His Glory, Our Joy

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Did you notice that the picture above is a mirror image?
As one side perfectly reflects the other,
a beauty is beheld,
a beauty that would not exist
without this reflection.

In the same way, the shining of God's glory and our true happiness work the same way. They are not opposed, but united in holy splendor. Hear Jonathan Edwards:

And though the emanation of God’s fulness,
intended in the creation,
is to the creature as its object;
and though the creature is the subject of the fulness communicated,
which is the creature’s good;
yet it does not necessarily follow that,
even in doing so,
God did not make himself his end.
It comes to the same thing.
God’s respect to the creature’s good,
and his respect to himself,
is not a divided respect;
but both are united in one,
as the happiness of the creature aimed at
is happiness in union with himself...
The more happiness the greater union...
And as the happiness will be increasing to eternity,
the union will become more and more strict [i.e., closely bound] and perfect;
nearer and more like to that between God the Father and the Son;
who are so united, that their interest is perfectly one...
Let the most perfect union with God be represented
by something at an infinite height above us;
and the eternally increasing union of the saints with God,
by something that is ascending constantly towards that infinite height...
and that is to continue thus to move to all eternity. 1

God's glory and our good are one. Our highest good is to bask in and shine forth His glory and His glory is resplendent all the more when poured into and through our lives to others and back to Him. It is glorious to contemplate...


1 Jonathan Edwards, “The End for Which God Created the World,” in Works, ed. Hickman, 120, as quoted in A God Entranced Vision of All Things, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor (Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 2004), 94.

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