Love And Glory

The blog Calvin and Calvinism offers a good quote from Louis Berkhof (no, I have no idea who he is) on the love of God for all:

When God calls the sinner to accept Christ by faith, He earnestly desires this; and when He promises those who repent and believe eternal life, His promise is dependable. This follows from the very nature, from the veracity, of God. It is blasphemous to think that God would be guilty of equivocation and deception, that He would say one thing and mean another, that He would earnestly plead with the sinner to repent and believe unto salvation, and at the same time not desire it in any sense of the word.

I recently commented at another blog that we cannot try and think of God's love for us as we think of our love for each other. God's love for us is the love of a supreme being for lesser beings he has created. God loves the people he has created, I think the Bible is clear on that. God also extends salvation to all people. But God is not ultimately motivated by his love for people. He is ultimately motivated with the will to preserve and promote his own glory. His love for humanity is beneath his jealousy for himself. Love is an aspect of his glory, it does not stand alongside his glory.

The Bible is filled with evidences of this. Whether deliverance or judgment, all is done for the glory of God. In 1 Samuel 12:22 Samuel tells the people that God, for the sake of his name, will not forsake the people: "For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself." Consider also Psalm 79:9: "Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name's sake!" Again in Psalm 115:1: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!" Several times in Ezekiel we read something like, "But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations..." (Ezekiel 20:9)

The New Testament is much the same, filled with words about the glory of God and that all things are done for God's glory.

God's chief motivation is his glory, not his love for us. Thus it is no contradiction to say that God loves humanity and yet God permits - or perhaps even ordains - that some would suffer eternally.

This does not solve the question of whether God permits or whether he determines the damnation of sinners, it simply reframes the question. Most Christians agree that some people are saved and some are not and those who are not saved will go to Hell. The Calvinist who focuses on God's glory says that God is glorified by sovereignly determining those to whom he would show his mercy and those to whom he would show his wrath (I realize a distinction exists between single- and double-predestination, I am not touching on that here). The non-Calvinist who focuses on God's glory says that God is glorified by sovereignly enabling all people to respond to the gospel and then offering the gospel as a free gift which sinners can receive or reject.

I am still wrestling with how to answer that question: in which way has God established that he will receive glory? I would say that we need to be careful to ensure that our answer is shaped by Scripture, not by personal preference or inclination. This reminder is mostly to the non-Calvinist, I believe our natural inclination is to say that God is glorified by giving us the ability to respond freely to him. That this is our natural response does not mean it is wrong - nor does it mean it is right. We must see what the Bible says.

So what is the answer?