The Value of Human Life

What Can a Human Give to God?

Or How Can a Human Be Useful to Him?

“If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him?
And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?
If you are righteous, what do you give to him?
Or what does he receive from your hand?”
(Job 35:6–7, ESV)

We see that we cannot be useful to God, nor can we harm Him in any way. Even our righteousness is of no benefit to Him. Especially since “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6, ESV).

And yet—we are rich.

We can give God the very thing He desires most.
The thing for which He was willing to shake the foundations of the world.
The reason God sacrificed His Son.
The reason Christ gave His life.

Our LOVE.

God can do everything—except one thing:
He cannot force us to love Him.

True love cannot be compelled, and God desires no other kind. For those who love Him, Christ is willing to do everything.

“In my distress I called upon the LORD;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked,
because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering,
his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.
The LORD thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings and routed them.
Then the channels of the sea were seen,
and the foundations of the world were laid bare
at your rebuke, O LORD,
at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
He sent from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of many waters.”
(Psalm 18:6–16, ESV)

There is only one condition:
to love Him—and to prove that love by obeying His commandments.
Otherwise, words about love are empty.

“Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
I would soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
(Psalm 81:13–16, ESV)

So Christ needs our love.
This is the only thing we can give Him—and the only thing He requires from us.

For this is precisely why humanity was created: to love God.

What is a human being without love for God?
As good as dead, as the English saying goes.
Without value.
What use would such a person be to Him?

Let us remember the flood in the days of Noah.
All of humanity was destroyed without mercy. And this does not apply only to atheists or idolaters. Even a believer instantly loses his value when the love that should belong to God is divided with the world.

“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.
They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
And the LORD said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.’”
(Exodus 32:7–10, ESV)

We see that God—or Christ, as the apostle Paul explains:

“For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”
(1 Corinthians 10:4, ESV)

—intended to destroy His people immediately after they turned away from Him to worship an idol, despite all the patience, miracles, and deliverance from Egyptian slavery.

Later, He intended to do the same again:

“I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
(Numbers 14:12, ESV)

Two times show that this was not an impulsive or emotional decision. Such believers—who indeed were believers, knowing God’s existence far better than we do, having seen His miracles—are unnecessary to God (or to Christ).

Who would want to marry a bride who is already committing adultery before the wedding?

God does not need numbers.
He does not need megachurches.
He seeks worshipers in spirit and truth—

“for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
(John 4:23, ESV)

Better a handful of people who truly love God than multitudes of believers with idols in their hearts.

Therefore:

“Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.’”
(Romans 9:27, ESV)

The fate of the rest is clearly stated:

“Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people,
and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them,
and the mountains quaked;
and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.”
(Isaiah 5:25, ESV)

It is worth noting that this speaks of believers—God’s people. The godless will fare no better:

“He will execute judgment among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.”
(Psalm 110:6, ESV)

The same will occur on the day of Christ’s visitation at the end of the age:

“Calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,
for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’”
(Revelation 6:16–17, ESV)

So let us not deceive ourselves.

In God’s eyes, we are valuable only to the extent that we love Him.
Everything else—high morality, good deeds—will not save us. No one chooses a bride based solely on such qualities.

How to discern whether we truly love Christ or merely believe that we do—I have written about this in other articles.