Revelation 4
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11)
We do not look at the universe rightly unless we see in creation a glorious reason to praise the living God.
“Let all the earth fear the Lord,” the psalmist tells us, “let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!” And why? “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:8–9). Similarly, Psalm 148 calls on the heavens and the heights, the Lord’s angels and his hosts, the sun and moon and shining stars, the highest heavens and the waters above the heavens to praise the name of the Lord. The reason? “For he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away” (Ps. 148:5–6). In short, God formed us and made us; he created us for his glory (Isa. 43:7).
To use the language of Jonathan Edwards’s famous treatise, divine glory is “the end for which God created the world.” We must never suppose that God created the cosmos out of lack—because he wanted a relationship, or he wanted someone to love. God did not create the world because he was thirsty. Rather, God created the world because it is the nature of a fountain to overflow. Creation is the super-abundance of divine goodness, beauty, mercy, love, wisdom, power, sovereignty, self-sufficiency, self-existence, justice, holiness, faithfulness, and freedom.
Edwards puts the matter wonderfully. We should slow down and read him carefully:
As there is an infinite fullness of all possible good in God—a fullness of every perfection, of all excellency and beauty, and of infinite happiness—and as this fullness is capable of communication, or emanation ad extra, so it seems a thing amiable and valuable in itself that this infinite fountain of good should send forth abundant streams. . . . Thus it appears reasonable to suppose that it was God’s last end that there might be a glorious and abundant emanation of his infinite fulness of good ad extra; and that the disposition to communicate himself, or diffuse his own fulness, was what moved him to create the world.1
To put the matter much less elegantly, we can say the creation was God’s decision to go public with his glory. From the microscopic level to the cosmic level, we have reason to give God praise. Just consider that by some scientific estimates there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on earth. The Milky Way has 150 billion to 200 billion stars, and our galaxy is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. Depending on which estimate you follow, there are more than 100 billion trillion stars. Think of the number one followed by twenty-three zeroes. That’s about how many stars there are in the universe. The number defies human comprehension. And Psalm 147:4 says, “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.”
All good theology begins with the beginning. There is no Christianity without the doctrine of creation. “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11).
Notes
- Jonathan Edwards, "Ethical Writings," edited by Paul Ramsey and John E. Smith, Vol. 8, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 432–34.
This article is adapted from Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology by Kevin DeYoung.
Kevin DeYoung is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church (PCA) in Matthews, North Carolina and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.
