Part 1: God and Human Rights

                Many Christians see humanity as “deserving” to be relieved from suffering, which would imply that God, who orchestrated the consequences of the fall was unjust in giving them. This reminds me of Lecrae’s song, Truth:

“But then some say 'How can God exist when
All this evil stuff in the world keep persistin'?
Wrong question. Ask again.
‘How come God ain't' let you feel the wrath from sin?’
What you thought last night deserved a first class flight
To Hell where God doesn't dwell.”

                How many times do we put humanity and its desires above the reality of God? It is so easy for Christians to become self-absorbed and self-entitled in this day and age. We forget that we are under grace. The consequences of the fall (Garden of Eden) are as just as the one who initiated them. We chose them and we deserve nothing more, but that is of course, where God’s undeserving grace comes in.

                The image of God upon us was tarnished as a result of the fall. We still have part of it, but not as it once was in the garden. Many Christians use the “imago dei” (image of God placed upon us in the Garden of Eden) to claim that we are valuable independent of God. They say that we are valuable because of the image of God which is upon all of humanity. Many Christians use this as a basis for “human rights” to which they believe that God should be held accountable and promote. This would assume that we have one-up on God, when in reality we have nothing at all to which we can keep God accountable. This is secular humanism in disguise. Rather, God is the one with the power. In fact, the only reason why we have any value at all is because God has placed value on us. In other words, we only have value at all because of God’s love upon us all. Otherwise we are worthless. We cannot have any value independent of God. This reminds me of an action figure that looks like a man. However, the value does not come because the action figure looks like a man but because the one who owns it places value in it. If humanity, as its creator, placed no value in the action figure, it is worthless (despite being in the image of a man). We are valuable because God places value in us.

                Despite popular belief, to believe in what some call “natural evil” is to actively condemn God for his just consequences which resulted from the fall in the Garden of Eden. Some try to justify this position by saying that “natural evil” is “chaos”. However, the implication of this is that there are things that are “chaos” to God (that there are things outside of His control). If we truly believe that God is sovereign, then it would be wrong to believe in “natural evil” because nothing is outside God’s control. As such, we should never call God’s just consequences evil. To do so, we are in fact, advocating a self-entitlement and humanism before God where we place ourselves as gods above Him. Furthermore, God did not choose these consequences for us, but we chose them for ourselves. It is a consequence of our free will. As mentioned earlier, all that humanity really deserves is condemnation. As such, we can never say that we deserve anything but condemnation. Jesus dying for us was purely by God’s grace. Let us never call God’s just consequences evil.

                A truly remarkable thing about God, is that despite knowing that we deserve nothing more than eternal torment, he took pity on us. He came down from heaven himself and took the consequences of our actions upon himself when he died on the cross. Jesus is the only person who did not deserve any of these consequences. Because of God’s tremendous love for us, he took our place. Because of this, even when we are saved in Christ, we are still as undeserving of God’s grace than an unbeliever. With that said, we should not go around telling people that they have “rights” that God is obligated to fulfill (that would be humanism). Yes we are called to help the poor and to act justly, but this command is from God to humanity. It is by no means a fundamental “right” that we can hold God accountable to. It is a command from God to do it, but not our “right” to receive it. Why should believers say that they have any “rights” under God? Wouldn’t this be abusing the grace God has given us? We should never call God’s grace a right.

“God has never been obligated to give us life. If we fought for our rights, we’d be in hell tonight. Mere sinners owed nothing but a fierce hand.” Lecrae's song: Boasting