Not Good to Be Alone?

It was (and is) not good for God to be alone.

We often mention that Adam and Eve in the garden are a pattern of Christ and the Bride/church. But before there was Christ and the Church, there was the Father and “Israel”, also patterned by Adam and Eve.

So when God revealed that it was not good for Adam to be alone, but that he needed a companion, surely it was a patterned or figurative way of saying, ‘It is not good for Me to be alone. l must have a companion.’

And all of God’s work from that day to this, especially involving His Son, has been for that express purpose: creating a “companion” (actually, a multitude of com­panions) for His eternal fellowship. That is what the “new creation” is all about.

Look at it another way:

• If our own observations and experience shows us how unsatisfactory life can be if lived entirely alone, with no regard for or fellowship with others, and how much we need companionship, personal and spiritual and sympathetic and loving; and
• If we are made in the image and likeness of God,

then, reasoning backward, it is not good that God Himself be alone either.

I remember some years ago a young sister asking in a Bible class: ‘Why does God love me?’ The question passed with perfunctory discussion, and I at first dismissed it from my mind as of no great consequence. But then the question came back to me later, and it suddenly seemed to be of enormous import: ‘Why does God love me?’ Not just the fact of His love, that we might take for granted in some theoretical way, but the rationale behind it. I finally came to the conclusion that God loves me because He needs someone to love, and He needs someone to love Him, and that somehow even the Omnipotence of the Universe would be incomplete without the love, freely given, of His creation.

Why weren’t (aren’t) the angels enough? Is it because their devotion is almost preprogrammed, whereas our devotion, our love, arises out of our own wills, freely given? This freely-given love is what God is looking for. This is why He had to create beings like Adam and Eve, who had the potential to choose, and hence the potential to disappoint Him greatly. It was an enormous risk, but it had a far greater upside: though they might disappoint, they could also bring Him the greatest joy, for they had the potential — what a potential it was and is! — to please Him.

Now there’s a thought: that our disregard for the Father can truly hurt Him. What a responsibility to consider.