A Man-Centered View of God

For nearly ten months our church has been studying on Wednesday evenings the biblical doctrine of God, as it is expressed and expounded from the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. This has been the richest study so far in the Confession, and I imagine there will be no other study that will exceed both its depth and importance. Quite frankly, there is no doctrine more important to the Christian faith than the doctrine of God - who God is, what He is like, and how He works. For if we go wrong on this one doctrine, then we will go wrong on every other doctrine in Christianity.

Sadly though, there is probably no doctrine more twisted, misunderstood, and misapplied than the doctrine of God. In other words, how the revelation of God's nature, character, and works are taught in His Word, has got to be the most underminded and distorted truth of Scripture. And the chief reason for this perversion is because when we talk about God, we tend to always begin and end with man at the center of the universe. To say this another way: many people in the church really believe that God exists and works for the sole purpose of making them happy. In short, God exists to glorify man. Consider how Edward Donnelly made this same tragic observation in his book entitled, Heaven and Hell:

"The God people speak about today - if he exists at all - is only for man's benefit. His purpose, it seems, is to supply our needs, to provide for our happiness. God is a heavenly bell-boy. When he is needed you ring for him, and when you don't need him any longer you tell him to go away. The first answer of the Shorter Catechism has been rewritten to read, 'God's chief end is to satisfy man and to provide for him forever.' Even in evangelical churches the impression is too often given that God exists to make us happy, to solve our problems, to answer our prayers, to heal our sicknesses, to improve our marriages, to help us to keep a diet.

[Martin] Luther described this as 'using God'. What a disgustingly accurate expression! Have you ever been used? You thought that someone was your friend. You assumed that they enjoyed your companionship and valued you for yourself. You trusted them, but then found out that they were using you. They cultivated you only for what they wanted from you, then laughed at you behind your back. What would you think of a man who spoke of using his wife? What a wretch he would be! Yet this is exactly what people are attempting to do with God. This is how they think they can treat the Lord of heaven and earth. There is no sense of his holiness, awesomeness or majesty. He is seen as a puppet who stays in a box until we press the switch to let him out.