“Man’s chief end is to glorify God . . . .” So The Shorter Catechism teaches us, on the basis of Scripture. To glorify God is the main purpose for which He created us. And immediately after the creation, that is how the two human beings lived who were in existence at the time. They loved God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and they loved each other as themselves. Though presumably it was only for a very short time, Adam and Eve then perfectly fulfilled the purpose for which God had created them. They sincerely honoured Him and did so constantly.
Solemnly, that did not last. Our first parents fell into sin; they no longer sought to glorify God. And that is the natural condition of every mere human being in the world since then; their chief purpose in life is certainly not to honour God in what they do or say or think. Notice what Thomas Boston infers from the first answer in The Shorter Catechism, partially quoted above: “How does reigning sin pervert the spirit of man, turning it quite away from its chief end! How many are there who make themselves their chief end! . . . Their own advantage is the chief motive and aim they have in their natural, civil and religious actions, either their own pleasure, profit, or honour and glory. And they never think of, never propose, the glory and honour of the infinite Majesty of heaven in any thing they do.”1
Yet God still makes the same demand as He has always done: “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name” (1 Chr 16:29, Ps 29:2, 96:8). By virtue of God creating all human beings, there is a glory that is due from them to Him as He has revealed Himself – not only in Scripture but also through the creation. But the vast majority of mankind withhold the honour due to God. Instead they follow false religions, worshipping gods that they have devised themselves; or they profess some perversion of Christianity; or they deny the existence of God altogether; or their attachment to true religion is purely nominal – while they all try to extract as much enjoyment and satisfaction as possible from the things of this world
No one begins to glorify God apart from His work in their soul, and that
1All quotations from Thomas Boston in this article are from his Works, vol 1, pp 16-18.
work is on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work in this world, when He did all that had to be done to satisfy divine justice on behalf of sinners. How willing everyone who hears the gospel should be to glorify God by receiving salvation through Christ! Yet we must realise that the faith that receives salvation is itself the gift of God.
We may look into the past, over a period of more than 150 years during which there seems to have been less and less of a concern to glorify God, as generation has followed generation. And, as we stand at the beginning of another year, if we try to look into the future, we may ask what 2021, in particular, will bring. All we can say is that if present trends continue and God goes on leaving us more and more to ourselves – which is what we so much deserve – the moral and spiritual picture at the end of the year will be even worse than it is now. World wars have come and gone; pandemics have stricken the whole planet; and people generally have refused to recognise the hand of God. They have gone on in their own ways; they have insisted on following their own thinking; they have refused to seek the Lord; they have been determined not to glorify Him.
This downward spiral has not only involved false religion and irreligion; it has also involved significant aspects of morality being turned completely upside down; yet it will not go on for ever. This is not because people will realise how foolish they and their ancestors have been, and will embrace the Ten Commandments. It is because God is a God of mercy and He has made promises of restraining Satan, spreading the gospel everywhere and blessing it to multitudes. And He will be faithful to these promises. We cannot tell when these promises will be fulfilled, but we are never to despair of a turning of the spiritual tide. Nothing is too hard for Him and He will be completely faithful to what He has revealed about His purposes.
Yet there are those who do live to God’s glory, however imperfectly. They seek to honour God in their daily lives, but confess with Boston: “Our hearts by nature are set on the earth that we tread upon, and our desires reach up to those things that we should make stepping-stones of” – that we should trample on. So he counsels, “Let us earnestly implore divine grace to cure this disorder of our hearts and give them a bias to more excellent things and the enjoyment of that which will survive the grave and not perish with . . . the dissolution of the world”.
God is honoured when sinners recognise their spiritual need, confess their sin and look to Christ alone for salvation. God is honoured when saved sinners go on trusting in the Saviour rather than placing confidence in human power, when they believe more firmly in what God has revealed in Scripture, and their thoughts, words and deeds become increasingly conformed to His com-
mandments. On this point, let us again listen to Boston: “Here is a rule to try doctrines by and also practices. Whatever doctrine tends to glorify God, and promote His honour in the world, is certainly from God and is to be embraced. And whatever practices have the same tendency, they are good and deserve to be imitated. Whereas any doctrine that tends to dishonour God, to rob Him of His glory and set the crown upon the creature’s head, to depreciate the free grace of God, exalt the power of nature and of free will, in opposition to the efficacious and irresistible grace of God . . . is not from God.”
Boston’s final point of application is vital: “Let this then be your main and chief work, to glorify God and to seek to enjoy Him. And hence see the absolute need of Christ, and faith in Him; but there is no glorifying of the Father without the Son (1 Jn 2:23) and no enjoying of God, but through Him. No sacrifice is or can be accepted, unless offered upon this altar; and there is no coming into the chamber of [His] presence, but as introduced by Christ.” No one can be accepted by God except for Christ’s sake; no one can glorify God except through Christ, as a result of His finished work.
So if we were to see God glorified on a national scale, or even worldwide, what signs would we recognise? Fundamentally, it would be large numbers of individuals recognising the supreme authority of the true God, who made all things and has revealed Himself in the Bible. This would make them put away their secular ideas, their false religions and their nominal Christianity. Instead of following their own thinking and the ideas of ungodly opinion makers, they would take God’s Word as a lamp for their feet, to guide them through the dangers of this life and show them the way that leads to eternal life. Instead of following some other religion, however venerable, they would listen to the eternal God, who has revealed to sinners a reliable guide to heaven; they would give up their idolatry and superstition and all ways of attempting to please their deity through some pointless ritual. Instead of perfunctory, perhaps occasional, attention to Christian worship, there would be a sincere desire to worship God in the ways that He has appointed.
These are some of the outward signs of sinners beginning to glorify God. But there would also be inward changes that others could only recognise through the corresponding effects on the outward life.
God is glorified whenever such changes take place in the life and the attitude of a single sinner, but what we are thinking of is such changes happening on a much larger scale. So, when Paul had on three successive (Jewish) Sabbaths, in the synagogue in Thessalonica, “reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ . . . some of them believed” (Acts 17:2-4). The apostles were described
as those “that have turned the world upside down”. As a result of their endeavours, there was a remarkable revolution in the heart and life, not only of some Jews, but also “a great multitude” of Gentiles.
And what a revolution it would be, in Britain or in any other country, if a multitude of sinners would turn from idols – including the secular idols to which the vast majority in our time give their hearts – and begin to serve the living God! A gathering of ministers in Boston in 1743, after the Great Awakening in America, noted with “sacred wonder, pleasure and gratitude” that “when Christ is pleased to come into His Church in a plentiful effusion of His Holy Spirit . . . salvation-work [is] carried on in an eminent manner, and His kingdom . . . is notably advanced. . . . It tends to confirm the divinity of a despised gospel, and manifests the work of the Holy Spirit in the application of redemption, which too many are ready to reproach.” They looked for further blessings: “It may have a happy effect, by the divine blessing, for the revival of religion in other places and the enlargement of the kingdom of Christ in the world; and . . . it tends to enliven prayers, strengthen the faith, and raise the hopes, of such as are waiting for the kingdom of God and the coming on of the glory of the latter days”.2
Past outpourings of God’s Spirit should encourage us to pray for a further outpouring and to plead that we might see, even in our time, the glory of the latter days – those blessed times when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Is 11:9). Every revival that has taken place demonstrates, even to those outside the Church, that the gospel has power, that God has not withdrawn from the earth, but that we are to look for further and greater gatherings of sinners into His kingdom.
Then the Christian Church as a whole will be much purer than it is today. Scriptural doctrine will be valued and sincerely professed on a much wider scale. There will be a concern to worship God in the way He has appointed. People generally will then wish to live according to the standard of morality that God has revealed, not what is currently fashionable. And governments will wish to do all in their power to support true Christianity, rather than enthusiastically supporting what is completely contrary to God’s revelation and to the way He created human beings. We can be sure that this will result in a consistent programme to bring national laws into conformity with the Bible. What a revolution all this will be in God’s gracious providence! What reason there will then be for “sacred wonder, pleasure and gratitude”!
Meantime let us pray, “Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let Thy glory be above all the earth” (Ps 57:11). And let us so pray with the assurance that “nothing is too hard for” the Lord (Jer 32:17).
2Quoted in Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening, Banner of Truth reprint, 1976, p 296.