“The chief end of God is to love God and enjoy Himself forever.”
Christians often find it odd to talk about God’s love for Himself. It strikes us as narcissistic. In humans, it would be narcissistic to insist that our primary love should be love for self because we are not in ourselves the highest font of good. God, however, has no place else to go to find His highest good but in Himself. So, since God has Himself as His own Highest good. His Love for Himself is the ground of all He does.
If God’s highest love was not for Himself but was for mankind then God would turn men into gods to be worshiped since whatever we love the most we worship and whatever we worship is our god. If God’s highest love was for mankind then God would be worshiping men, and so men would become the gods of God. But God’s highest love is for Himself and that idea is found in the I John 4 passage in vs. 10 where we see the word “Propitiation.”
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
God sent His Son to be our Propitiation and in doing so demonstrated His love for His Character. It was God who had taught that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. It was His Holy Character that demanded justice be done. So, out of love for Himself, His Character, His law, He provided the sacrifice that He Himself would accept to turn away His wrath. In love for Himself, He demands a sacrifice. In love for Himself, He provides the sacrifice in Himself in the incarnated 2nd person of the Trinity and in Love for Himself He accepted the sacrifice as a just payment for sin. God’s Love for Himself is the primary motive behind all that He does.
All this begins with God’s Love for Himself, His character, His law. By demanding the penalty for sin be paid for — a demand in keeping w/ his Law –, and by providing Himself as that penalty in the incarnated Second person of the Trinity God is showing Love for Himself. He is upholding His standard (law) and protecting His character (justice and Holiness). He is doing what no one else could. He is meeting the standard that He Himself set.
So in propitiation God in sovereign love and grace initiated the sacrifice of Jesus to provide covering and forgiveness for human sin but God also receives the sacrifice which satisfied His anger and justice. Love for Himself could do no other.
The kindest thing God can do for us is to love himself and teach us to do likewise. God loves himself supremely and perfectly. Everything is all about Him. Too often Christians try to get God to bend to their desires when our goal should be to bend ourselves to His desires.
