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 human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’— Acts 17:24-28
Humans are a marvel. The roughly eight billion people on the planet today are all walking reflections of the image of the Almighty God. And yet, that is only part of the wonder. Not only are we made in his image, but we are fully sustained by him as well.
Paul exhorts the people of Athens on the steps of the Areopagus that it is God who gives them the breath they unconsciously inhale and exhale, God who preserves the movement of blood through their veins, God who provides a living and flourishing world to sustain them (Acts 17:25). And this God is not aided by human hands at all (v. 24)! This God created the world (Gen. 1:1), in fact, “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7).
Job, a man stricken with overwhelming personal grief and loss, was counseled and consoled by his friends for the better part of thirty chapters of Job’s narrative. As they try to make sense of Job’s situation, they search out truths about God. Finally, Job’s friend Elihu approaches his mourning friend, speaking with a humble preface: “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life… I am the same as you in God’s sight; I too am a piece of clay” (Job 33:4, 6). Then he contends for God’s righteousness and justice, his might and majesty– “How great is God—beyond our understanding!” (Job 36:26).
Dutch theologian Louis Berkhof wrote that God’s perfection is manifest in the highest good “towards His creatures for His own name’s sake, and is thus the ground of their being and continued existence” (emphasis added).
As Job learned, and as the Athenian converts learned, to understand man’s place, we first have to understand God. Paul even used their own philosophers in verse 28, possibly quoting the Cretan philosopher Epimenides (“In him we live and move and have our being”), and then the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus (“We are his offspring”).
We are God’s offspring–can you imagine? One commentator puts it this way: “God is not only near to human beings, but they are related to him as kin. Paul understands the Stoic idea in a biblical sense; cf. Psalm 139; Luke 3:38 (Adam as God’s Son).”
When considering the sanctity of human life, we ought to reflect upon the nature of its maintenance. If God has delighted to create a man or woman, to weave them together in the great mystery of conception, and to sustain them all their days with life and breath and being, who are we to allow them to be put out? What makes man think he has more authority than his Creator to decide the boundaries of a life? How much better that we approach God in all circumstances like Elihu, recognizing that we are clay, that God has gifted us with being, and that we are his offspring–how great is our God!
__________________________________
This is an excerpt from Sola Media’s 30-Day Devotional on the sanctity of human life. For more resources on care for the vulnerable and protection of life, download the whole devotional for FREE: Fearfully Made.
Mary Van Weelden
