Great Moments in Bible History
Number 1
Why did God make us ?
The Big Risk
It was a beautiful place. So full of life. A tropical paradise. Birds of every color were flittering here and there, singing about the joy of being alive on such a day. In the distance, larger animals could be heard and occasionally seen: the proud lion, the playful monkey, the wild mountain goat. Farther off was the ocean with its own life. Porpoises could be seen leaping above the waves and then plunging far beneath them. Occasionally, a whale could be heard calling to its mate.
The air was clean. The waters were pure and crystal clear. But there was a purity far above the physical. There was no moral pollution, no sin on this planet. Humans had not yet been created. And there was no other creature on earth capable of rebelling against its Maker. The birds, the trees, the fish, and every other creature all performed their jobs exactly as God wanted them to. He had not given them the ability to make moral judgments and so it was not possible for them to make wrong decisions. Sin was impossible here.
Why did God want to change all of that? Why would He want to create a creature who could destroy this paradise and bring his Creator such sorrow and heartache? What possible use could He have with such a creature as a human?
Perhaps we can understand a little of God’s feelings by looking at ourselves. Nearly everyone is in love with someone at some time in their life. Why do we take such a risk? Surely no one can hurt us more than someone we truly love (and how many people there are who can testify of that hurt). Why don’t we simply go out and buy a doll that says, “I love you”? To ask such a question is to answer it. The words, “I love you,” have real meaning only when they come from someone who can freely choose not to love you, who is capable of hating you instead. So, when God decided to make a creature who was capable of loving Him, by the very nature of love He had to create a creature who could choose not to love Him. God had to take the same risk that we take (and more) when we love someone.
But this only partially answers the question of why God would want someone like humans on this earth. God explained why when He was getting ready to create them. “Let us make humankind in our image,” He said, “after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). God wanted to create a creature that looked like Him. That is not to say that God has a head, two arms and two legs. God is a spirit, not a physical body. But humans have a spirit too. Each person’s spirit has the ability to reason, to love and to hate, and to make choices as to what it wants to do. In this we are a copy of God (a very limited copy, of course, but a copy nevertheless).
The fact that humans were made a copy of God gave them an ability which no other creature on earth had. They had the ability to know and understand God. When they understood God’s character and of their own free will gave Him praise, there was a value in that praise which could not come from an animated doll, or even from one of the animals. Only humans could understand God because only they were like God. And only humans could cooperate with God in His work. God intended for them to improve on His creation and to share with his Creator in the joys of such work (Genesis 1:28).
We can see what God Himself thought of His creation by noticing a phrase that is repeated over and over in Genesis 1 (the chapter about God’s creation). Six times in that chapter we read that “God saw that it was good.” But only after He created humans do we read that “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). So instead of viewing humans as the spoiler in His creation, God viewed them as what completed it, what made it very good.
What a wonderful and high ideal God had when He created this earth and placed on it a creature in His own image who could of his own free will cooperate with Him in His work. Of course, it was possible that that creature might choose not to cooperate with God. But that was not God’s intention, and we should not blame God for the results of the working of our own free will.
What an amazing trust!
Kings and Queens
We all have things that we value and take care of. Have you ever had a friend who trusted you enough to loan you one of those valuable things? I have a friend who once offered to let me drive his antique car. Quite a trust! In Genesis 1, God went way beyond anything our friends have ever done for us. He had just finished making His wonderful creation when He put it in the hands of the humans He had just created. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (verse 28).
He made people to be kings and queens over His creation. Our society does not think very highly of kings. Years ago, we rebelled against King George, and we have not changed our opinion of kings in the years since. There is no question that some of the worst people in history have been kings or queens. But that is because in our sinfulness we love to use our authority to serve ourselves. Nothing is uglier than when we are given a trust, but we use it to serve ourselves.
Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. The ultimate King is God. He has demonstrated time and again that He does not reign selfishly. When God became a human and died for our sins, He showed us how humans can be beautiful kings and queens.
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The material for these articles came primarily from Genesis 1-2. Having read these articles, you might also enjoy reading the original story in the Bible.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible.