God Does Not Depend on Anyone

Everything in the world draws its strength, integrity—its very existence—from something else. Everything, that is, except God Himself. He truly is independent of all other things. He needs nothing and depends upon no one and no thing. He is entirely self-sufficient. That is the great truth that the Scriptures celebrate and proclaim. It is the truth that Paul famously proclaimed at the Areopagus in Athens:

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” (Acts 17:24–25)

To momentarily repeat Paul, God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything.” Paul made a point of saying that because he knew that this is a misunderstanding of God that cuts across cultures and religions. Human beings seem instinctively to assume that the Deity needs something from us. Christians can fall into that way of thinking too. We can serve and give and pursue holiness all out of a sense that God needs those things from us or is helped in some way by our achievement. But this is a fundamental misconception.

God is not dependent upon anyone for His being.

God made the world but no one made Him. He does not depend upon anyone for His existence. It is a simple fact and a truth with which every Christian must agree. Our God is the uncreated One. It may be a simple truth, but it is at the same time a profoundly important one.

For a start, it is the great truth that sets the true and living God apart from the idols and false gods of other religions. Isaiah draws this out in his prophecy:

To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.
He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move. . . .

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
(Isa. 40:18–20, 28)

Unlike the false gods—in fact, unlike everything else in the universe—God Himself is uncreated, and, as the uncreated One, He is the Creator and the source of all life. John confirmed this at the start of his gospel, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).

It is so easy for us to view ourselves more highly than we ought. Our sinful tendency is to place ourselves at the center of the universe and to imagine that the rest of the world and the people around us somehow exist for our purpose and pleasure. But how we need to remember the basic truth that we are the creatures and God is the Creator. He is the great “I Am” who has always existed. He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).

It is an obvious statement, but it is also the fundamental truth with which we need to reckon. Everything flows from this truth. Nonetheless, we manage regularly to forget and overlook it in our self-centered view of the world. The Bible would regularly remind us therefore: the world is not here for our sake; God is not here to serve us or meet our needs; He is the uncreated Creator, and we exist by His power and His will, for His good pleasure. The first aspect of God’s independence is the fact that He is dependent upon no one for His being.

The management consultancy business is worth $250 billion a year. Their task is to help others make and execute plans. They help organizations chart the path to success through the choppy seas of change, adversity, and disruption. Fortune 500 companies and governments need that type of support if they are to continue to be successful. But God needs none of it:

Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel?

Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
(Isa. 40:13–14)