for in him we live and move and exist; as also some of the poets amongst you have said, For we are also his offspring.
Paul spoke in a city full of altars and philosophers. He told them God is not far off, and used their own poets to argue against the idols all around him.
Each phrase of the verse marks a different layer of our reliance on God:
In fact, man's very existence is bound up with God, however little he realizes it. "In Him we live:" He is the source of our life; "and move:" He sustains all of our activities; "and have our being:" our existence is totally dependent upon Him.
One writer draws out how complete that hold on us is, and notes what Paul is not discussing here:
He surrounds us — in Him we live and move and are! The last of these says it most fully. He sustains us. He carries us, more completely than an infant in its mother's arms, for His arms never open to let go... He is not here considering the effect of the fall, nor yet man's responsibility, but the place given him in God's design. From there he will be better able to judge how far he has departed.
Yet closeness is not the whole truth about Him:
The words "in Him we live and move and have our being" show how near God is. Yet Paul preached Him as the One above all, the Lord of heaven and earth.
The quoted line was not invented for the sermon. It came from writings the audience could check for themselves:
The apostle rises far above natural philosophy. He views man in his relation to God, with an awareness of it that no other living being on earth has... Revealed truth states that relation in the clearest terms, and its echo sounded even where the true God was not known. So the apostle could quote the Greeks themselves, centuries before he spoke: "For we are indeed his offspring." These exact words appear in the astronomical poem of Aratus, a Cilician like himself, the Phaenomena, which still exists today. They appear again, with only one letter different, in the Stoic Cleanthes' hymn to Zeus, which also still exists.
There is an irony in the choice of witness:
So the apostle turns the admission of their own poets against themselves, or more exactly against their idolatry. Strange to say, the poets, however fanciful, are wiser than the philosophers. How often they stumble in their dreams on truths they would never have imagined!
"Offspring" means we come from God as creatures. It is not the same as being His children:
Only by faith in Christ Jesus do we become children of God, but all men are His offspring as His creatures. This being so, we ought not to think of God as something less than ourselves, or as the work of our own hands; and we should be those who seek after Him.
One writer traces this back to how man was made:
Scripture derives the soul of man, as man, from the inbreathing of God, apart from His dealings of saving mercy in Christ. In this sense, as the apostle applied it (Acts 17:28), all men, even the heathen, are His offspring. In Him all live.
Paul builds on a point his hearers already accepted:
If we are the offspring of God, as the Athenians boasted, idol-worship must be wrong. The Deity could not be like an image of stone, wood, or metal. If men are the offspring of God, God cannot be like a lifeless idol. The deduction was plain indeed. No one could refute it. It dealt a death-blow to idolatry.
Paul presses the point gently rather than with scorn:
If man alone of the creatures on earth is God's offspring, how can anyone maintain that the divinity is like a work of man's craft and imagination in gold, silver, or stone? "We ought not" to think so, he says graciously... A lifeless block that man shapes cannot be, or properly represent, the God who made him and all things.
- Source. "In Him we live" — God is the origin of life. "Move" — He sustains all our activity. "Have our being" — our existence depends wholly on Him.
- Sustainer. He surrounds and carries us more closely than a mother holds her child, because His arms never open.
- Near. God is close to every person. Yet Paul preached Him as Lord of heaven and earth, not a God the world contains.
- Kin by creation. All men are His offspring as creatures, since God breathed the soul of man into him. Only faith in Christ Jesus makes anyone His child.
- Therefore no idols. Since we come from God, God cannot be something we manufacture. Paul drew that conclusion from Athens' own poets, Aratus and Cleanthes, who proved wiser than its philosophers.
Being therefore [the] offspring of God, we ought not to think that which is divine to be like gold or silver or stone, [the] graven form of man's art and imagination.
Paul stands in Athens, a city crowded with statues. He has just quoted the city's own poets back to his hearers. From that borrowed line he draws one conclusion: if we came from God, God cannot be something we make.
Paul takes words his hearers already accepted and turns them against their idols.
So he turns the acknowledgment of their own poets against themselves, or rather against their idolatry. Strange to say, the poets, however fanciful, are wiser than the philosophers... How clearly this showed the folly of their boasted reason! What could be simpler or more conclusive? Since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that our hands can make God. This is in effect what their practice amounted to. Gods of silver and gold were the offspring of men's art and imagination.
Whatever man is, his Maker cannot be less.
From the viewpoint of creation, this is true. So it was foolish to think of God as comparable to gold, silver or stone images, the work of human artistry. If men — living, moving, intelligent beings — are God's offspring, then certainly God is at least as living and intelligent as they are!
The word points back to something in man's making. It is not his body, which he shares with animals. It is what God breathed into him.
Men are God's offspring, but not because they have a body, as all animals have. It is not even because they have a soul and spirit, as animals also have, suited to their place and function in creation. They are God's offspring because they have an inner man that came straight from God by His inbreathing... This is why man alone of all creatures on earth has an immortal soul, for good or for harm beyond calculation. It is also why he must give account to God. But here the apostle used this relationship to show how foolish it is to represent God with an idol. The relationship comes from the special nature of the immaterial part of man.
Paul says this to a crowd of idol-worshippers, so the word must cover more than believers.
Only by faith in Christ Jesus do we become children of God, but all men are His offspring as His creatures. This being so, we ought not to think of God as something less than ourselves, or as the work of our own hands. And we should be those who seek after Him.
The word can sound like family language. One writer tests it against the line just before it:
The word "offspring" seems to denote relationship, but does it?... In quoting their poets, the apostle uses "offspring" to mean that they received their being: "In Him we live and move and have our being." The thought behind "offspring" is creaturehood, not relationship.
The word in the verse does not name God. It points to what is divine.
theios, that which is "divine": it is not like gold, silver, or stone, and so on, Acts 17:29. The word is translated "divine" in 2 Peter 1:3-4.
Gold, silver and stone fail twice over. The material is God's creature, and the shape is man's invention.
When man carves these materials with his skill and imagination, he only adds absurdity to absurdity. For the material was itself a creature of God, and the shape given to each was man's fancy and manufacture. "God is spirit," and so can be everywhere at once.
Paul says "we ought not," not "you ought not." His words here are gentler than Isaiah's on the same subject.
"We ought not" so to think, he says graciously, not forgetting that Israel too had to bear the sterner irony of Isaiah. A lifeless block that man shapes cannot be the God who made him and all things. It cannot properly represent Him either.
Paul removes every false likeness of God — and there is one likeness he does not remove.
But there is a true and perfect image of the invisible God, Jesus the Lord... He revealed God in His being and His character, and in the relationship of Father, as He the eternal Word and Son knew Him... And He is the only safeguard from false gods and from idols — from idols of the mind no less than material images.
- Origin. God breathed into man an inner life no animal received. That is why man is God's offspring.
- Argument. Since we came from God, God cannot come from us; the idols were the offspring of human art and imagination.
- Limit. All people are His offspring as creatures; only faith in Christ Jesus makes anyone a child of God.
- Reason. What links man to God is spirit, and no carving of gold, silver, or stone can picture that.
- Answer. Every false image falls, and one remains. Christ is the true image of the invisible God, and the safeguard from idols of the mind as well as of stone.