The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
back to Weekly Archives
Why are we here? The Christian would say we're here because God made us and that is a truth repeated over and over again in the Bible, OT and NT. When we ask why God made us there is more than one truthful answer. He created us to glorify himself! He created us so that other beings might experience holy and joy-filled life of which he is the source and meaning. He made us so that we would live in God-imitating righteousness as beings made "in his image". Each of these answers is true and there are many more truthful answers related to these that could be listed.
Still, the matter remains complicated. For example, when I say, "God created us to glorify himself" I speak the truth; but in a particular setting that claim can suggest things that aren't true. Let me develop that a little.
"God created us to glorify himself" can suggest a self-centredness about God; something of vanity, an unhealthy preoccupation with himself in which we imagine God saying to himself, "Well, let me see what I can do to show how wonderful I am." Of course God is inexpressibly wonderful and he does love and admire himself but that isn't the same as saying that he goes around in "the land of the Trinity" thinking of more and more ways of proving it to himself or someone else.
God takes himself with infinite seriousness, he has no identity crisis but he doesn't—if we may put it this way—he doesn't "take himself too seriously." If we ask how God views his Godhood we'll quickly end up speechless but we are able to say this with assurance: He doesn't think his Godhood is something to be exploited (the NRSV on Philippians 2:5, a rendering NT Wright argued for earlier). Discussion will continue on how the word harpagmon should be rendered but everyone knows that Philippians 2:5 tells us that he who was God and existed with God took a certain view of that "Godship" and in light of how he viewed it he chose incarnation in order to redeem and exalt humanity in keeping with God's eternal purpose.
So when we speak the truth and say that "God made us to glorify himself" we must understand his self-glorification to include his loving us into existence, rescuing us from sin and bringing us to inexpressible glory in and as the image of the exalted Lord Jesus Christ who is the flawless image of the invisible God.
We are here because God is not self-centred or vain or eternally preoccupied with himself. However we are to construe and express our understanding of God in light of scripture and Jesus we are to understand that he eternally chose not to be God without us. That is central to the glory of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and that is an indication of who and what we humans are destined to be in and through Jesus.
One of these days we're going to understand this and it will expand our minds and lives beyond our present imagination. We are an expression of the glory of the heart of the eternal God.
God has no identity crisis and because that's true we need not have one either.
