Receptive God

“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power,” sing the twenty-four elders and four living creatures in the heavenly throne room (Revelation 4:11). The reason the Lord is worthy of glory, honor, and power is that He created all things (a chiastic clause: create / all things / Your will / they are / were created).

Worthy to receive ? Doesn’t God always already possess glory, honor, and power? Isn’t that what being God means? Yes, God has always already had that power, and the song points to the His worthiness to receive recognition from creatures.

Still, God is praised as a God who receives . And how can a God who always already has everything receive anything in any sense? The answer, of course, is Trinitarian: The Father always already has glory, honor, and power because He has always already received it from the Son in the Spirit, and the Son always already has all glory, honor, and power because He has received it from the Father in the Spirit. This internal receptiveness makes it possible for God to receive glory from creatures.

Only the Triune God can be worshiped: Not ought , but can . Worship is only coherent if we creatures worship a God who can receive, who has always received, who would receive and give whether or not we ever existed.