The God who has made the world and all things which are in it, *he*, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands,
Paul stands in Athens, a city packed with shrines and even an altar to a god nobody could name. He starts not with Jesus but with the making of the world, and every word of his opening pulls the city's religion apart.
Paul's first claim is the one thing no teacher in Athens taught.
Every clause, you might say every word, undermined paganism. Yet not one word could rightly offend. This grand but simple truth left no room for the myths of priests and poets. It left no room either for the reasoning of thinkers in pitch darkness. Here is the remarkable fact: not one of the rival leaders of religion or philosophy claimed that their gods — home, foreign, or unknown — had made the world and everything in it.
The two schools listening to him each had their own account of the universe, and neither had room for a Creator.
Neither the Epicureans nor the Stoics owned creation. The one held the absurd idea that atoms came together by chance. The other imagined a fixed cycle of forming and breaking up, repeating for ever in the universe. That cycle was their god, if they can be said to have had one.
Paul does not stop at "Maker." The second title presses on the conscience.
The God who made all things is not only a Creator. He is Lord of heaven and earth. His authority is constant everywhere. Fallen man writhes under this truth, because it appeals at once to the conscience. As a man, I am His creature, and that tie makes me His servant. Am I doing His will? Am I pleasing Him as the motive of my life? But now I am a fallen man, departed from Him, and I like to do my own will, though I know it is opposed to His. But if He is Lord of heaven and earth, He must call me to account for my wrongdoing.
Scripture gives God this same title elsewhere, and those words shaped Paul's own thinking.
In Matthew 11 the Lord Jesus, speaking to His Father, addressed Him as "Lord of heaven and earth." In Acts 7:49 we have the words "Heaven is my throne." The light and power of this had entered Paul's mind, and it found a place in his testimony to the men of Athens.
One line from Paul sets every temple aside. He is not the first to say it.
God "does not live in temples made by man." Isaiah implied as much to those who rested on that gift standing among them — a temple soon to fall. Stephen said it in those very words. Paul heard him then with unbelieving ears. Now Paul proclaimed it in faith and love to the Athenians.
The mistake runs deeper than architecture. It starts when people turn from the Creator to things they can make.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the worship of nature, and then for the worship of humans made into gods. The sheer number of religions proved that men had lost the one true God. No splendid statue or temple could hide the fraud. Each one only advertised it. How can you fence in the everywhere-present Lord of heaven and earth inside man's work?
If not in buildings, then where? Some writers apply Paul's words to a habit many Christians keep — calling a building "God's house."
True believers make up the house of God. They are "living stones" — people who have tasted that the Lord is gracious and have come to Him. The Spirit of God lives in them. Don't tell me that cold, dead stones make up the house of God! "God does not live in temples made by man." True believers are the house of God.
So great a God might seem out of reach. He is not.
God made the universe. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and He does not live in temples made by man. Yet He stoops to look on a person who is poor, contrite in spirit, and trembling at His word. His goodness leads the sinner to repentance; and where did His goodness shine as it did in Jesus?
- Maker — Paul opens with creation. No Athenian god or philosophy ever claimed it. His words pull idolatry apart without insulting anyone.
- Lord — Maker means Ruler. If He rules heaven and earth, then my will is not my own and He must call me to account.
- Unhoused — No building of ours can hold the God who is everywhere. Isaiah and Stephen said this before Paul. Athens' crowd of shrines only proved that men had lost the true God.
- Indwelling — He refuses stone buildings and lives in believers instead. They are the house of God, not any structure.
- Stooping — The God too great for temples bends down to the person who trembles at His word. His goodness, seen in Jesus, leads that person to repentance.
nor is served by men's hands as needing something, himself giving to all life and breath and all things;
Paul stands before the philosophers of Athens and makes known the God they admitted they did not know. His first move is to strip away the idea that God gains anything from human religion. The verse reverses the direction of worship: God is not the receiver but the giver.
The verb here is not the usual word for worship. One writer traces where else it appears:
The Greek word therapeuo (from therapon, "an attendant") in Acts 17:25 means "to serve," "render service to" — older translations read "worship" here. In the Gospels it is used again and again for curing and healing. It is nowhere else translated "worship."
The picture is of attendants waiting on someone in need. Paul denies that God is served that way.
God lacks nothing, so no place can hold Him. That is what makes Him near to everyone:
Supreme above all, it is only in this way that He can be near to all; not dwelling in temples made with hands, which isolate and shut Him up; nor served by human hands, as if He were in need. Enough in Himself, He is the Source and Centre of all; life and breath and all things are nothing but His gift. No one, then, can make Him his debtor, or give Him anything except what is already His own.
Paul's words cut against an instinct that runs far wider than Athens. Man's default picture of God is of someone who wants something from him:
Man's general estimate of God is that He is a hard master, demanding and expecting great things from him. So when he thinks of God at all, it is usually tied to the idea of bringing something to God, instead of receiving from Him. Paul met this thought in the idolatrous Athenians. This proud thought of man's ability is such a solid barrier that it shuts the gospel out of the heart. And it is this that the Spirit of God breaks down, by convincing men of their sinfulness and their need of a Saviour.
The second half of the verse shows God's kindness, not just His power. It also exposes the gods the Athenians had built:
The apostle set before the Athenians One who is good in Himself and actively does good. He does so even in a world gone off course, since man's fall brought in sin and death everywhere. Yet He who needs nothing for Himself makes His sun rise on evil and good, and sends rain on just and unjust... He gives to all life and breath and all things. How simple and self-evident this plain fact is, and how well it makes known the God they themselves admitted they did not know! What a contrast with all the false gods of the world! They dragged their worshippers down to their own rebellious evil and mischievous selfishness. They also let their priests prey on the guilty fears of mankind.
Kelly also notes what the Athenians had assumed instead. They believed "the gods had no pleasure in man's happiness, but rather in casting down the exalted and reversing the prosperous."
The word all in this verse answers a real question: is God the Creator of every person, or only of the saved? One writer met the claim that God did not create the unconverted by pointing straight here:
I have been asked for a text. I quote Acts 17:25, 28: "He gives to all life, and breath, and all things..." He is addressing the heathen and says, "For in Him we live and move and have our being."
If God gives everything, no one can pay Him back. That leaves one honest response:
Man would like to make God a receiver instead of a giver; but this cannot be... The great Giver of "all things" cannot possibly "need anything." Praise is all that we can offer to God. But we can only offer it with the full and clear understanding that our sins are all put away. And we can only know this by faith in the power of a completed atonement.
So worship starts on the receiving side. Man brings God nothing He needs; he brings praise for all he has received.
- Served — the verb pictures attendants waiting on someone in need. God needs no such waiting on.
- Needs — He is enough in Himself. No temple holds Him, and whatever you bring Him was already His.
- Gives — He is good as well as powerful. He sends sun and rain on evil and good alike, unlike the gods men invent.
- All — life and breath reach every nation and every person, believer or not; no one is outside His giving.
- Receives — no one can make God a debtor. Man's place is to receive, and to praise once sin is put away.