by any means clear the guilty of their crimes (Exodus 34:6–7).
What we see in Him revealing His glory to Moses is that His glory really doesn’t make any sense to us. How can the God who never clears the guilty ever be considered merciful? What we find out about God, more than anything else, is that He loves to reveal Himself through paradox, because when He finally reveals the answer to the “riddle” He gave us, it shines forth as all the more glorious.
So, just as the cross displays God’s ability to forgive iniquity and sin, while in no way clearing the guilty, through the sacrifice of Jesus; when we look at the eternal nature of God revealed to us in the New Testament, in the same way we can see how a God who is jealous over His own glory can also be eternally selfless and humble.
If a solitary man were to work towards his own glory, you could very well call him self-centered. Likewise, if a solitary God were to demand His own praise you could call it “legalized narcissism.” But, the mistake that gets made when we criticize God of selfishness, or call His selfishness righteous, is that we act as if He were simply a solitary God.
Yet, a solitary God is not the God who is portrayed in the New Testament.
Before the foundation of the world, the Father loved His eternally begotten Son, the Word (John 17:24). For the Word was with God (John 1:1) — a unity between Father and Son so perfect that the two were one (John 17:22). Thus, the Word was not only with God, but was God Himself (John 1:1).
And the river of delight shared between this Father and Son is nothing other than the Holy Spirit Himself (Revelation 22:1). He is the living bond of their divine communion — the personal and eternally overflowing love of their perfect fellowship, their shared air and eternal kiss. He proceeds from the Father and He is sent by the Son to testify of the infinite and perfect love of God (John 15:26).
Neither created nor having a beginning, this dance of love in its purest form has always existed between Father, Son, and Spirit.
So, when God tells us to glorify God, what is actually happening is the Father, eternally crying out to us, “Behold My beloved Son, for He is beautiful! Worship Him!” The Son eternally shouting in response, “All, give glory to My Father in heaven! For He is perfect!” And their shared Spirit taking no glory for Himself, rather being the very light that illuminates Father and Son, acting as the breath that carries their words of love and gently descending as a dove to set them upon our ears.
God is an eternal, self-emptying, relationship of overflowing love. His jealousy over His glory is not a narcissistic hoarding of majesty, it is the divine zeal of the Father for us not to settle for anything less than the perfection of His beloved Son, and the holy jealousy of the Son to see us love and adore His precious Father as He does.
It’s the righteous zeal of a father who sees that his wife, who had planned, prepped, cooked, and hosted a delightful party for their children, is now receiving zero recognition, and cries out in mourning to them, “Don’t you see what she has done for you? Don’t you know how much she loves you?” Or the majestic jealousy of a shepherd who won’t stand idly by as the lost sheep lives in muck, but who must call to it, “Don’t you know what my father has for you? Come to his land!” And even chases if he must because he laments that it doesn’t know how good it could have it on his father’s pasture.
God doesn’t command worship because He lacks something — He commands worship because He is opening His own life to us. Our worship, then, is not the vain food that God eats for His own amusement. It is the way that we join into this eternal dance of devotion between Father, Son, and Spirit. When we cry out to God, “Oh Lord, it is You that I worship and adore!” We echo the very response of His eternal Son, and participate in the love we were always meant to carry within our hearts.
Oh Father in Heaven, open our eyes to see your eternal glory!
Let us not see your hard words and flee or panic. Help us not to split You from Your Son, help us not to see or defend you as some self centered tyrant.
Show us Your beauty Lord, open our eyes to the wondrous majesty of Your mystery!
Help us not merely to be tactful apologists for your glory, but zealous lovers
of your beauty as well.
Sweep us up in Your eternal communion of love, make us partakers of your divine nature!
By the power of Your Spirit and in the name of Your Son.
Amen.
Love this part: "God doesn’t command worship because He lacks something — He commands worship because He is opening His own life to us. Our worship, then, is not the vain food that God eats for His own amusement. It is the way that we join into this eternal dance of devotion between Father, Son, and Spirit. "
Thank you for the article. Excellent food for thought.
I think there are huge difficulties in modern Christianity. I have dubbed them collectively as SGS (Small God Syndrome). What people fail to understand, largely because of church teaching, is that the whole world is lost, meaning it is not under His direct dominion. Dominion of planet earth belongs to the prince of this world. That was passed to him by Adam.
If we accept, as true, the worldly point of view, as you outlines so well in the article, then we completely fail to recognize that the fallen point of view is so because we are naturally rebellious against our Creator.
In reality, all God wants from any believer is allegiance. It is by allegiance to the true ruler of all of creation that will overthrow the tyrant who reigns with false dominion. His domain is a domain of slavery to sin, which the world sees as freedom.
This said, the demands of Scripture are not really demands at all but the pleadings of the Father for those who will come, to reject the tyranny of sin, for the reign of God. Allegiance.