When I was two months shy of turning four years old, Birch Bayh, one of the Indiana senators at the time, visited our house. Because our new consolidated high school asked him to be their first commencement speaker, he came to my brother’s graduation reception at our home afterward. You see, many people throughout the state knew a lot of things about Senator Bayh, as did my parents. But they also knew him personally.
That experience illustrates the truths expressed in the fourth question and answer in The New City Catechism: “How and why did God create us? Answer: God created us male and female in his own image to know him, love him, live with him, and glorify him. And it is right that we who were created by God should live to his glory.”
To begin, we learn here that God created us to know him (Jer. 9:23-24). The kind of knowledge in view is that which my parents had of Senator Birch Bayh. It is an experiential knowledge that includes a relationship. We know this is true since Jesus said that true, full, and eternal life consists of knowing God (John 17:3).
What is more, God created us to glorify him (Is. 43:7; 1 Cor. 10:31) and this cannot happen apart from knowing him (Ex. 6:3, 7; 14:4, 17; 16:7). Again, this is similar to the example of my parents who not only sang the praises of Senator Bayh at that time, but for years afterward. This overflowed from their knowledge of him.
Additionally, God created humans to live with him (Gen. 3:8). After all, an experiential knowledge that leads to glorifying God demands a close relationship. If this relationship is to fit who God is, it must be eternal. God’s purpose for humans is to be in relationship with him in which they forever grow in their knowledge and praise of him and thus glorify him (see Rev. 21:3-7).
We also cannot miss that God created us to love him (Mt. 22:37-39). This goes hand-in-hand with knowing God (Ps. 91:14). One who truly knows God will love him (Dt. 10:12-13).
What knowing, loving, and living with God is ultimately for is to carry out the most important purpose in all the universe—to glorify God. This is why the second sentence of the answer speaks of glorifying God as a summary of what is said previously.
Finally, we can say that living to God’s glory also includes reflecting God’s glory through our resemblance of him. He is one God (unified) in three persons (diversified). This one-in-three created humans both to reflect this unity in diversity (John 5:18; 1 Cor. 11:3) and to reflect the relationship of the saving bridegroom with his church, the bride (Eph. 5:21-33). What this means is that God created humans both male and female in his image (to resemble him and reflect him, see Gen. 1:26-28, James 3:9). The person, then, who truly knows, loves, and desires to glorify God will recognize and accept how God created them—either male or female—and they will seek to live out this reality to his honor, rather than change it.
This fourth question and answer are rich with meaning for any Christian! They also are rich with comfort: We really know him!
Joyfully Knowing God With You,
Tom
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