10 words that will completely shatter your self-image (and that’s a good thing!)

independent-creatures

Let’s just admit it right now: we think far too highly of ourselves.

And no, those aren’t the ten words I’m talking about (and not just because there are 13 words in that sentence).

We westerners have an obsession with autonomy. We are self-made people who are motivated to actualize our potential to live our best lives now so that every day can be a Friday after we’ve worked a four-hour work week (which gives us more time to work out at the gym and experiment with fad diets, y’know).

We are masters of our domain (except when our fad diets crash and burn on us).

We are charting our own course, knowing our destinies are but what we make them.

We are… kind of silly, actually.

Why? Because, as Bavinck writes: “Scripture knows no independent creatures; this would be an oxymoron.”

Let those ten words press on you for a bit. A statement more at odds with our culture, and more challenging to how each of us live each day, you’ll have a difficult time finding.

The notion that we are creatures is naturally offensive to us. To be a creature means to be created. And to be created means we are derived from a Creator. And if there is a Creator, then we are not the all-powerful autonomous beings we wish to be, because we are dependent. We are finite. We are not our own.

The more we insist upon it—the more some even try to twist the Bible into making it say something that it clearly doesn’t (let the reader understand)—the more we find ourselves at odds with reality.

Posted by Aaron Armstrong

Aaron is the author of several books for adults and children, as well as multiple documentaries and Bible studies. His latest book, I'm a Christian—Now What?: A Guide to Your New Life with Christ is available now.