The Larger Catechism

Question 1: What is the chief and highest end of man?

Answer: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

"Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God".

1 Corinthians 10:31

The Westminster Catechisms begin with a statement about what the purpose and aim of our lives ought to be. From the very outset, we are reminded that theology is not simply a matter of head, or even of heart, but of life. Although divinity students study a discipline known as 'practical theology' (which usually means all that ministers and pastors need to know in their practical, day-to-day work), there is a sense in which theology is nothing if it is not practical. The first question of the Catechism, therefore, marries our system to our lifestyle, and reminds us that what we believe and what we read in the Scriptures must work itself out in our behaviour, our ethics, our lifestyle and our practice.

The way in which this is expressed here is that our "chief and highest" aim in life must be to give glory to God. Our highest aim in life is not merely to know theology, although without theology our chief and highest aim cannot be realised. Here, however, is a grand statement concerning the relationship between what God has revealed about himself -- which is what THEOLOGY (the doctrine of God) is all about -- and the way we live.

No doubt men and women would give a variety of answers to the question "what is your chief and highest purpose?". For some it would be to gain happiness, or make money, or look after their family. Some would have a very self-centred purpose; others a very charitable one, looking after others. But whatever our immediate goals in life may be, there is one over-riding and ultimate concern which must be the focus of all our activity and all our living: to give glory to God and fully to enjoy him for ever.

The answer to this first question of the Catechism has two elements to it.

First, we are reminded that LIFE CANNOT BE COMPLETE UNLESS AND UNTIL GOD IS GIVEN THE GLORY IN ALL THAT WE DO. Whatever we may be striving for, and whatever our objectives may be, our lives will have a lack and an emptiness unless and until God is made the supreme objective of our living. The one supreme concern that must motivate our behaviour and govern our actions is this dominating thought of the majesty of God, acknowledged in a lifestyle that will honour and magnify him.

Secondly, we are reminded that WHEN GOD IS GLORIFIED, HE WILL THEN BE ENJOYED. The order of these statements is not inconsequential. We cannot expect to enjoy God unless we give him glory. And if we give him glory, then we will experience his joy and his blessing. Many people are living for enjoyment on the eternal quest after happiness. But few people have discovered that real, deep, lasting joy is not bound up with things but with thoughts -- it is knowing God and walking close with him that gives ultimate satisfaction.

These two statements are fundamental to a proper understanding of what the compilers of the Westminster Confession and the contributors to the catechisms were doing. They were leading their readers along the highest corridors of thought to the ultimate purpose of existence. And their statement, at the beginning of this tremendous journey, about the meaning of life has, I think, four implications.

It Says Something About Creation

It implies, first, that all of creation has as its ultimate end that God should have the glory, and that humankind should enjoy a mutual relationship of fellowship with him. If our individual lives have as their highest and chief end that God should be glorified and enjoyed, then that is how it must have been from the very beginning.

Although the Catechism will deal with the subject of creation later, there is clearly an implication here about what God's intention when he made the world. The heavens declare his glory (Psalm 19:1) and the majesty of the creation declares that the Creator God is unparalleled and unequalled, so that God can ask "To whom then will you liken Me?" (Isaiah 40:25). There is no answer to that question. God cannot be compared to anything he has made, even although what he has made is analogous with him.

In other words, he is supreme over his creation, and what he made was manufactured with this end in view, that he would be glorified in it, and by it. And man, made in the image of God, was created in order to glorify God by worshipping him, obeying him, and, consequently, enjoying him.

But there is a deeper implication still. Not only is all creation mandated to glorify God, but man in particular is enabled, called and expected to do so. While all that God has made will glorify him, it is particularly man, as the highest object of God's workmanship, crafted in God's image and endowed with unique gifts and talents, that is called to serve the Lord.

It Says Something About Sin

There is also the implication, secondly, that sin is a denial of this 'highest and chief end of man'. Indeed, the Bible expressly tells us that although the glory of God is revealed in creation, man has "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures" (Romans 1:23). The whole of mankind now lies under the universal indictment that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

In consequence, the enjoyment of God that ought to be there is not there. Man's quest for happiness is, ultimately, a quest for God, because God is the only one who can fully satisfy man's longing heart. The ache, the void, the emptiness, that men try to fill by materialism, immorality, sex, money or power, is an evidence that something major has gone wrong. Failing to give glory to God as we ought, we have ruptured the bond between Creator and creature, and we have lost the happiness that we might have enjoyed.

The first question of the Catechism, therefore, not only serves to remind us of what our ultimate commitment ought to be; it also serves as a background to the Reformed doctrine of salvation which will be expressed throughout this great work. It is precisely our failure to fulfil our obligations to God, and to realise the possibilities of joy and blessing which come from fellowship with God, that define sin for us.

It Says Something About Christ

But there is a third implication here, and it is that if Jesus is anything, he is the perfect man. He is the answer to man's need and will be presented to us in the Larger Catechism as Lord and Saviour. There is an interesting juxtaposition in the First Letter of John, which highlights the contrast between us and Jesus in these two verses:

1 John 1:8 -- "if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 3:5 -- "you know that He appeared to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin".

If sin is to be defined as coming short of God's glory, and failing to enjoy God, then Jesus stands before us as the perfect, sinless man. Part of Paul's purpose in naming Jesus as "the last Adam" in 1 Corinthians 15:45 is to remind us that what we lost in Adam we have regained in Christ. The Adam of the last days is the perfect man. In other words, we could take the first question of the Catechism and apply it legitimately to Jesus. His highest end and purpose was to glorify God and to fully enjoy him.

Indeed, Jesus tells us as much. It was his "meat and drink" to do the will of God the Father (John 4:34), and his claim at the end of his life was that he had glorified the Father on the earth (John 17:4). He had enjoyed God -- God said that he was pleased with him (Matthew 3:17), and Jesus said that he constantly and consciously lived to do what was pleasing to God (John 8:29). As the eternal Son of God, Jesus had enjoyed the Father's fellowship from all eternity, and that fellowship remained unbroken. While he was on this world, he lived the life of a perfect man, one who shows us what our lives ought to be.

There are some who stop there, and who tell us that this is the purpose of the Christ Event -- to save us by leaving us an example to follow. Jesus is, of course, much more than an example to us, but he is no less than an example to us. Indeed, it is his very example that condemns us, for when we measure ourselves up against him, it is then that we see how we have failed to fulfill our chief and highest aim, and have consequently forfeited our enjoying of him.

Our highest and chief end is to glorify God and fully to enjoy Him. That is what Christ did. How unlike him we are! And it is precisely that 'unlikeness' that at one and the same time seals our condemnation as sinners, and opens the promise of redemption. It is in Christ's perfection that the ground for atonement, reconciliation and justification is prepared. His sinlessness is the very foundation upon which we can be saved.

It Says Something About Salvation

The fourth implication of these opening words of the Catechism is that our salvation is a whole person salvation, one that restores to us what sin took from us (cf. Psalm 69:4). As Paul puts it, God elected his people to be holy and obedient children, "to the praise of the glory of His grace" (Ephesians 1:6). We have been saved in order that our highest and chief purpose might be realised -- in order that we will glorify God, and that we will enjoy him.

In other words, the consequences of God's saving work are obedience and fellowship: the working in us the desire and the ability to please God (Philippians 2:13) and the calling us into the circle of fellowship which formerly only the Persons of the Trinity knew (1 Corinthians 1:9). In James Packer's words, that circle has now been enlarged to include sinners. We can, at last, give God glory and fully enjoy him.

It Says Something About The Future

Fifthly, these words remind us that ultimately, at the consummation of human history when the purposes of God culminate in final judgement and the new creation, there will be a glorified and perfected humanity. All will confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of God (Philippians 2:11), but not all will enjoy fellowship with him. That communion will belong only to those who have been renewed in Christ. And Heaven means unbroken communion with God in Christ.

It is to that great end that the opening words of the Catechism point us. After all, they do not merely talk about happiness and joy; they talk about a joy that is forever!