I confess that I am very insecure about my own capacity. Every time I write something and put it in the public sphere, I wonder if I have said something which is not correct. How can my ponderings on topics be used by God if they are fallible and potentially wrong? It was in wondering and praying about this quandary that I began to ask “Why do human actions matter? What is the purpose of human action?” Here are my fallible and potentially wrong thoughts on this question.
God is free. This means that he is able to choose freely from options consistent with his own character as love. God is love (1 John 4:8). What this means firstly is that the Father eternally loves the Son in the Spirit (John 5:20). The Son returns that love in the Spirit. Thus God is, was and will be eternally love. This love is other-centred and outward focused. The love of God for the Son motivated the Father to create human beings in, though and for the Son (Col 1:16). He breathed life into the humans, enlivening them by his Holy Spirit (Gen 2:7). In this way humanity is very much connected with the triune life of God. Another way of expressing this is to say, according to Gen 1:26-27, that humans are created in the image and likeness of God.
God is still free, but since he has invested in humanity, he has narrowed down his own choices. The choice to create humanity was a free choice made in love and the choice to give humanity his own life was also a free choice made in love. But that free choice means that he has freely constrained himself in the way things are accomplished within the created realm. When God made humans in his image he gave them dominion over the rest of creation (Gen 1:28). He invested humanity with authority over the world. The fact that we are sinners does not remove that responsibility nor has it removed the choice which the Father has made to continue to value human beings.
The free choice of God to give human actions significance and importance is even more evident in the incarnation. The Son of God, who had all the qualities of infinite deity, chose to make himself part of the creation, to become finite and limited. As the man Jesus Christ, God worked through human actions, actions enabled by the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:16). It is a mistake to see the actions of Jesus as divine acts done by God in a man suit. They are genuinely human actions, empowered by the Holy Spirit and done in obedience to the Father (John 5:19). They are actions done as the only true image of God, a human image as humanity was created to be (2 Cor 4:4). Since the risen Jesus Christ is still embodied as a human and is now a human seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, God has not stopped being heavily invested in humanity. It is as if God has ‘put all his eggs in one basket.’
Human beings are finite, fallible creatures. I do not think that this is simply a result of sin. Human beings were always finite and always intended to remain finite. This is what it means to be a creature. Because we are finite it follows that we must also be fallible. How could a finite creature, even one who had not sinned, know all things? Even Jesus did not know everything as he walked the earth. He asked questions. He had to pray before appointing his apostles in order to know the will of God. And he told us that he does not know the day or the hour when he will return, only the Father knows this. If the sinless Jesus did not know everything that there is to know, how much more must we as sinners be fallible.
Yet the fact is that God has made creation in such a way as to grant responsibility for humans to reflect God’s goodness to creation. God is heavily invested in his choice to make human beings in his image. Some of us perhaps imagine that when God works in the world he does so in a way which is akin to magic. In other words he simply zaps things and changes them. That is, however, far from the truth. God does his work in the world through human beings. This is true of everything which he does. This is not a statement contrary to the miraculous. Miracles are not actions done without human action, but as humans we are given a part to play in the miraculous intervention of God. Let me give some examples.
When Yahweh showed himself God to Israel, he did so by using human beings. He called Moses to lead the people out of Egypt. It was humans – Moses and Aaron – who went to Pharaoh and announced that God would bring plagues. Even Pharaoh, a wicked human being, was chosen to demonstrate the power of God by his disobedience (Rom 9:17). God did not spare Israel by ordering it to be so, but the Hebrews were only saved by putting the blood of the lamb on the doors (Exod 12:13). This human action allowed the angel of death to pass over their houses and not kill the firstborn. When the God of Israel exposed Baal as a false God, he did so through Elijah when he built an altar on Mount Carmel and challenged the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). When God wanted to judge Israel he sent, not angels, but human prophets to his people. When the judgement came it was enacted by human beings from the powerful nations around. The pagan human Nebuchadnezzar is called “my servant” (Jer 25:9). I could go on further.
But the most significant proof that the actions of God in the world are done through human beings is the person of Jesus. God did not heal the sick and raise the dead by simply calling down from heaven. Instead the Son became human and did the works of God as a human being. When Jesus ushered in the kingdom of God with its eschatological freedom, shalom and justice, he did this as a human being sent by the Father. The human actions of Jesus as embodied representative of the love of God show us how much God the Father has invested in using his human creation. That Jesus sent his disciples to do his works means a continuation of God’s working through his human creation. We are sinners, but we are sinners whose destiny is to image the God who created us. And in Christ we will be this. The actions of God in the world are done through human beings.
The fact that God has invested so much into humanity as his vice-regents in the created world explains why the Bible is not a book simply dropped down from heaven or dictated by the Holy Spirit. The Bible is a book written by the hand of various human beings while being inspired by the Holy Spirit. The words written there were revealed to human beings, not simply ‘magically’ written down. The events described in the Bible are events in human history, through which the Creator God, the God of Israel, has revealed himself. What the Bible records are God’s words and actions among humans.
Something similar can be said about prayer. Prayer matters because God has given humanity prayer as a means by which we can call upon him to act in the world. This also is a consequence of being created in God’s image. In his loving freedom, God has chosen to restrict his actions on the basis of his investing authority in humanity. So he looks to humans to call upon him so that his will can be done in the world. Again there is no unilateral action from heaven. Rather, we are called to cooperate with God. Things are not fixed by God zapping things better. Just like Joseph, who was called to a life of slavery and imprisonment before becoming prime minister of Egypt in order to save the people of Israel from starvation, Christians are called to pray and to work in the world in order to bring about God’s will in the created sphere.
There is of course a real danger attached to the investment which God has made in humanity. Humans are rebellious sinners who have failed as a race to do what God desires. This is clearly why we need redemption. But even before people sinned, they were in need of help to be the stewards of creation they are created to be. Human beings, as finite creatures, were always intended to be in need of help to accomplish the works of God in the world. Before sin entered the world Adam and Eve were given the Spirit when God breathed life into them. The Spirit was given to enable and empower people to be truly human, that is, to rely on the heavenly Father in everything. This is grace. Jesus lived like this, always reliant on the Father in the power of the Spirit. Christians need to continually be filled with the Spirit and hear the direction of the Spirit in order to live as creatures, fully reliant on the Father.
What all this implies is that human actions are purposeful. What we do as human beings actually matters. God does not operate in creation alone, but does so through human actions. Our lives and what we do with those lives genuinely make a difference. This is why the Bible tells us to love one another in word and deed (1 John 3:18). It is not enough to simply say, “Be warm and well fed” (James 2:16) as if this wish would produce a divine action to change the world. Human actions change the world for good or for ill. The divine will is done through human acts. Justice must be fought for. Slavery was not abolished by sitting around and waiting for slave traders to stop exploiting people. Rather, this was achieved by Wilberforce and others through actions done by the guidance of the Spirit. Human lives therefore have genuine meaning and purpose.
The difference between human actions done in sin and human actions done in the will of God is not that one is not honoured by God and the other is. God honours human actions, even those as sinners. This is the consequence of his investment of himself in humanity. Sinful acts have real consequences in the world. Good and holy acts have real consequences in the world. If we are to be people who want to do good and holy acts then we must follow in the footsteps of Jesus. The things which Jesus did were done in perfect submission to the Father’s will. He was empowered by and lead by the Holy Spirit. And he spent much time committed to prayer so that he would know how to act in that will. This commitment to the will of the Father came with a great cost, but it is the basis for the restoration of human actions which are pleasing to God.
So why would God use me? Because God is wholly committed to humanity. He is committed to human action as the means to change the world and to bring about his will. In using my fallible and potentially wrong words God takes a risk that I will get things wrong. But he does not use another means than human actions empowered by the Spirit to accomplish his will.