I have been reading a book called "The God Who Smokes" by Timothy J Stoner. (An ironic name if you ask me.) On pages 178-180 Stoner posits God as a artist whose greatest creation is man. I am quoting him below. I would like to hear what you might have to say about it.
At the beginning of my lecture in Hawaii on the vocation of art, I had challenged the students to justify their artistic existence. I asked them how they could justify devoting their lives to something that appeals more to the senses than the mind, that is focused more on pleasure than conversion, that tends more toward self indulgence than transformation.
To help point them toward a possible answer, I proposed another question: What is your magnificent obsession? What will drive you and consume you and give your work purpose and meaning? These are questions all of us who want to live from our real selves need to ask. How we answer them can change the whole trajectory of our lives.
While preparing for the lecture, something had struck me that was so simple I was little embarrassed it wasn’t in the first thing that had come to mind. It came to me in a sublime flash of the glaringly obvious: God our Father is an artist! He is the supreme artist-the-Creator of art, artists, and beauty, for pity’s sake. Why not look at Him for some pointers?
I might just learn a thing or two.
So I mused: What is God’s artistic motivation? What is His magnificent obsession?
This is the what came to me:
When God sets out to paint a picture, He flings billions of stars into the deep blue canvas of space.
We God sets out to write, He inspires and collects sixty-six manuscripts into a cohesive narrative of story, poetry, history, and instruction.
We God decides to sculpt, He brings man out of the dust.
When God sets out to direct a movie, He takes man and woman, fills the earth with His image bearers, allows them freedom to disobey Him and wreck the planet, and then sends His Son as a perfect, obedient man to give His life away to save those who will submit their lives to Him.
And what drives everything God does is one preeminent motive: to glorify Himself. Every act of divine creativity, is intended to reveal and display His existence, character, and attributes. He is intent on showing off His majesty-His Glory. As odd as it may strike our jaded contemporary ears, God’s magnificent obsession is Himself.
This is like King David writes that the stunning, jeweled splendor of the starry, starry night is all about God: “the heavens declare the Glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims His handiwork; day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge hands on the knowledge” (Psalm 19: 1-2). The carpet of stars in the broad expanse of black skies trumpets out the existence of their Creator. They “pour forth speech” (19: 2, NIV).
What is this speech? It is a wordless communication centered on the power, beauty, wisdom, goodness, and extravagant joy of Yahweh, the Almighty God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Therefore, we can say without sacrilege that the stars and the sunsets are all about making God look good (that is what it means to “glorify”). When God was done with His creative labor and declared that the creation was good, He was approving not only of the quality of His workmanship but also its effectiveness in displaying some facet of His infinite and beautiful being.
When judging the work of an artist, you turn to his masterpieces. How could one possibly critique Da Vinci without looking at Mona Lisa? How could you critique Michelangelo and ignore the Sistine Chapel? How could you critique Handel and not listen to the Messiah? So when we discuss God’s artistry we are required to evaluate the epitome of His artistic endeavors: Man.
We are told that Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God. They were created to reflect God. There were little image bearers who were to walk about on God’s good earth showing God off for all the creation. On a creaturely, finite level, there were to display God’s infinite attributes of mercy, goodness, knowledge, leadership, creativity, intelligence, and love (no doubt, humor as well).
While the first Adam failed, the second succeeded. Jesus, the incarnate God, the divine image bearer, came to bring His Father Glory and this He fully accomplished (John 17: 4). His great joy and driving passion was to glorify His Father. His mission was to put His Father on display and, good Son that He was, He reflected or mirrored His Father perfectly (John 14: 9). Even the work of salvation was driven by this conscious primary motive-to display the Father and in displaying Him draw men to know and love Him. This is why, at the end of His life, Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life that they may know you the only true God” (John 17: 3).
So as creatures crafted in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by a perfectly obedient Son, devoted to lovingly imitate Him in the world, it would seem only right that we at least consider the possibility that perhaps our magnificent obsession should be the same as His.
To help point them toward a possible answer, I proposed another question: What is your magnificent obsession? What will drive you and consume you and give your work purpose and meaning? These are questions all of us who want to live from our real selves need to ask. How we answer them can change the whole trajectory of our lives.
While preparing for the lecture, something had struck me that was so simple I was little embarrassed it wasn’t in the first thing that had come to mind. It came to me in a sublime flash of the glaringly obvious: God our Father is an artist! He is the supreme artist-the-Creator of art, artists, and beauty, for pity’s sake. Why not look at Him for some pointers?
I might just learn a thing or two.
So I mused: What is God’s artistic motivation? What is His magnificent obsession?
This is the what came to me:
When God sets out to paint a picture, He flings billions of stars into the deep blue canvas of space.
We God sets out to write, He inspires and collects sixty-six manuscripts into a cohesive narrative of story, poetry, history, and instruction.
We God decides to sculpt, He brings man out of the dust.
When God sets out to direct a movie, He takes man and woman, fills the earth with His image bearers, allows them freedom to disobey Him and wreck the planet, and then sends His Son as a perfect, obedient man to give His life away to save those who will submit their lives to Him.
And what drives everything God does is one preeminent motive: to glorify Himself. Every act of divine creativity, is intended to reveal and display His existence, character, and attributes. He is intent on showing off His majesty-His Glory. As odd as it may strike our jaded contemporary ears, God’s magnificent obsession is Himself.
This is like King David writes that the stunning, jeweled splendor of the starry, starry night is all about God: “the heavens declare the Glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims His handiwork; day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge hands on the knowledge” (Psalm 19: 1-2). The carpet of stars in the broad expanse of black skies trumpets out the existence of their Creator. They “pour forth speech” (19: 2, NIV).
What is this speech? It is a wordless communication centered on the power, beauty, wisdom, goodness, and extravagant joy of Yahweh, the Almighty God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Therefore, we can say without sacrilege that the stars and the sunsets are all about making God look good (that is what it means to “glorify”). When God was done with His creative labor and declared that the creation was good, He was approving not only of the quality of His workmanship but also its effectiveness in displaying some facet of His infinite and beautiful being.
When judging the work of an artist, you turn to his masterpieces. How could one possibly critique Da Vinci without looking at Mona Lisa? How could you critique Michelangelo and ignore the Sistine Chapel? How could you critique Handel and not listen to the Messiah? So when we discuss God’s artistry we are required to evaluate the epitome of His artistic endeavors: Man.
We are told that Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God. They were created to reflect God. There were little image bearers who were to walk about on God’s good earth showing God off for all the creation. On a creaturely, finite level, there were to display God’s infinite attributes of mercy, goodness, knowledge, leadership, creativity, intelligence, and love (no doubt, humor as well).
While the first Adam failed, the second succeeded. Jesus, the incarnate God, the divine image bearer, came to bring His Father Glory and this He fully accomplished (John 17: 4). His great joy and driving passion was to glorify His Father. His mission was to put His Father on display and, good Son that He was, He reflected or mirrored His Father perfectly (John 14: 9). Even the work of salvation was driven by this conscious primary motive-to display the Father and in displaying Him draw men to know and love Him. This is why, at the end of His life, Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life that they may know you the only true God” (John 17: 3).
So as creatures crafted in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by a perfectly obedient Son, devoted to lovingly imitate Him in the world, it would seem only right that we at least consider the possibility that perhaps our magnificent obsession should be the same as His.
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