But who is able to build a house for Him, for the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? So who am I that I should build a house for Him, except to burn incense before Him?
2 Chronicles 2:6 (NKJV)
Have you ever thought about what benefit God gets out of His relationship with us? Why did He create us in the first place? What does He get out of it? Does He have needs that we fulfill? We know He depicts Himself as having a full range of emotions—so do we fulfill emotional needs?
Or is there another way of looking at what God is all about?
David, the man after God’s own heart, made this most remarkable statement:
O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! Psalm 8:1
What’s so remarkable? David, more than most, often contemplated the vastness of the infinite heavens. Yet he places God ABOVE the heavens. He understood that God is beyond the infinite heavens—that he is uncontainable. His son Solomon, upon dedicating the temple, likewise acknowledged that God is beyond containment, asking, “But who is able to build a house for Him, for the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? So who am I that I should build a house for Him, except to burn incense before Him?”
Uncontainable
It’s impossible to fully comprehend what it means to be uncontainable. Likewise, it’s also impossible to fully understand the extent of God’s abundance, so we’ll have to let “overabundance” suffice.
- Is God so (over) abundant that His goodness, light, glory, purity, forgiveness and power is compelled to expand infinitely?
- Did God create us to enable his infinite abundance to find a place?
We know God fixes the problems the human race created. He pardons, He forgives, He applies mercy rather than justice, He added an everlasting covenant to save us after we breached the original one (also intended to save us—Ezekiel 16:59).
He invites us to be one with Him, to share His glory, to be in His family. He SO loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Solomon said it so well, it’s worth repeating—and personalizing.
But who is able to build a house for Him, for the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? So who am I that I should build a house for Him, except to burn incense before Him?
Lots to ponder here, Doug. Thanks for making me think!
It seems like Paul also could barely think of a word strong enough to describe God. Eph. 3:20-21 – “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly [hyperekperissou hyper] than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.” That Greek phrase is rarely used and is almost an overemphasis. He’s using extreme language to communicate the concept. Pretty cool, especially since our English ears have a concept of the word “hyper,” so we can somewhat grasp that wordplay.