What is the Meaning of Life?

Why are we here?/What is the meaning of life?

Many times in my life I asked this question. What is my purpose? Why am I here? What’s the point of it all? And the majority of my life I spent looking in the wrong places for the answer. The Bible gives us the answer. The Bible says clearly that we are created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. This is our chief end or goal in this life. This is what God created us for. To glorify and enjoy Him.

Romans 11:36 reads, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Psalm 73:25–26 says: “

“Whom have I in heaven but You?

And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

See also: (Psalm 16:5-11, 86:9, 144:15, Isaiah 12:2, 60:21, 1 Corinthians 6:20, 10:31)

What it means to glorify Him is that in whatever we do we seek to make Him known. The word glory is akin to boasting. People boast all of the time in themselves. A football player may score a touchdown and do a dance, drawing all of the attention to himself for what he can do making himself known. A child may do some new trick on the playground and call for their Mom’s attention to gloat about their new accomplishment. When the Bible tells us that we are to glorify God it means that we are not to seek to glorify ourselves. We are to place the attention on Him both for what He enables us to do with the abilities that He has given us and we are to proclaim what He has done and accomplished in this world(more on that later).

The Problem

So if this is what we’re made for, why do people not want to do this? In the garden of Eden, God created the first man Adam and the first woman, Eve. God made them in His image, meaning they were made with the ability and the desire to glorify God. This means that they were made in true knowledge, righteousness and holiness with dominion over the creatures. The Bible tells us that God entered into a covenant with Adam. A covenant is something that lays out the relationship between two or more parties. In this instance God entered into covenant with Adam and Adam represented the entire human race(Rom. 5:12-21, 1 Cor 15:22). This means that what Adam did we did in him since he stood in our place and represented us. The covenant that God made with Adam was one of works. This means that the covenant was conditional upon perfect obedience; it forbade Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.

Genesis 2:16–17: “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Reading through Genesis we see that Adam ate of the fruit of the tree and so transgressed the covenant which means that God punished Adam and those that he represented(the entire human race) with death. Yet Adam lived to be over 900 years old, so what kind of death did God refer to when He said that Adam would die “in the day” that he ate the fruit. This death was not a physical one that God punished man with. It was a spiritual death. When Adam ate the fruit of the tree he died spiritually and everyone that he represented died with him. To be spiritually alive means that we have the ability and desire to glorify God, even so to be spiritually dead means that we have no ability and desire to glorify God. After Adam ate the fruit of the tree, the entire human race that has been born after him has been born into an estate of sin and misery(Gen 3:16-19 23, Rom 3:10-18, 5:12, Eph 2:1). We are all sinners by nature. Sin is not a sickness. SIN IS WHO WE ARE BY NATURE. Sin only exists because we exist. It is a condition of the heart. The heart is the mind. God has declared who we are in His Word. In Gen 6:5 He declared, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

This was not just a condition with those whom the Lord drowned in the flood, for after the flood we see the same declaration,“I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth”(Gen 8:21). Every intention of our thoughts are only evil according to the Scriptures. Which can only mean that there is nothing good about us(Rom 3:10-19). This presents a big problem for us with God. God is a just God and a God who is “angry with the wicked every day”(Psa 7:11). The fact that God is just means that He cannot forgive anyone at the expense of His justice(Proverbs 17:15). He will not accept a bribe nor will He pardon your sin unless He can be just in doing so. Job saw this dilemma when he wrote, “How then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who is born of woman?”

The Gospel

The solution to this great dilemma is found in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. God sent His Son into history almost 2000 years ago. He was born of a virgin(Isa 7:14) as God in the flesh(John 1). He came as the last Adam(1 Cor 15:45). This means that Christ was also a representative. Christ was also born under a covenant. This covenant was the Law that God had given to Israel(Gal 4:4). It is summarized in the 10 commandments which is summarized by the two greatest commandments, to love God and neighbor. The Lord Jesus Christ was to keep the Law perfectly if He was to merit righteousness on behalf of those He represented. This is exactly what He did. He never violated the Law of God at one point. He was sinless. So why did He die? He died to satisfy the justice of God on behalf of His people(Rom 3:25). Jesus gave His life as a ransom to satisfy the wrath of His Father that was directed towards those that He represented. God’s wrath is His justice. It is what the Bible refers to as Hell(Rev 14:10). In order to save His people(Matt 1:21) from Hell, on the cross, Jesus was made to be sin(2 Cor 5:21). The sins of His people were imputed unto Him. This means that when Jesus hung on the cross the Father took into view those that Jesus represented. When this happened the Father crushed the Son Jesus under His wrath(Isa 53:10). Jesus stood in the place of His people taking the Hell that they deserved to experience. This is good news because His death satisfies God’s justice. Hebrews 9:12 says that Christ has obtained eternal redemption through His death for those who are called(v.15). This means that salvation from Hell is what Jesus has accomplished. What makes the difference in between Heaven and Hell is the death of Christ and His righteous life and not what we do in our lives. He proved that what He did was a success by raising from the dead three days later(Rom 4:25) and forty days after that He ascended into Heaven and sat down on the right side of Majesty on High where He forever sits until all His enemies be made an enemy under His feet. This is the gospel. The good news of what Christ has accomplished!

Antithesis

In much of today’s preaching we hear nothing of what has been said. This is because the devil disguises himself as an angel of light(2 Cor 11:14) and men love self righteousness(Luke 16:14-16). The word angel means messenger. The devil seeks to communicate his message through preachers. Much of what you hear today is not Biblical. It is a lie by the father of lies which if believed it will give you false peace through deception. Salvation is by grace. Grace is unmerited or unearned favor. This means that salvation is not by works. What is a work? A work is anything that someone does in order to receive something in return for what they do. An example from everyday life would be that I go to work and in return I receive a paycheck at the end of every week. Or in other words you meet a condition to get something. Many, many people today who call themselves Christians have turned faith into a work. They say, Jesus died for everyone and *if* you believe then you can be saved. They lie about faith and say it is the condition that must be met in order to receive salvation. They teach that salvation is God compensating people for their decision to believe. Salvation to them is not what Jesus has done in His life and death but rather what they have did by choosing Jesus. Not only does this make faith into a work but it places all of one's hope and assurance in one's self. It is very legitimate to ask someone who holds to these false beliefs if their faith is good enough. For, if faith is something that God compensates people eternal life for then it must be something that God takes into view and makes a decision on whether to accept it or not. e.g~If I don't work good enough at my job I could get fired. Works involve standards.

In Matthew ch. 7 Jesus speaks of a day. This day that He speaks of is the day of judgment. This day is the day in which people will either stand before God justified or condemned. It is very important to understand this when reading this passage. What is it that Jesus takes into view on the day of judgment? It is the basis of one's justification. Justification is what makes one to stand before God, what makes an individual right with God. If someone is justified in God's sight then they cannot be condemned(Rom. 8:33,34). However in Matthew 7 Jesus speaks of people who are condemned. He says that He will say to them on that day, "‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’"~(Matthew 7:23). But why? Well what is it that these people pleaded before God as their basis of justification before Him? In verse 21 we read that they pleaded, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles." So why is it that Jesus teaches us that He will condemn such people? What is it exactly that is wrong with what these people pleaded? What is so wrong about prophesying, casting out demons, and performing miracles? And they even did it in Jesus name! Well, whats wrong with it is that these people pleaded these things as the ground of their justification. They believed that Jesus should compensate them with eternal life because they did these things. They were trusting in their works. That is what is wrong with it. This is what will happen to those who believe that Jesus died for everyone and their faith made the difference or their faith compensated them or saved them. This is self righteousness. This is what Jesus refers to as lawlessness in Matthew 7.

So what is the truth. How do those justified stand before God as such? The Bible tells us that they do it on the merits of Another. The Lord Jesus Christ. The very reason that Jesus came into this world as God in the flesh was to save or justify His people(Matthew 1:21) as I have written above. God's people stand before Him justified not because of anything that they have done but solely because of what Jesus has done for them(Rom. 3:21-27, Eph.2:8,9). And to be clear, everyone that Jesus died for will not perish (Isa 53:10-12). He will receive everyone that He bought with His blood(Rev 5:9). And yes this does mean that He did not die for everyone. The Bible is clear that He died for His people alone that God the Father elected before the foundation of the world(Matt 1:21, 2 Tim 1:9).

So then what is true faith? If Jesus did it all for those for whom He died then what about faith? Faith, to put it simply, is the gift of God to those for whom Jesus died to reveal to them and assure them that He has bought them(Rom 4, Heb 11:10, Gal 3). Faith is assurance of that which is hoped for(Hebrews 11:1). You can’t be assured of what you don’t have. Therefore since faith is assurance, God must save you when He gives you faith whereas the popular false teaching teaches that you’re saved after you exercise faith. This is because these false teachers deny that faith is assurance. Do you have faith? Not everyone does. God has to give it to you(Eph 2:8,9, Php 1:29). God does not give faith apart from the true Jesus. If you believe in a false Jesus who died for everyone and in effect saved no one then you do not have faith. Do you believe in the Messiah who was slain to purchase for God an elect people from every tribe, tongue, and nation? If you believe this then you are a Christian and you will not be disappointed. I pray that the Lord will grant you faith and that you will believe the gospel of His grace and repent of self righteously thinking that you can make the difference in between Heaven and Hell.

Those that believe the true report of what Jesus actually did have been born again(John 3:3) and have been given a new heart that now desires to glorify God through obedience to His Law (Rom 8:29, 1 John 4:10 & 5:13, 2 Cor 5:17). They who once were dead have now been made alive(Eph 2) with new desires. This is not to say that Christians don’t sin, it is to say that before conversion a Christian is nothing but evil; after conversion, a Christian has a new principle working within. A principle of life which desires to love God and neighbor through obedience to His revealed will contained in the Bible. May God bless you with this heart that believes the truth and hates the lie counting it as the dung that it is(Php 3).