“Once we have received the principle of eternal life in our hearts we cannot but long always to know more of Him who granted us that life.
More and more we come to look up to Him who is the fountain of our salvation.
From the comfort which we enjoy in our hearts, and from the benefit and fruit which the knowledge of God spells for our own selves and our lives, we always go back to the worship of the Eternal Being.
And then we always come more certainly to the sense that God does not exist for us but that we exist for Him.
We are not indifferent to our salvation, but this salvation is a means to His glory. The knowledge of God gave us life, but the life that was given leads us back to the knowledge of Him.
In God we find all our well-being and all our glory. He becomes the object of our worship, the theme of our song, the strength of our life.
From God, through God, and unto God are all things—that becomes the choice of our hearts and the watchword of our work.
We ourselves and all creatures round about us become means unto His glory.
The truth which at first we love especially because it gave us life thereupon becomes more and more dear to us because of itself, because of what it reveals to us concerning the Eternal Being.
The whole doctrine of faith, in its entirety and in its parts, becomes a proclamation of the praise of God an exhibit of His excellences, a glorification of His name.”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 113-114.
