Keeping in mind the thoughts we considered yesterday on the quality of life God experiences, being who He is, come with me to a text that has impacted my heart with delightful force. As we pursue these thoughts, we are stepping closer and closer to the essence of God’s beauty. What is it that makes God, who exists in such an excellent state so attractive?

God, in Genesis 1, has been creating a myriad of wonderful, complex, varied, colourful, intricate, artful things. As He takes in the overwhelming joy of simply existing in the form of God and being able to demonstrate the immeasurable depths of His wisdom in this design and its execution, He pronounces it all to be good. Notice that he saw what He had made and declared its goodness. Remember in Psalm 16 I showed that the word good includes the idea of beauty. Wonderful things were bursting from the mind of God, which He was simply bringing into existence from nothing, and when He had finished, the sheer beauty and goodness were arresting and breathtaking.

Take in this next thought, don’t miss this. As God surveys His masterpiece, He lays His hand to something different. In verse 26 God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” God is about to create a being that is more like Himself than any other creative work He has set His hand to until now. This work will be the crowning jewel of His creative work.

In order to convey the full weight of this thought, I would like to consider God’s creation of man in two ways. Firstly, when God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” what exactly is God speaking about? Secondly, exactly what kind of being is it that God is making. And during the discussion of these two issues, we will discover what it is about God that makes Him so beautiful and attractive.

We are all agreed that these two verses do not contain enough information from which to build the doctrine of the Trinity. We do however have a clear statement that the one God exists in a plural form. Like the Reformers, I appeal to the New Testament to develop a full view of the Trinity that is not expressly taught here.^[1] The reason I mention this is because I am driving home the fact that God exists in a delightful form. The thought I would like to expand here is this. Many people, even Christians are discontented today because of their circumstances. In fact, it seems to be those who have the most, are most miserable!

Consider God, existing forever. In Himself He has every quality that makes sheer existence for Him a thrilling experience. Paul calls God the blessed and only Ruler (1 Timothy 6:15). In fact, God was so contented that He was not compelled by anything outside of Himself to create this universe and people. He does not need us to complete His thrilling experience of existence. Without this universe, God really does have everything He needs to remain completely satisfied forever.