Does God need us?

Supreme above all, it is thus alone 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. Sufficient to Himself, He is the Source and Centre of all; life and breath and all things but His gift. None then can make Him his debtor, nor give Him, save of what is but His own.

Man would fain make God a receiver instead of a giver; but this cannot be; for, "it is more blessed to give than to receive;" and, assuredly, God must have the more blessed place. "Without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better." "Who has first given to him?" God can accept the smallest gift from a heart which has learnt the deep truth contained in those words, "Of thine own have we given thee;" but, the moment a man presumes to take the place of the "first" giver, God's reply is, "if I were hungry, I would not tell thee;" for "He is not worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all "life and breath and all things." The great Giver of "all things" cannot possibly "need anything." Praise is all that we can offer to God; but this can only offered in the full and clear intelligence that our sins are all put away; and this again can only be known by faith in the virtue of an accomplished atonement.

God alone is sufficient for Himself. He requires nothing external to Himself to make His happiness supreme. The creation, which is the work of His hands, has added nothing to His happiness. He brought it into existence for His own pleasure. But that fact does not prove that He could not have done without it. He created it to please Himself, and when created, He had pleasure in it, for His thought was expressed in it; and that thought could not be otherwise than pleasing to Him. But it could not increase His happiness, for all that He saw in it was, so far as it went, the reflex of Himself, and by it nothing was added to the infinite wealth of felicity which lay in Himself.

If God be thus one, alone, He is sufficient unto Himself. He needed not even the glorious creation which in His goodness and power He has called into being. It was not necessary for His happiness to call the universe out of nothing. This thought of self-sufficiency, in its highest, divinest sense, is linked with the very being of God. "He giveth not, to any, account of His matters." There is no thought of His responsibility, in the human sense. There is no possibility of His being judged: "That Thou mightest … overcome when Thou art judged" must, from the very fact of the case, be true.

There is but one only sense in which God cannot suffice to Himself, that is, in His love; His love needs other beings besides Himself to render them happy. He will render others happy.

(1) In this first portion Eliphaz dwells upon God's infinite greatness and sufficiency unto Himself. Is man profitable to God? Does he add anything to the infinite fulness of the Creator? A wise man is profitable to himself, but in no sense is God dependent upon him. His righteousness is of no special profit to God (not "pleasure," for surely He does take pleasure in His saints). As the self-emptied One declares, "My goodness extendeth not to Thee" (Ps. 16:2). If therefore Job refuses to repent of his sin, he is not injuring God, but himself, and must reap the consequences. Eliphaz asks Job, does not his chastisement prove his sin? For would God rebuke a man for piety — his godly fear? Therefore Job's sin is proven! Surely an easy way, in a world of suffering, to prove man a sinner. But it proves too much, for it includes every sufferer — the righteous as well as the wicked.

We must, however, take exception to the first part of this declaration, as well as to the manifestly mistaken character of the second part. Has not God suffered, not in His blessed nature, but in what should have displayed it — righteousness in His creature? All has been created for His glory and pleasure. God is therefore a loser by the failure of man to exhibit in his life that which manifests the wisdom and goodness of his Creator. Judgment is not vindictive, therefore, but retributive, and wrath is for actual sin against God. Such is the conviction of sin brought home to the conscience by the Spirit of God: "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned." We get but a cold view of God as Eliphaz describes Him. On the contrary, the word of God presents Him as deeply concerned in all our affairs, as intimately associated with His creation. There would be no room for the gospel in the partial statements of Eliphaz. God is not simply holding the balances of justice as a disinterested observer, to mete out punishment to the one who comes short. If such teaching obtained, where would we find find place for, "Like as a Father pitieth His children;" "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth;" "He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness? "

And cannot this find its counterpart in divine things. God needs instruments in His work. “How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15). How gracious of God, who could do without anyone of us, to use instruments.

A precious thing is this ability to rejoice before God. It is all power, all security for holiness, — the "joy of the Lord is your strength." (Neh. 8:10.) Israel attached by the heart to this light- and heat-giving centre, their whole life was to revolve around it in the orbit of obedience, no more seeking release than the earth would of the sun. Here, then, God fixes the centre for them, — His sanctuary the heart of the land, from which should pulse and return the vivifying streams to every part. For He will be no man's debtor: of His own only can we give Him and he who gives to Him indeed, enriches himself by giving. Has He hunger that shall be fed with Israel's offerings? Has He need that He ordains them to satisfy? Yes: the need of love for its object. He is Love. His "delights are with the sons of men."

"Who am I?" What a question! David was nothing, and God was all and in all. If ever he had entertained the thought that he could offer anything to God, he entertained it no longer. It was all the Lord's, and He, in His grace, had allowed them to offer it all. Man can never make God his debtor, though he is ever seeking to do so. The fiftieth psalm, the first of Isaiah, and the seventeenth of Acts, all prove that the unceasing effort of man whether Jew or Gentile, is to give something to God; but it is a vain effort. The reply to man, thus endeavouring to make God his debtor, is, "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee." God must be the giver, man the receiver. "Who," says the apostle, "has first given to Him?"

Then again, in Job 35, he takes up his pretensions to superior right. "Elihu spake moreover, and said, Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God's?" Job really had ventured to speak crudely and arrogantly on this head. "For thou saidst, What advantage will it be to thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin? I will answer thee, and thy companions with thee. Look to the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou. If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him?" Thus he shows that it is not a question of man's profiting God, but of God's profiting man; for, besides what is due to Him — will, and love, and glory — impossible is it for man to walk in His ways without the richest recompense of blessing. In every possible sense it is God that gives the increase. And this is independent of dispensation. It was neither the kingdom, when all will be ordered in righteousness, nor yet in the light, which could not be till the True Light shone. Still there was a witness of enjoyed favour and blessing from God for the soul, though not manifest to all. So the wickedness of man does not lower the majesty of God, but is ruin to him that walks in it; as we have seen that the obedience of man brings no profit to God, but ensures exceeding real and rich blessedness to him that is so led.