Lighthouse Community Church

From before God uttered the words that brought the universe into being, heaven has been the final and eternal state that God intended for all creation. He has always intended that His people would be with Him, worshipping Him and giving Him the glory that He rightly deserves. It is in this final and eternal state that man finds his purpose and where we find the framework for our current fallen state.

The Purpose of Man

The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that "the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever"[1]. Jonathan Edwards also writes, "The great end of God's works which is so variously expressed in Scripture, is indeed one; and this one end is most properly and comprehensively called, The Glory of God"[2]. In fact, all of creation, mankind included, is directed towards worship, giving God the glory He deserves as Creator, Sustainer and Master. It is man's supreme task, as the ones uniquely made in His image, to render unto his Creator the glory due to Him (Isa 43:6-7).

To this John Piper adds, "the chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy Himself forever"[3]. God Himself desires His own glory and has made man to fulfill that desire. However, He chooses to be glorified not through the mere existence of man and the cosmos, but through relationship with Him. Paul picks up this eternal truth as he speaks to the men of Athens in Acts 17:26-28: "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being.'" God, the eternal, all powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things, wants to be glorified through being in relationship with those He made in His image! He has created us in such a way that we, in our finite intellectual, spiritual and physical nature are somehow able to be in relationship to the infinite God. We bear His image not necessarily in the relationship itself, but in the ability to have such a relationship with Him[4].

Therefore, glorifying God is infinitely more than an option incidental to our existence, but is the very core of what we are and should be. This is a task that the sovereign, almighty God is desirous of, that transcends any introspective quest for purpose or goal, making any deviation from it not only sinful rebellion, but a deformation of the very essence of human existence.  Yet this is exactly what happened.

The Corruption of the Fall and the Rise of Nations

When Adam and Eve were first created, they were in relationship with God, with each other and with the rest of the Creation (Gen 2:23-25). Made to be God's vice-regents over the earth under God (Gen 1:28-30), man uniquely was created in the image of God and given an aspect of relationship with God that was not given to any other creature: Man alone would be able to know, understand and love his Creator, and in doing so would glorify God as he was created to do.

However, the fall broke this relationship between man and God, as well as their relationship between each other and the rest of creation. The Curse of Eden bears this out as the ground rebels against man, Adam and Eve are set against each other, Eve against the serpent and even against her own body (Gen 3:14-19). Blame shifting and the shirking of responsibility become the first few manifestations of the fallen, sinful state, passing down from generation to generation to this day. As Bart Simpson puts it so eloquently, "I didn't do it!"

The subsequent murder of Abel was the further outworking of this accursed state, as mankind, "Claiming to be wise... became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Rom 1:22) and "exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator" (Rom 1:25). The estrangement had begun, and things just got worse from there.

Even after the flood, the Curse still bound mankind. They retained the same language and culture (Gen 11:1), and evidently had some measure of unity amongst them under the rule of Nimrod (Gen 10:8-12). In their fallen state, mankind desired to reclaim Eden, to recapture a measure of the eternal life that they lost at the fall by making a mark on history. The problem was that they desired to do so on their own accord and for their own glory. Calvin describes the fiasco of Babel well:

"...indeed, is here noticed, except their mad ambitions and proud contempt of God... We see the design and the aim of the undertaking. For whatsoever might happen, they wish to have an immortal name on earth; and thus they build, as if in opposition to the will of God... To erect a citadel was not in itself so great a crime; but to raise an eternal monument to themselves, which might endure throughout all ages, was a proof of headstrong pride, joined with contempt of God."[5]

The result was the sundering of the people as God confused their language, giving rise to varied cultures and nations[6]. From that time forth, the evil of nationalism and racism emerge in the form of wars and racial hatred. Nation rose against nation, and people gathered according to their languages, their family groups, and formed ever more varied cultures. Throughout the rest of history, even leading up to the present time, we continue to see the fallout of Babel. In each and every part of the world, people draw distinctions based on language, culture, race, geographical area, religious belief, and every other factor that they can find. Nation, tribe, people and language have become things by which people separate themselves. Wars, rivalries, national hatred, racism are merely the entropic deterioration of the great estrangement that began at the fall that was further exacerbated at Babel and has plagued mankind ever since.

Thankfully, God never left the scene.

[1] Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 1, Christian Classics Ethereal Library website, http://www.ccel.org/creeds/westminster-shorter-cat.html, accessed 4 Apr 2008

[2] Jonathan Edwards, ‘A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World', Chapter 2, Section 7, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1.iv.iv.vii.html, accessed 4 Apr 2008.

[3] John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad!, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press 2005), 21.

^[4] Millard J Erickson, Christian Theology, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press 2000),  520-536. There are many people who do not have a (good) relationship with God, yet the bible still views them as bearing His image (cf Gen 9:6). Therefore, relationship with God is not the marker of the image (which is known as the Relational View of the Image), but must be a result and outworking of the image. The Image of God must therefore be inherent in something deeper, in the substance of what we are as human beings, in our spiritual, intellectual and physical make up (aka the Substantive View).

[5] John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Vol 1, entry on Gen 11:1, trans. Rev John King, (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1996), http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom01.xvii.i.html, accessed 4 Apr 2008.

[6] Henry M Morris, God and the Nations, (Green Forest: Master Books 2003), 44-45.