The Purpose of the World
Via “What is Christianity?”
What is the purpose of the world so long as God allows it to exist? What, too, is the purpose of man’s living in the world? Quite manifestly this knowledge is essential to our Christian world-view. Whoever does not know the purpose of the world and of his own existence in the world leads an aimless, driftless life. But as for all those who know for what purpose the world still exists and why they themselves are in the world, their path through life is illuminated by a bright and radiant light. However, here again we are confronted with the question, Do we really have reliable and certain information concerning the purpose of the world and of our own existence? Indeed, we have, provided we go to the right information bureau. In His Word, in Holy Scripture, God discloses to us the purpose of the world and of our own lives in such detail that only those who reject the Bible remain in ignorance and darkness. Holy Scripture is very explicit in teaching that the present world exists, by virtue of God’s express will and providence, for the sole purpose that the Gospel of Christ, the message of God’s gracious forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction, may be proclaimed in it. In Matt. 24, 14 Christ tells us this very clearly and emphatically; He engraves it, as it were, upon brass and granite by declaring: “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness into all nations, and then shall the end come,” namely, the end of the world. God has indeed purchased mankind at a great cost. With the blood of Jesus Christ, His incarnate Son, He has paid the price for sinful man’s eternal salvation, and now He permits the world to stand in order that in it the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ may be proclaimed and that this Gospel-message may be accepted by men through faith.
The proclamation of the free remission of sins through faith in Christ was not originally the purpose of the world; for in the beginning sin was unknown. Then no Gospel of the forgiveness of sin was necessary; for man was not yet a sinner, but lived in perfect communion with God according to his concreated divine knowledge and his holiness of will. At that time this earth was the beautiful abode of man, who was without blemish in body and soul, being not yet disfigured by sin. As the Biblical record informs us in the second chapter of Genesis, God placed man into the Garden of Eden, into Paradise. Then, however, came the Fall. Misled by Satan, man ate the fruit of the tree concerning which God had commanded him: “Thou shalt not eat of it.” Gen. 2, 17. By this act man transgressed the divine commandment and thus fell into the greatest of all evils – he became guilty before God. Through this guilt he forfeited his blessed communion with God, so that he fled from Him in terror, as we read in the third chapter of Genesis. But since man had become a sinner, he lost also Paradise, his original, delightful home. His habitat henceforth was a sin-cursed earth, this poor earth on which we are living, which brings forth thorns and thistles and upon which must eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. By God’s grace, however, sinful man may be restored to communion with God; he may return to Paradise, and a Paradise at that which is more beautiful and more glorious than was the first.
