Why did God create man? Why is man so special, among all other creatures and animals? Why does the Bible say that man has God’s image and likeness? There must be a purpose in God for which He created man.
Was it just because “God is lonely and wants someone to fellowship with Him”? Or was it because “God wants to display His wisdom”? What was in God’s mind and heart when He created man? Did God create man for Him to be glorified?
If we see God’s purpose in creating man, our entire human life will be affected. If we see why God made you and me, the reason for which we rise up in the morning will be God’s purpose and high calling. When we see God’s purpose in creating us, we will no longer live a life of vanity, an aimless life in the vain manner of life as the rest do. There must be a higher purpose in God for which He created us, something even higher than we with our limited human mind can imagine or fathom.
We need to come to the Bible as the breathed-out word of God in a fresh way and with an unveiled heart so that He may enlighten us and give us a vision concerning His purpose in creating man. If our life on earth is not for the purpose God had in creating us, we are deceived, we don’t really live, and we are not inwardly satisfied.
The Bible tells us clearly again and again that God’s purpose in creating man in His own image was for Him to be expressed in man and to have man represent Him. Let’s unpack this statement now….
What is God’s Purpose in Creating Man?
As seen in Gen. 1:26 and fully developed throughout the Bible, God’s purpose in His creation of man was to have a corporate man to express Him and represent Him. God created man in His image – man looks like no one else but God. Also, God gave man dominion over everything on earth, including His enemy.
God wants man to express Him in His image and represent Him with His dominion. God’s positive intention in creating man is to have a corporate man to express Him in full. God’s negative intention in creating man is that man would deal with His enemy – God would never lower Himself to deal with one of His creatures!
Man was therefore created both to express God (by receiving His life and expressing Him in His image) and to represent God (by dealing with Satan, the enemy of God, and bringing in God’s kingdom on earth).
The first man, Adam, fell – but God Himself became a man so that He would make man God in life and nature but not in the Godhead (see 1 John 3:2, Eph. 3:17). Through His death and in His resurrection, Christ created the new man, a corporate man that has God’s life, God’s image, God’s likeness, and God’s authority.
In other words, Adam as the first man was not the real man – the real man is the new man created by Christ in His resurrection! In Gen. 1 we have God creating man in the old creation, which is a picture of God creating the new man in the new creation, which is “the real thing” (see Eph. 2:15; 4:24).
It is the church as the Body of Christ and the one new man that expresses God and represents Him, both shining out God’s divine attributes and dealing with Satan to bring in the kingdom of God. This is what God is after: He wants a corporate one new man, fully grown and mature, that will express Him fully and properly represent Him.
God’s purpose in His creation of man is fulfilled in the church as the Body of Christ and as the one new man. As the Body of Christ, the church takes Christ as its life and expresses Him, and as the one new man the church takes Christ as its person and represents Him, dealing with the enemy and bringing in God’s kingdom.
How Can We Cooperate with God for the Fulfillment of His Purpose?
If we see that God’s purpose in His creation of man is to gain a full-grown corporate new man that expresses Him and represents Him, we will give ourselves to the Lord to learn to cooperate with Him for the fulfillment of His purpose.
The best cooperation we can render to the Lord in the fulfilling of His need is to allow Christ to make His home in our heart and open every part of our inner being for Him to saturate us and permeate us with Himself (see Eph. 3:16-19). We cooperate with the Lord by praying the Word of God back to Him,
Father, strengthen me with power through Your Spirit into my inner man. Christ, make Your home in my heart. Cause me to apprehend with all the saints what the depth, the height, the length, and the breadth of Christ is. Lord, fill us unto all the fullness of God!
First Christ makes His home in our heart, becoming our very person (see Eph. 3), and then we can put on the new man, corporately taking Christ as our person (see Eph. 4). It is together as the church that we can accomplish God’s purpose – not individually. The church is the Body of Christ and the church is the one new man.
We need to take Christ as our life to be the Body of Christ, and we need to take Christ as our person to be the one new man.
As the church, we are not just an assembly of believers, a kingdom of heavenly citizens, a household of God’s children, and not even only a Body for Christ. We are here as the one new man, the corporate man created by Christ in His resurrection, the man that fulfills God’s purpose!
God must gain such a people, some that don’t live for themselves or for their satisfaction but for God’s purpose! As we come into the church life today, we realize that there’s nothing for us here: there’s no position, no reward, no bonus, no promotion, nothing to satisfy the self and the natural man.
We are here to take the way of the cross to experience Christ as the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. We have the privilege to be a part of the corporate person who lives for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose! Right now, our prayer is,
Lord Jesus, thank You for giving us today – we don’t know what tomorrow holds in store for us, but we have today! We give ourselves to You, Lord, for the fulfillment of Your purpose. We don’t want anything else. We don’t seek or ask for anything less than that. Lord, we don’t care for anything else but Your purpose! By Your grace, we want to live for the fulfillment of Your purpose today. We don’t want to be anything special or super-natural: we just want to see the desire of Your heart being fulfilled in all local churches today all over the earth!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration (besides the Word of God and my Christian experience): bro. Ron Kangas’ speaking in this message and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament (msgs. 216-218, by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose, week / msg 1, A Full-Grown Corporate Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose Through the Experience of Life in the Fourth Stage.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Do you know what you were made for; / Do you ever wonder why? / What’s the purpose for your being; / What’s the reason you’re alive? / Do you know God wants to be your life? / He wants to be your life, He wants to be your life. / You were made with something deep within, / A vessel to contain just Him.
# New man of new creation, / Born through her risen Lord, / Baptized in God the Spirit, / Made holy by His Word; / Christ is her life and content, / Himself her glorious Head; / She has ascended with Him / O’er all her foes to tread.
# One new man is the Father’s plan; / He redeemed us from the sons of men. / Every kindred, tribe and tongue, / In Himself He called us to be one. / God’s expression on the earth / Now reveals His glorious worth. / One new man is the Father’s plan; / He redeemed us from the sons of men.
# Deep in God’s heart there’s been, / Before the time began, / God’s desire to be expressed, / This He planned in eternal past. / God eternal had a purpose / In eternal past. / He created man in His image / that man would God express.
