Articles

All My Pleasure

by Justin Huffman

My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure – Isaiah 46:10b

As a young professor at Oxford University in the 1930’s, C.S. Lewis was struggling to survive as an avowed and outspoken atheist. In became less and less plausible even to his own mind to continue ignoring the irrepressible reality of God. He recounted later that he could not shake “the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.” However, finally, the inward compulsion of God overcame the vestiges of his well-rehearsed objections and he, in his own words, gave in and “admitted that God was God.”

God is God

There are many, even among Christians today, who need to bow to this same truth and confess that the God of the Bible is, indeed, God. While perhaps many of us might give a ready assent to the truth that is proclaimed by the heavenly host in Revelation, “Thou hast created all things,” how thoroughly do we grasp the second assertion of that same adoring crowd: “and for Thy pleasure they are and were created”? (4:11)

It is difficult for us to come face-to-face with the fact that we, and every other part of the material and spiritual creation, exist solely for the pleasure of the Almighty himself. And, according to Isaiah, this purpose for all creation will be fulfilled for, He declares, “I will do all my pleasure”!

What a humbling position, to be divinely reminded that we are but the accompaniment to His solo, the canvas for His masterpiece, the subplot in His story.

As we look in the Bible, we find ourselves orbiting in a God-centered universe. From our beginning in Genesis, to the conclusion here in Revelation, the supremacy of God is declared on every page of holy writ. Although God gave Adam the privilege of naming the animate creatures, God himself named the inanimate creation. He named the Day, the Night, the Heaven, the Earth, the Seas (Genesis 1:5-10).

While man was granted dominion over other living things, it is as though God was, even in the perfection of Eden, asserting his sovereignty over every day and all the earth.

We Are Human

Although we like to puff ourselves up and pat ourselves on the back because of all our achievements and inventions, when we look to the God of the Bible we come to realize that we have said, done, or accomplished nothing that is impressive to him.

So you landed on the moon that circles the earth, that orbits the Sun, in one of many solar systems, from among thousands of galaxies, in a universe that God holds in the palm of his hand – big deal!

So you are making decisions and negotiating agreements that will have an impact upon the greatest nations in the world? “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket” (Isaiah 40:15).

When professor Charles W. Eliot was president of Harvard University, he had the unique privilege of overseeing the dedication of a new hall of philosophy. He searched high and low for an appropriate inscription to place over the imposing entrance to the building. He called together his faculty members (among them philosopher William James) and after much deliberation they agreed upon the well-known Greek phrase from the great philosopher Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things.”

Having this issue finally settled, they all adjourned for the summer. However, as Charles Eliot continued to ponder the importance of this representative inscription, he changed his mind and had an entirely different phrase carved across the grand entryway. When school reopened in the fall, you may imagine the surprise of the other faculty members, when the finished entrance was unveiled. Instead of the humanistic inscription, “Man is the measure of all things,” there emblazoned across the doorway to Eliot Hall — which still stands on the Harvard campus today — were the words “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?”

Is this your philosophy?

Do you see the condescension of God as a thing of incomprehensible beauty and marvelous mystery?

Do you see God Himself as the Supreme Being of the universe, to whom all worship and praise is due, but from whom no favor – or even notice – is required? This is the description that one proud king gave of his Creator, after God humbled him and opened his eyes to see the proper order of the universe:

“…at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing:
and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Daniel 4:34,35)

It is only when we see God on his throne that we begin to have a clear view of him elsewhere: on the cross, in our trials, or by our death bed.

God Is Human

When we come to see the God of the Bible as the sovereign King of the cosmos, only then will we be awed once again by the condescension of his incarnation. Imagine God the Father giving up his glory and majesty, being whipped and scourged and spit upon, dying at the hands of his own treacherous and murderous creatures. And yet Christ was just as glorious and majestic and powerful as the Father, and gave it all up for the sake of his people.

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).

Christ was not naturally or originally as we see him in Isaiah 53, although we may have come to think of him as being somewhat lowly, humble, and homely – this is simply the form that he voluntarily took upon himself in order to save us: “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” (John 1:1,14)

However, recognizing that the Word is among us, and that he became one of us in order to save us, also gives us a clear indication of his chances for a successful mission to earth.

Is it possible for the God who does all his pleasure to be thwarted in his purpose for salvation, of all things?

Is there any possibility that he would fail to accomplish the purpose for which he came? Is he any less almighty as our Savior than he was as our Creator? Certainly not.

And so we can expect to see the certain accomplishment of those purposes for which He came to this earth. And in the Bible we are told clearly what these purposes were:

“I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day” (John 6:38).

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed“ (1 Peter 2:24).

“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works“ (Titus 2:14).

“Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father” (Galatians 1:4).

In the supremacy of God we find both reason to be humbled, in that we are objects created for his pleasure, and great cause to rejoice, in that we are objects of his pleasure and that he has promised to do all his pleasure. Each great purpose of his sovereign pleasure is certain to be fulfilled in the objects of his pleasure. There is no greater conviction or comfort to be found than in the contemplation of such a Creator.

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