Is There A Purpose?

by Reid, A. | Category: General | Apr 1999

'I feel sorry for people like you. You are looking for a purpose to life, when the fact is, there is none!' I recently heard this remark directed at a Christian by an atheist. Many people today share this opinion, that there is no purpose to human existence. It seems to the writer that people of this persuasion fall into two broad categories. There are those who see themselves as looking hard facts in the eye and determine to make the most of their brief span of life. Others are overwhelmed by the thought of a purposeless existence and sink in despondency and despair. Defiant bravado or hopeless resignation: are these the only alternatives when faced with the fundamental question of human existence? If there is a purpose to our lives, what is it? Why are we here?

To supply the answer to such a fundamental question God has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. The testimony about Christ recorded in our Bibles banishes gloom and ignorance.

So why are we here? What does the Bible say? When addressing an audience of sceptics, a servant of God said, 'From one man he made every nation of men... God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him... For in him we live and move and have our being'.(1) To seek Him, to find him, to come to know Him, that is why we are here. In coming to know God, we touch the very source of our being, and knowing God has the happiest of all results for men and women. The Lord Jesus expressed it thus: 'Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent'.(2)

Just as the largest part of the iceberg lies hidden below the surface, so it is with God's purposes. When we come to know God, there can then be revealed to us the vast extent of His purposes in humankind.

Let us first focus on the end product of those purposes; that is the glory of God. God's glory is wonderfully displayed in His works of creation.(3) They bear witness to God's power and divine nature,(4) but it is in His dealings with sinful mankind, in His granting us the forgiveness of sins,(5) in that 'he predestined us to be adopted as his sons',(6) that God's wonderful qualities of love and grace are gloriously displayed.(7) When men indulge in displays of self-glorification, it is often to the detriment of others and can quickly become unseemly, even vulgar. But for God to express His glory is both right and fitting and blessing for many will flow from it.

Let us now think of the scope of God's purposes with men and women, specifically with those who are believers in Christ. Those purposes began before the creation of the world, when God first chose us to be holy and blameless in His sight.(8) They continued in our redemption and the forgiveness of our sins, in the making known to us the mystery of His will and good pleasure.(9) His purposes will have a further expression in the future redemption of our mortal bodies.(10) So the scope of God's purposes in us is not just from cradle to grave, but from before the cradle to beyond the grave into eternity. All to the praise of His glory.(11)

The greatest privilege that believers are given in the purposes of God is to be identified with Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is the central all-important Person in God's purposes, the axis around which they turn. The eternal purpose of God is declared to be '...his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord'.(12) This union of all believers with Christ is called in Ephesians 3:10 'the church', elsewhere it is more fully described as: 'the church, which is his body'.(13) It is through the members of Christ's Body that the wisdom of God will be understood and appreciated far beyond this small planet in which we live, for: 'His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms'.(14)

We return to our original point. Is there a purpose in human existence? The answer of Scripture is a resounding 'YES'. It is a purpose too glorious and far reaching in its concept, that men and women who know God can only wonder and worship as they contemplate it. It is a purpose that once perceived and entered into, cheers the heart, lifts the mind and spirit and imports real meaning to life.

Biblical quotations are from the NIV.

(1) Acts 17:26-28; (2) John 17:3; (3) Ps. 19:1; (4) Rom. 1:20; (5) Eph. 1:7; (6) Eph. 1:5; (7) Eph. 1:6,7; (8) Eph. 1:4; (9) Eph. 1:9; (10) Eph. 1:14; (11) Eph. 1:14; (12) Eph. 3:11; (13) Eph. 1:22,23; (14) Eph. 3:10.

Reid, A. | Apr 1999
General