What is purpose according to the Bible?

With the light of the revelation God has been pleased to give us the question should not be difficult to answer. But before we come to that revelation might we not wisely ask ourselves why the creature exists? Surely it is not that he should go out fresh from the hand of his Creator, forget all about Him, and live to please himself. Surely it is rather that man should serve his Maker, and bask in the sunshine of whatever light may have been given to him by the One to whom he owes his existence. Right through the whole revelation God has given to us runs this glorious truth, that the end that God has in view is that He may be known by His creature.

To take His place in the centre of a universe that would be radiant with the knowledge of Himself, His creature finding his perfect satisfaction and delight in the knowledge of his Creator fully revealed, and the Creator having His delight in the blessing of His creature, was the purpose of the mind divine; and it was by means of man, through man, in man, and for man’s glory, that this eternal purpose was to be brought to pass.

The Shorter Catechism commences with the proposition: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever." It was God's purpose in creating man that in contrast to other animals, man alone should have aspirations heavenwards. It is striking that heathen mythology should have been imbued with the same idea. Indeed, the derivation of anthropos, the Greek word meaning "man" signifies "the one who turns up the eye" (ana upwards, tropo I turn, ops the eye). Man has failed signally to fulfil the end which God had in view in creating him. At the beginning in Eden, Adam dishonoured God by listening to the serpent's insinuation to his wife and so far from enjoying God he, filled with fear, hid himself behind the trees of the garden. Man's signal failure has, however, never altered God's unwavering purpose. But in order that His purpose should be effected it was necessary that His Son should assume manhood. When that event took place, there was for the first time on earth a man who could truly lift up the eye to God and who could glorify God and enjoy Him perfectly. For the first time also there was an object on earth which could claim the whole attention of heaven. "What is man that Thou art mindful of Him?.... Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour" (Ps. 8:4-5). In consequence of His perfect obedience and His having by the grace of God tasted death for every man, He is bringing many sons to glory. (Heb. 2:9-10). They have been endowed with capacity to glorify and enjoy God and they can now turn up the eye to Him. But if the Christian can turn up his eye to God he also finds that his eye meets the eye of God and in that eye he can read guidance for the pathway. "I will guide thee with Mine eye." (Ps. 32:8). When the good sheep-dog is far away from the shepherd, his movements must be controlled by the hand or by whistle. But when he is working at short range he is controlled by the shepherd's eye. It is a matter of common observation how much better he does his work at close quarters than at long range. So in order that we may be guided by the eye of God we must not seek to roam afar, we must be at short range and have the eyes of our understanding turned heavenwards.

This is a truly awful condition of things when we consider the end and object for which man was created. This is well expressed in the opening words of the Westminster Catechism. Question: "What is the chief end of man?" Answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever."

It is important to see that the great object of the gospel is that God might be known in the hearts of men, and that men might live before Him in the divine nature. Indeed, this was His eternal thought, for from before the foundation of the world His purpose was to have us “Holy and without blame before Him in love.” No doubt it was for the joy and delight of His own heart, for if His purpose was formed before the world was, it is clear it must have originated with Himself; and if it originated with Himself it must have been for His own pleasure, I might say for the need of His own heart, for no need existed anywhere else. I do not mean need in the sense of want causing unhappiness, but in the sense of a desire to create intelligent beings, and bring them into the blessedness, as far as the creature could be brought, in which He dwelt Himself, the blessedness of eternal love. The way which He has taken to bring all this about, allowing the misshapen footprint of His foe to mar His perfect handiwork, and rebellion against His authority to stalk naked through the earth, while His patience and long-suffering have come to light, we may contemplate with adoring hearts, now that we see the end He has in view, conscious that that end will be attained, for the might is His, and the victory is sure, His dealings with man, with whom apparently He plays a losing game, may furnish the antagonistic and infidel mind of man with data for reasoning, and for judging his Creator, but the faithful heart follows the divine pathway through the world in the spirit of worship, knowing that it leads to glory everlasting.

The lifting up of the Son of man and the giving by God of His only-begotten Son had in view that whosoever believes on Him ‘may not perish, but have life eternal’. The word translated ‘perish’ does not signify a loss of being, since every human being has an eternal existence, but points to an eternal loss of wellbeing. It is to be lost to God forever, the only one who can fill and satisfy the heart and give our lives true purpose. This purpose is realised when our lives are centred on Him. This is the character of eternal life in Christian believers. It has God revealed in Christ as its centre and object. It is ‘everlasting’ life but its primary quality is that God is known as He has now been fully revealed in Christ (John 17:3; 1 John 5:20). Without exception this life is the possession of every Christian believer (John 10:27–28; 1 John 5:13).

Most surely. There never can be any other purpose before God than His own glory, because when His counsels were brought forth there was no one whose blessing needed to be considered. His counsels were before all His works, and therefore, there was no one to take into consideration except Himself. But He has been pleased to create myriads to be spectators of His glory, and others to share the glory that can be shared by the creature. He has bound up our blessing with His glory. And as we have it in this chapter, "That we should be to the praise of His glory," and as the hymn has it: —

There are many Christians who seem to suppose that we have nothing in Scripture but what bears immediately on the question of individual salvation. Now this is a great mistake, and serious in its consequences, however pious and gracious those may be who are under its influence. It results from not sufficiently recognizing the great end God has in view in all His actings and in all His dispensations. This end is not our salvation, important as that may be, and surely is to us. God's end is His own glory; and it is in Christ that all His glory is manifested and accomplished. It is true that in the accomplishment. and display of His glory in Christ the salvation of all who, through grace, believe in Him is made sure. Still, the salvation of such is not God's final object, but a means of promoting it. His object is to glorify Himself in Christ! In doing this, He saves us, blessed be His name! by His sovereign and almighty grace; but it is important that we should be able to distinguish between the end God has in view, and the means (momentous as these may be in themselves) by which He effects His design. This is important for many reasons, — and among others, for this — that God's object embraces many things besides the salvation of His people. In glorifying Himself in Christ, He not only saves for ever all who, from the beginning to the end of time, are the subjects of His grace, but He reveals Himself in a wondrous variety of relations to Christ, to mankind at large, to creation, to particular portions of the human family, yea, in some instances, to single individuals. Abraham and David are remarkable examples of this. Then there is the whole subject of God's government of the world. Christ Himself is the centre of divine counsels and the subject of all Scripture; but God made Israel the centre of His earthly government. "In consequence," (as another has said) "even the profane history of nations centres round it. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, all contend for Israel's land, are known in connection with it, or actually get their full imperial possession and character at the time they acquired possession of it — I do not say by gaining possession of it — but at the epoch at which they did. Though clouds of dark traditions, scarce pierced by modern researches, hang over all the rest of the nations, and obscure their history while revealing their existence, in the neighbourhood of Israel all is light. The light of Israel's history is shed on all the nations around them. It is preserved almost with modern accuracy, when a few fragments scarce rescue from entire oblivion other ancient histories. We have to disentomb the remains of the Thebes and the Ninevehs to get at the history of their ancient monarchs, and to know their dynasties; while, by God's providence, that which gives some historic data to the glories of Mizraim and Ashur, confirms in its detail that of which we have already the minutest particulars in Israel's authentic history. We find, in pictures yet fresh on the lore-covered walls of the country of the Pharaohs, the very kinds of overseers over the Jews making their bricks, of which Moses speaks in the book of Exodus. Modern research alone has given the place and importance to those countries which the Scriptures had already assigned them." "The Irrationalism of Infidelity."

Above all things the purpose of the Christian life is to do the will of God in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ that we should in life find motive in the constraining power of the love of Christ to live not unto ourselves but unto Him who died for us and rose again. The purpose of the Christian life is easily stated but oh how we pray for each other that it might be written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit afresh in the measure in which we know it already.

The dealings of the blessed God in this world of ours have more simplicity of purpose than we imagine. We have to look at God passing from one dispensation to another; yet, in all we are taught that, the great purpose before Him is, to manifest Himself in richest blessings, in love and mercy to poor sinners, unto His own eternal glory.