Why did God create me? Why did God make me?

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.

Therefore it was a necessity that sin should be allowed entrance into this world, for though an enemy has brought it to pass, God will make it serve to give effect to His eternal purpose. It must not for a moment be supposed that He was the author of sin, or that He brought it into the world. Had He done either His purpose never could have been effectuated. It was by one of His creatures it was brought into existence, and by another of His creatures it found entrance into the world. The devil was the first sinner. His pride made him think he was the equal of God (Ezek. 28:9); Adam by an attempt at equality with God allowed it to come into the world (Gen. 3:5). That God could have prevented the existence of sin, or having allowed it to exist, He could have prevented its entrance into the world, cannot rightly be questioned. It is obnoxious to Him, and He will eventually cleanse His universe from its presence, but in the meantime He makes it, as well as the one who is its father, to serve His purpose.

But now He delivers and saves them (Isa. 43). He created them for His glory. The blind have eyes; the deaf, ears; they are witnesses that Jehovah alone is God. The judgments on Babylon — the commencement and the figure of the final judgments — prove this. Jehovah had formed this people for Himself, and the people had grown weary of their God; and, as it were, had made Him to serve with their sins. But now He pardons it all for His own glory. Glorious and striking testimony of Him who, in grace to the sinner when the sin becomes unbearable, puts away the sin instead of the sinner! This is what God has done through Christ.

It was not for this that man was created, for it is written that whoso offereth praise glorifieth God: God created man for His glory — a well-tuned instrument — to respond to the touch of His infinite goodness with intelligent and joyous thanksgiving. But the devil spoiled God's handiwork by introducing distrust of God into the heart of man; and the chord was lost, and the music died out, and instead of songs of praise greeting God's advent in the garden, Adam — a fallen man, a sinner against God, cowered away in dumb fear from the One who loved and had lost him.

In perfect agreement with that, we find in Isaiah 43 the words, "This people have I formed for myself." … "I have created him for my glory."… "They shall shew forth my praise." God had already made Himself known to them as "Redeemer " (see verse 14), having brought them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Their Redeemer was "the Holy One of Israel," their "Creator," and their " King."

In the first chapter of our Bibles we are told of the creation of man and the reason for it. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The US is the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are admitted to the divine counsel and plan, and from it we learn that man was to be created to be the visible representative of God in the world; for that is what “image” means; and for this he was to be like God in character, for without this there could be no effective representation.

In the first chapter of our Bibles we are told of the creation of man and the reason for it. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The US is the Triune God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are admitted to the divine counsel and plan, and from it we learn that man was to be created to be the visible representative of God in the world; for that is what "image" means; and for this he was to be like God in character, for without this there could be no effective representation.

The whole creation was ordered for the pleasure of man, and man was made for the glory of God. Day by day, as God acted, He revealed His Power and wisdom and tender care for man, and when the day came for him to be set in his ordered place it was to be surrounded by all these evidences of God’s care and interest.

Greek students tell us that in that verse there are three prepositions bearing upon this creating of all things. The last one is "for Him." That we can perhaps understand a little. We, and indeed the whole creation, are not made as a man might turn out something by machinery, but really to serve the purpose of glorifying Him who made us. Then also "by Him" in the end of the verse, we can somewhat grasp. He was the active agent in the work of creation. But the first line seems to me to be deeply mysterious. It was not merely that He was agent in their creation (it may perhaps be rendered "in Him;") but it implies that "He was the One whose intrinsic power characterised the creation." The creation, all creation, the all things, including thrones, etc., were so created as to bear — each detail in its measure — some impress of His glory. If we knew the language of the heavens above our heads, or of the earth beneath our feet as He created them, every form of life, every atom, every colour, every shape, every sound, and every authority, would utter some impress of the wisdom and glory of Christ. He created it in such a fashion that there is no part of it but interprets, and brings into evidence, something of His majesty, His wisdom, His power. "From the world's creation the invisible things of Him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both His eternal power and divinity" (Rom. 1:20, N.T.).

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.

What then was His purpose? It was to make known His moral nature and character and the blessedness — the happiness — of the life He lives. It was as to this that He designed to bring others into community with Himself — a community not of being, but of moral nature and of life. To do this, to carry out this purpose, it was necessary for Him to come out from the unapproachable light in which He dwells alone. This He did when He came forth in the exercise of the creatorial power inherent in Himself. In the creation which He has produced He has clothed Himself "with light as with a garment" (Ps. 104:2). But God looked at in the light of creation is not seen in His moral nature and life. Creation manifests "His eternal power and divinity" (Rom. 1:20, Greek). It proclaims the power and divinity that was eternally in Him, but not what He is in moral nature and character and their continuous activity.