Part 2 in a series exploring the Westminster Catechism question, “What is the chief end of man?” Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 3.
While I now believe that enjoying God is what brings him glory, I used to think that “enjoying” is just what you called it when doing something approvable for God. It had nothing to do with how you actually felt: excited or satisfied or contented or happy, or even discouraged or dismayed or dreading the duty. Emotions didn’t tell you if you were enjoying something—those were misleading—but doing the right thing might bring satisfaction. There’s your enjoyment. If it didn’t bring satisfaction per se, you could fall back on the knowledge that sanctification and life are hard 💁🏼♀️ (and ‘hard’ for us confirmed that we were correct).
If I did something that ‘gave God glory’ (like faithfulness in morning bible reading), that definitionally was enjoying God. At the same time, I couldn’t judge my ‘enjoyment’ by how I actually felt in my body, because emotions were dangerous, and doing things I liked would lead me astray—perhaps less rigorous bible reading, which was my duty. (There is, I suppose, an austere kind of enjoyment in doing what you don’t want to do, and then getting convicted over it.) With no other practices for taking in God’s word, no acceptable times of meditation or intake or even breaks, it was just required work: because the work itself was what God wanted. My emotional engagement was immaterial. The work itself was promised to change me, a one-size-fits-all exercise regimen, that inherently and inerringly would make me a someone who was glorifying to God.
My old church often referred to believers as "trophies of grace" (taken from Ephesians 2.7-9, where God displays the riches of his grace in us). I would picture golden, handled cups floating in this starry expanse of universe, faintly glowing. In my mind we all became static features on some heavenly award shelf—frozen in time like the White Witch's courtyard statues. I was actually a little afraid of becoming a trophy.
Trophy, tool, used by God or displayed by God, either way we exist in a service or toward a goal outside ourselves. We either exist to serve others, or we exist in serving others, for yet other-others to see and glorify God—now in their salvation, or later in their judgement. It’s only generated between people, in action, and is strangely removed from God at all.
But why am I not sufficient ends in his redemption: my delight in him, my relationship with him, my satisfaction with his gifts? (Shouldn’t those things bring him glory, too?)
Honestly, in the churches of my youth, it’s because I was unworthy. We weren’t relational individuals, but tools in the hands of God, needing to submit to his direction, like a compliant chisel. As one of a mass of tools, I can be directed to areas where God—or the person directing—can best “use” me. Which is what I'm made for, if I'm a tool: use. I am a means. I am a popsicle stick. I cannot look like myself and be loved.
My existence as a wicked sinner in need of God’s grace became my first and foremost descriptor, even after I’d received that grace. I say today that I sin, simultaneously that I have been made a saint; I also say there are other perspectives on human identity allowed, like “I am a human, and therefore I thrive in community.” But when “sinner” was the primary identity, we were unworthy of anything good—trials come your way? Well, it’s not literal hell, so God’s still gracious! However horrible, it’s still more than you deserve!
And in this unworthiness, my own trying to follow Christ and even my sanctification wouldn't ever make me worthy. I was scum, given a reward I didn't deserve, so I needed to be grateful; I proved my gratitude by how hard I tried to not be scum, while knowing I would always be scum. (Until I died and got turned into a glowing Loving Cup.)
It starts to sound like a cosmic performance. Who is God showing his trophies to? Who is coming over to admire his achievements or his craftsmanship? And if we are so unworthy, such worms, what kind of achievements are we, anyway?
Reading a book called The Back Side of the Cross, I saw old scripture in a new light. Instead of centering ‘substitute for us,’ if we center Christ as redeemer, the one who pays evil for us, then the Trinity is working together to save us because we are desirable to God. We see Christ victorious over that sin and death (actually, the most historical atonement view; not that I knew that till I was 27), because God has set his love on us, and will stop at no cost to bring us into freedom. And we see Christ as the sacrificial lamb who bore our sorrows, understands what it is to be human, suffered the cost of sin and “[took] away the sin of the world.” None of these negate sin, or the cost of sin, or the need for sin to be paid for. Yet all of them highlight God’s love for us.
We love because he first loved us—we enjoy because he first enjoyed us. He looked at us and said “you are very good!” We are his children, in whom he delights; the apple of his eye, the final harvest after the glorious firstfruits have been gathered in. There is no rejection, no fear of failure, no insecurity of loss; in his strong grip there is rest. It is easy to delight in one who delights in you, because you are safe, and you are treasured, and you are loved.
Next week is Part 3, where I get back to the original catechism question: so why did God create us?
Part 1: God is anger • Part 2: Worm theology • Part 3: Love and rest