Question: Why did God create humans?

Question: Why did God create humans?

Answer submitted by Pastor Jae Alexander

Well, the short answer is because He wanted to. Seriously, He’s God and can do whatever He wants! 

But, I suspect that you might want a little more than that simple answer. I actually love this question. I have been asked it by 3 year olds and adults. I’ve kicked it around myself many times and plan on asking it to God when I see Him. 

Truth is the scripture never comes right out and states the answer to the question. But, I believe that we do see some clues dropped in the pages of God’s word. Before I go there, let’s talk about God as the Creator a little. Because it reveals something about His character that is important. The opening sentence of the scripture states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 

First, we see that there is a chronological word in this sentence, “the beginning”. This indicates that God already existed before anything else did. This speaks of His being Eternal, without beginning or end. He has always been. Then we see that God did something. He created the heavens and the earth. Now, we are not just talking about the sky and our planet. We are talking about the Universe. This tells us that God is not a part of it, but responsible for it. The term used to describe this is called Transcendent. God is above and beyond His creation. It also reveals that He is Omnipotent or All-powerful. All the power that is in the Universe is derived from the Creator and nothing is beyond Him. 

Why geek out like this? Because, everything that is recorded through out the rest of the scripture is a record of God interacting with His creation. This flies in the face of such theories as Deism, Theistic evolution, etc… It also tells us something very important about God. He desired interaction or relationship with what He created. This didn’t come from something that God was missing, I believe that it comes from another characteristic of God that is revealed to us in the scripture.

“…God is love.”- 1 John 4:8

Love is not a feeling. Granted it can generate very strong feelings and emotions, but at its root it is not an emotion. It is action. It is wanting the very best for another and doing what is necessary to accomplish that end. So, I believe that one of the reasons that God created human beings was to be able to demonstrate His great love. 

Another reason that scripture implies is that He created us for His glory.

“everyone who is called by my name,

    whom I created for my glory,

    whom I formed and made.” - Isaiah 43:7 NIV

Now, I’ll grant that the prophet Isaiah had Israel in mind when he gave these words in the beginning but this does extend to the entire human race at the end of the passage here in verse seven. Well, what is God’s glory? This question has always been hard for me to describe and answer. The simplest way I can think to describe it is like this. It’s something that points to how awesome and great God is. Sometimes it’s from the natural world, sometimes it’s from the supernatural world. Sometimes it’s something from the supernatural world invading the natural world. 

Things from the natural world are things like the Universe, the human body, etc… The complexity of these things are amazing and they speak of the genius and the glory of the Creator. 

Things from the supernatural world would be like angels. We know of them due to their invading our natural world, which leads me to think of miracles that show the Glory of God. 

Why did God create humans? He wanted to. Because He desired to bestow His great love on His creation. In return, His creation would reflect His glory. Creating a perfect, beautiful, harmony between Creator and creation. Someday, because of Jesus, we will know this as reality.