SEEK 42 – God, Humanity and the Angels
Question: Why did God create us when it could have just been him and the angels in the world?
Bible Reading: Psalm 8
Text: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8:4-5)
Have you heard of the VHEM movement? I suspect not. The acronym stands for Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Founded by an American environmental activist, Les U. Knight it argues that human beings should cease to reproduce and so make ourselves extinct for the good of the planet. It goes without saying that Mr Knight does not share the biblical view of humanity or indeed the planet. The earth was created ‘good’ and humanity was the apex of that. Human beings were created to do precisely the opposite of Mr Knight’s anti-human stance. We were to ‘be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).
But things went wrong. When given the choice to obey God and stay in fellowship with him, or try to be gods ourselves, we chose the latter. As a result, humanity fell, and the creation has been suffering the impact ever since. In Genesis 6 God told Noah “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth” (Genesis 6:13). He also “regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled” (Genesis 6:6). That is such an extraordinary verse. If the VHEM movement was seeking biblical justification this would surely be their verse!
But God so loved the world that he found a way to deal with our sin and rebellion, and to create . He gave us his Son who came as a human being to save human beings.
Why did God create human beings? Did he need us? Paul answered that question when he was speaking to the Athenian philosophers – “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” (Acts 17:24-25). God created us because he wanted to. But how did he create us?
Let’s return to the Shorter Catechism – this time Question 10.
Q: How did God create man?
A: God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.
Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
We are made in God’s image. We are made to be stewards of the rest of his Creation – not to destroy it, but to control it for good. We were made for God. As Augustine put it – “our hearts were made for you, and they are restless until they find their rest in you”.
This is such a high view of humanity. Mr Knight and his colleagues have the low view of human beings that results from an atheistic perspective which ultimately ends up in seeing humans as little more than sophisticated parasites – a blot on the earth – which would be well rid of us.
But the Bible has such a high view. We are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). We are made a little lower than the angels, and crowned in glory and honour (Psalm 8). Even more amazingly humanity is redeemed by the Creator becoming one of us. This is what we call the incarnation – God coming in a human body. God becoming a human being. He didn’t come – he came as a man!
Can you see how practical and important this is in today’s world, in your life? Every human is made in the image of God. Every human is made for God. That is the foundation of the principle of equality. Secular humanism – that is humanism without God – has no basis for equality. It just borrows the Christian fruit, but rejects the root from which that fruit comes. Christian humanism recognises the glory and honour of humanity because we recognise the glory and honour of the God in whose image we are made.
God made us for his glory. Back to the catechism – question 1. “What is man’s chief end?” (I.e.. why were we made? What is our purpose?). “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”. You can’t beat that!
Consider: Can you think of other practical implications of the teaching about humanity that the Bible brings? How should it make you see other people? And yourself?
Further Reading:
What is Man? – A. Craig Troxel
What Makes us Human? – Mark Meynell
Prayer: Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour….Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
It is astonishing the ways humanity finds to distort and destroy life. We must assume Satan is at work. It seems to me only a massive movement of the Spirit of God in awakening can save society from itself. Perhaps instead the Lord will soon return.