Articles
What Kind Of God Do We Serve
I saw another video the other day that I want to share with you. It’s a very old video so you may have seen it, but in it, a man named John Lennox, a Northern Irish mathematician and christian apologist stood before a group of people and was asked this question by a person in the audience:
“Why would you choose to worship a creator God who forbade men to actually eat from the tree of knowledge? (one which you have obviously eaten from because you are a rather knowledgeable man) Why would you choose to worship this sort of deity who would have kept you down?”
While the audience member asked this question, Dr. Lennox listened intently and respectfully, but by the time the question was finished he had a broad smile on his face. “That is a very good question”, he began. “I will tell you why it’s a good question. I notice it was asked originally by a snake.”
At this point, Dr. Lennox paused briefly as the rest of the audience laughed, with some even clapping. He continued, “The answer to your question, though, is this. Do I worship a God who wants to keep me down? I’ll tell you the kind of God I worship. I worship the kind of God who made me in His image and coded Himself into humanity, came into our world, to provide a basis through His death and resurrection that I could become something that I was not by creation, and that is a son of God. The notion that God is trying to keep us down is actually the original lie.”
There are so many good lessons in the very short snippet of a video.
First of all, the suggestion that a God who sets boundaries is somehow a tyrant, desiring to keep His creation down comes from a very narrow and flawed perspective. Any loving being in possession of greater knowledge and therefore equipped to know what is best for their weaker loved one would set boundaries, not for control or power or selfish reasons, but to protect the health, safety and happiness of the weaker. Doesn’t a loving parent set rules for the safety and protection of a child? Rules implemented by man can be arbitrary. They can even be weaponized by tyrants, but the laws of God have never been so. His plan from before creation has been to love us and provide a way for us to choose to come to Him. A shepherd’s staff is a guide and comfort to his sheep. It is only a weapon to the predator who wants to take away and devour.
There is also the love shown in the nature of our creation itself. God could have chosen to create us in any way He desired, yet He chose to create us in Their image. He gave us a mind that could reason, a will capable of choice, an eternal soul, but also a heart and capacity for the greatest of His abiding blessings – Love.
The greatest evidence of God’s devotion to His creation is well known to us. Does a God who desires to keep His creation down send His own beloved Son down to Earth as a sacrifice? There is no greater love (Jn 3:16). There is no greater sacrifice (Jn 15:13). There is no greater act of humble devotion (Phil. 2:5-11).
His great hope for us is a purification and glorification so undeserved and incomprehensible to our limited minds, but He still gives us a choice. He still allows us to turn to Him, or to go our own way. That doesn’t sound like a selfish tyrant, or one who, in any way, wishes to keep His creation down. As Dr. Lennox said, God’s great desire is that I choose to “become something that I was not by creation, and that is a son of God.”
Don’t believe the lie that Satan has been telling from the beginning. Your heavenly Creator desires the best for you. He desires that you will choose Him, serve Him, and in doing so, become His child for all eternity.
