[BBC List] does God need you?

[Mike Abendroth]

January 23, 2007

D.A. Carson <http://www.calvinistgadfly.com/?p=402>  Quote on a Fundamental
Creator-creature distinction. 

  _____  

This past weekend, I was listening to some mp3s of D.A Carson's lectures on
the use of the Old in the New. Since Carson is a rapid speaker, it took me a
few minutes but finally made a transcript of the following quote. It is in
the context about the assumption that David had about building a great
temple for God and therefore making God great, or "enhancing" his greatness.


The problem, says Carson, is that the creature does not make God great with
a need that God is lacking and needs to fulfill, but it is God who chooses
to make certain men great and powerful. I.e. Man is in need of God, not God
in need of Man. 

Carson warns that we [Evangelicals] today are in danger of this grave error,


Paul (in Acts 17) actually has the cheek to say that God does not need you.
It is not as if God needs you. You see, that is so different than paganism.
In paganism the gods and human beings have a kind of reciprocal
relationship. The gods have their needs, we have our needs. You scratch
their backs, they scratch your back. You give them the right to sacrifice,
and they give you the right blessing. They are like suped up human beings
with their fears their loves and their lusts and their hates, and then you
make them happy and the gods make you happy, you see?

Thus, they have their needs. But God.doesn't need us. Now it is important to
keep saying that in our generation. Because we are so in danger of so
psychologizing God that we are in danger of thinking of him as sort of up in
heaven as really unhappy unless we get our praise choruses right. 

Do you see? Dear old God is really unhappy unless we live holy lives, [God
is] miserable, miserable.

Now do not misunderstand, I do not want to make God so withdrawn that he
does not care about what happens. Or there is no place for his love or his
wrath or his response to us. God is a personal God. But it is not as if God
is a being larded with a whole lot of psychological needs, which only we can
meet. So that in eternity past, dear old God was really quite lonely up
there and decided to do something about it. 

It is just not the way the God of the Bible is presented, you see? 

Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/23/2007 @ 11:03 pm   |   Comments are off for
this post 

 

 

Thanks.

 

Charis,

 

Mike Abendroth

 

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

 

"The typical modern Christian breastplate is a little paper bib.  Absolutely
useless!  It's made up of a system, or a method, or a program... 10 to 12
sessions with a counselor.  That's not what you need.  What you need is
about 10 or 12 hours in the presence of God until you sort out the unholy
characteristics in your life and get right with Him." John MacArthur, The
Believer's Armor, Study Notes. Eph. 6:10-24, pg. 33.

 

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