Eternal One

Originally posted by @kellyjay

God doesn't need.
The Son of man needed something to drink, got tired, sufferer pain, sorrow, heart break,
and at the end of His life, became sin for us. Jesus was led by the Spirit, and went about so the Father could use Him.

Why did not the Father do everything without Him ?
You say He used the Son of Man.

You mean the Father needed to "us Him" ?

Matthew 4:1
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The Father needed the Son's obedience and His victorious prevailing over the tempter.

John 5:20
For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.

Verse 22 says that the Father has committed all judgment to the Son.

"For the Father does not judge anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son. That all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father." (John 5:22,23a)

So then the Father needs the Son to carry out the judgment.

John 5:36
But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

So the Father needs the Son to "accomplish" the very works He has for the Son.

John 10:38
but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

God needs then both that some human beings believe that the works He has for them would be done. They cannot be done by the unbelievers.

God has prepared works that we would walk in them as believers.
So He needs suitable saved people to walk in those prepared works.
The angels won't do it. Neither will God unilaterally do them by Himself.
He has prepared the works and needs certain kind of men and women to walk in them.

"For we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand in order that we would walk in them," (Eph. 3:10)

Would you say that God has no need for the saints to walk in these works that He has prepared for them to walk in ?

Our relationship with God is supposed to be like this too, the Spirit of God leading us,
guiding us, teaching us, and we do the works our Father has for us to do. Without the
Spirit of God within us, we remain dead in our trespasses, and sins.

All true.
So salvation takes care of the problem of our having fallen into sin and death.
But even if we had never sinned God had a purpose to impart Himself into man as divine life.

Since the creation of the universe God has this desire to dispense Himself into man.
it is not too much to recognize that He needs man's cooperation to do this.

Originally posted by @kellyjay

God doesn't need.

In Genesis 2 God places Adam in a garden. Doesn't He need Adam to till the ground in the garden ?

" And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up - for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to work the ground." (Genesis 2:5)

We should not take these words for granted.

" ...and there was not a man to work the ground"

If God absolutely had no need He would work the ground Himself. Right?
A MAN was required to do that work.
A MAN who was cooperating with God was needed to keep the garden.

It is not a matter of God was UNABLE to do it Himself.
It is a matter that God purposely puts Himself in the position of needing a cooperative man to tend to His garden.

The words should not be taken for granted. "and there was not a man to work the ground."

" And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up - for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to work the ground." (Genesis 2:5)

The implication is that there was as of yet no man to work with God by human labor. God's divine labor placed itself in a position of requiring cooperation of human labor.

It might remind us of John 5:17

But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I also am working." (John 5:17)

The Father and the Son here a pristine standard model of the Divine / Human coordination and cooperation which God requires.

Not only the Son of God but the apostles too were co-workers with God to grow Christ as life in people.

" For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's cultivated land, God's building." (1 Cor. 3:9)

When man labors in coordination with God's labor God has the basis to "send the rain". The significance of here in Genesis is probably the sending of His Spirit of life (Joel 2:23, 28-29), to mingle with man. Man was made with the dust of the earth.

God dispenses His life into man with the cooperation of man.
He will not unilaterally force this.
The CO-operation of man He needs and will obtain.

It is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.
So the believer even has to thank God for his or her willingness to coordinate, but coordinate s/he must.

This is not a small matter, this vision of John in Revelation. It shows the need of God for people on earth to echo His will and to even bring His will into the earth through their cooperation.

"And when He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. (Rev. 8:1,2)

This shows the solemnity of the moment because God is about to change the age. God is about to roll up one age to a conclusion and open up a new age. It is a solemn moment in heaven.

But the next passages is very significant about how the age is changed.

"And another Angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer, and much incense was given to Him to offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the saints out of the hand of the Angel before God.

And the Angel took he censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it to the earth, and there were thunders and voices and lightnings an an earthquake.

And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to trumpet." (Rev. 8:1-6)

Pray read this passage, take it in, digest it. I will teach something from it to show man's cooperation with God according to God's need to usher in the very change of the age.

It is focused on "the prayers of the saints" what how those prayers mingled with Christ as the incense to God causes the execution of God's action to close the church age with judgments upon the earth and the bringing in of His kingdom to the earth.

God needs the prayers of the church. But such prayers must be mixed with the fragrance of Jesus Christ to be effective to move His throne to action.

The capitial A Angel is Christ as the Angel of Jehovah, the Messenger who is also God incarnate as a man.