A few years ago, on a beautiful afternoon in northern Wisconsin, I spotted some spectacular fall foliage and remarked to my wife, “God didn’t have to do that.” Little did I realize that observation would become part of my regular thought process.

Think about it. God could have designed his creation so that all trees—everywhere and every year—simply shed green leaves. Instead, in many parts of the world in fall, leaves with bright hues of red, yellow, and orange swirl gently to the ground. God didn’t have to do that.

Those beautiful trees grow in a world filled with geographical wonders. Rolling hills, majestic mountains, meandering rivers, powerful waterfalls, breathtaking shorelines. God didn’t have to do that. He could have created and preserved a world that sustained life but lacked interest and beauty.

Into this beautiful world God could have placed a limited variety of animals. Instead, there are tiny hummingbirds, gigantic giraffes, flamboyant peacocks, speedy cheetahs, powerful horses. God didn’t have to do that.

It is especially in our spiritual lives that we can see and appreciate the truth that God didn’t have to do that.

“When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). God sent his Son into this world to become a man and live under the laws he established for people—and then keep those laws for people. God didn’t have to do that.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.” God took the sins of guilty people and placed them on his innocent, holy Son. He did that “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). God created a great exchange of sin and holiness between sinners and his Son. God didn’t have to do that.

Obligation does not in any way describe God’s kind treatment of people. The Bible makes that point abundantly clear. The apostle Paul posed the question, “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” (Romans 11:35). The answer is a deafening no one! The apostle’s question echoes the one the Lord put before Job: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay?” (Job 41:11). The answer is the same: no one.

There is a payment from God that people deserve. It is death. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Sinners deserve to be separated from God forever in hell. That would be divine justice. Instead, God showers sinners with love. That’s grace. God didn’t have to do that.

No, God didn’t have to do that, but God wanted to do that. So he did. The psalmist observed, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him” (Psalm 115:3). And it pleases God to place people into a world filled with wonders and beauty. It pleases God to forgive rebellious sinners, blanket them with his love in this life, and bless them with an eternity in his presence through faith in Jesus his Son.

What Martin Luther noted about God’s blessings for our physical lives is true for all of God’s blessings: “All this God does only because he is my good and merciful Father in heaven, and not because I have earned or deserved it.” That is another way of saying God didn’t have to do that.

And our reaction? “For all this I ought to thank and praise, to serve and obey him” (Explanation to the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Small Catechism).

Author: James Pope
Volume 111, Number 11
Issue: November 2024