Back again with John MacArthur
in the Grace To You audio blog. If you haven't heard, there's
a discussion underway at gty.org. When John is done, get the info
on how to get involved. Now the question was why he created.
And of course the first answer is because he wanted to. And
that's the best and truest answer. The next question is, why did
He want to? And the answer to that question is pretty obvious.
He wanted to because He intended to display His glory. And creation gave Him another
opportunity to put His glory on display to heavenly angels
as well as to mankind who would come to appreciate His great
creative power. In Revelation 4.11 it says, "'Worthy
art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and
power, for Thou didst create all things and because of Thy
will they existed and were created.'" I told you He did it because
He wanted to. He did it because He wanted to do it. And He desired
to do it for the very reason that eternally in His presence
He will be praised and glorified for this immense display of creative
power which puts His majesty and His nature on display. In Isaiah 43 verse 7, Isaiah
43 verse 20, He says, I did it for My glory. I did it for My
glory. And within this creation He made
man. And to take it one step beyond, He not only did it to
display His glorious, great, massive intelligence, massive
power. Massive wisdom, massive love
of beauty and complexity and yet order and systematization. He's displaying so much about
His nature in the creation. But also in the creation, He
was given the opportunity by virtue of the creation of man
to display something He would not otherwise be able to display
and that is His grace and His mercy. And so He did it to put
His glory on display, the glory of His creation and the glory
of His redemption. You could also say that He did
it in order to provide a bride for His Son. I've told you before
and I used to think that I'd never read this anywhere and
I just...it just hit me when I was studying the Scripture
that God one day said to the son that He loved him with a
perfect love and said, I love you so much, I want to give you
a gift and so I'm going to create and I'm going to redeem out of
humanity a bride for you and I'm going to bring that bride
to glory and that bride will be clothed in righteousness and
holiness forever and that That bride will bear Your image and
that bride will worship You and adore You and serve You forever
and ever and that's my love gift to You as a son." This glorious
plan of God to give to His beloved, the second member of the Trinity,
an expression of love, of eternal divine love by granting to Him
a redeemed humanity who would reflect His glory and serve Him
and praise Him forever. What an immense thought, what
a glorious thought, and that's bound up in the purpose of God
in creation. Well, I hadn't read that anywhere
until I discovered, a little discouraging, a twelfth century
writer, Richard of St. Victor, in his classic De Trinitate. He captures the gist of this
tremendous truth. He teaches that the infinite
God the Father so loved God, the equally infinite Son, that
He brought into being ex nihilo, a finite material world, to be
peopled with creatures in the likeness of His Son in order
that as the Son's bride they could share in the beatitude
of the divine life in a way appropriate to finite creatures in God's
personal image. to provide a beautiful bride
for His Son, the eternal Father created an entire universe and
in it a world which previously had no existence whatsoever as
the nursery and the home in which the bride would be reared. Such
a stupendous gift from the Father to the Son required an absolute
creation out of nothing." That's what He taught and He was right.
Now that you've heard from John, let us know what you think. Go
to gty.org slash audioblog and leave your comment. Again, that's
gty.org slash audioblog. Thanks for listening.
Believing in evolution is not inconsequential. It has serious implications for the way we view our world—not just the beginning, the end too. The issue is purpose. God alone possesses the right to assign purpose to His universe, because He created it.
An evolutionist may set a purpose for himself, or adopt what society chooses for him—it's rather arbitrary though. He doesn't know who or what he is, doesn't know where he came from or where he's going, and doesn't even know why he exists in the first place. Evolution robs him of reasons, strips him of purpose, and leaves him with a bleak and daunting outlook on life.
Contrast that with the Christian who takes God at His Word. He knows where he came from and who created him; he knows in whose image he was created; He knows why he's here, where he's going, and how he fits into the overarching purposes of God in history. See the difference? Listen in, as John MacArthur puts it in perspective . . .
Now that you've listened to John, consider the following: Where does an evolutionist find his purpose for existence? If he has one, on what grounds, or on whose authority, can he claim any purpose for his life? Further, what rules govern the pursuit of his purpose? Take it to the thread.
