Why Did God Create Humanity?

Why did God create humanity? The real reason may surprise and amaze you. (Hint: It was not because He needed us to love Him, serve Him, obey Him or even worship Him.)

hen the question “Why did God create humanity?” is asked, the same answers seem to surface. Some say, “God was motivated to create humanity so that they would love Him.” Their belief is based upon the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…”

Others say, “God created humanity to serve Him.” And they usually quote the great commission. Thus, we often hear the cliché “We are saved to serve.”

Along with God creating humanity to love and to serve Him, some add “God created man to obey Him.”

Still others say that God was motivated to create humanity to get glory. They quote I Corinthians 10:31b which says, “…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Strong’s Concordance defines the word glory as “giving praise.” Thus, to glorify God is to tell Him how great He is. This leads some to incorrectly say that God has the world’s greatest ego.

It is important that we love God, because loving God is something humanity was designed to do, but that is not why He ultimately created us. To say that God created humanity to love Him is to insinuate that God has an unmet love need.

It is also important to serve God, but that also is not why He created us. Scripture specifically states that He is not “…served by human hands…”

Obedience to God is important, but that is not why He created us either. To say that God created man to obey Him is to assume that He has some sort of perverted need to hold power over people and boss them around.

Humanity has been designed to give God glory, but that again is not why He created us. God did not create humanity because He needed His ego built up.

God has no unmet need. He is sufficient within Himself. God is the giver. Man is the receiver. Scripture says that it is God who gives “life and breath and all things….” God does not need humanity, but humanity needs God, “…for in Him we live, and move, and have our being….”

God commands us to love, serve, obey and glorify God for our benefit. The only way we can experience health and wholeness is by spontaneously loving, serving, obeying, and glorifying Him.

Then why did God create humanity? The use of an analogy will assist us in answering this question. But please keep in mind that an analogy comparing God to man will be inadequate in some ways. So let’s focus on the aspects of the analogy that can assist us.

As a healthy couple is to birthing babies, so is God to creating humanity. It is an unhealthy couple who says, “Let’s have babies so we will have someone to love us.” “Let’s have children so they will serve us.” “Let’s have children so we can boss them around.” “Let’s have children so we can get praise from their success.”

On the other hand, it is the healthy couple who says, “Because we have an abundance of love in our marriage, let’s share it. Let’s have babies who will look like us, have our life within them, and love like us.

Then they can enjoy an intimate love relationship with us.” It is this couple’s pure love that motivates them to give children life.

In eternity, I imagine God having a holy huddle and saying, “We have such a great life together and an over abundance of love, let’s share it. Let Us make humanity in Our image so that they can love like Us. Then they can enjoy an intimate relationship with Us.”

In the great love chapter, the Apostle Paul says that true love “does not seek its own.” This means that love is not selfish or self-centered. God did not keep His life and love to Himself, but He shared it. He breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. God created humanity because “He is love,” not for what humanity could do for Him.

So what did humanity do with God’s life and love? Our first parents, Adam and Eve, rejected God’s love and forfeited life.

And what did the God who is love do with selfish humanity? He continued to love them because love “does not take into account a wrong suffered…” We see this love displayed in John 3:16 which says,“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Because God is love, He gave humanity life at creation. And after humanity rejected God’s love, He then offered humanity life again through Christ. God continues to offer humanity His life because He still is love – perfect love. He never changes.

When people are drawn to accept God’s offer of love and life in Christ, they are born again and called children of God. The Apostle John affirms this truth when he writes, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.” God loves us so much He intimately endears us to Himself by calling us His beloved. We are so completely loved by God that nothing will separate us from Him.

We see this clearly through the words of the Apostle Paul when he says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God loves you completely in Christ! Go ahead drink deeply of this glorious truth. Gorge yourself with these wonderful words. God loves you completely. Bathe yourself in His unconditional love. Immerse yourself in it. Rest in it. Experience His great love for you to the fullest, and remember God loves you for who you are in Christ not for what you do or have done. Why did God create humanity? He created us because of who He is. He is love.