Disregard of God’s Infinite Position

It is easier to acknowledge the dishonor done to God by sins of commission than omission. Crossing a line God has prohibited is a clear violation of His authority. But simply failing to do something is typically not considered as despicable. So what is it about our drinking from broken cisterns that is cause for the creation’s shock and awe? What moves it beyond simple foolishness and makes it an ultimate and infinite evil? Let me try and expand on why it is wrong to drink from a cistern with three ideas (but just one for today).

1. It is a disregard of God’s infinite position.

When we ignore God it is not like neglecting a stranger that we have no relation to. It is not like brushing off a friend or a sibling, someone we have a relationship with, someone we consider to be on our level of importance. Even more, it isn’t like disregarding our parents who provide necessary food, shelter, and clothing — let alone love and guidance — as disrespectful as that is.

Or looking at it from the other side, we don’t like it when someone doesn’t trust us. We take offense when we serve and care for someone who disregards us. Spurned love is ugly, as you might imagine a husband who doesn’t appreciate his wife. Unthankfulness is ugly, as when kids fail to demonstrate gratitude. Those kinds of disregard are inappropriate, disgraceful, and perhaps we might say that to varying degrees even shocking.

So then a disregard for God is an infinite evil because He is infinitely greater than us. He is no stranger, He is not on our level, He is not just providing a few of our daily needs. His position is infinitely superior and we are totally dependent on Him. God is our life! We don’t have another breath without Him! Nothing could be more inexcusable or more despicable than to disregard Him. It is almost unspeakable.

In a book titled, The End for Which God Created the World, Jonathan Edwards suggests this fictional, yet thought provoking scenario. Imagine if there were an infinitely wise, third party observer between God and men. And what if this third party observer were to make judgments between God and creation as to their worth and value and how much. The one task of this detached judge would be to weigh things in the balance to see who was greater and who was lesser and by what degree one was greater and the other lesser.

And imagine that all the parties (namely, God and men/creation) agreed beforehand that after this wise judge made his conclusions, it would be necessary that:

the degree of regard should always be in…the proportion of existence and proportion of excellence. (p.142)

It wouldn’t even stretch the judge’s wisdom or take too many calculations to determine what proportion of regard should be allotted to the Creator and what portion to His creatures. As Edwards concludes, in our case the whole system of created beings would be regarded as “light dust on the balance or even as the air itself” compared to God in His eternal existence and infinite excellence.

As He is every way the first and supreme, and as His excellency is in all respects the supreme beauty and glory, the original good, and fountain of all good, so He must have in all respects the supreme glory. (p.143) (So)…every wheel, in all its rotations, should move with a constant invariable regard to Him. (p.144) To Him belongs the whole of the respect that any intelligent being is capable of. To Him belongs ALL the heart. (emphasis Edwards, p.141).

He is the supreme source and so deserves the supreme respect. Every time a wheel goes around it should not do anything but give regard to God, without fail, without taking a break. And so if God has just part of our heart, that is an infinite sin in proportion to His existence and excellence. When we value something of lesser value, when we drink from the broken cistern rather than the living fountain, we have substituted something of utter inferiority for the infinitely superior God. There is no greater call for shock and awe.