The justice of God and the purpose of man

One of the deepest, if not the deepest, yearnings of the the human heart is for purpose. Our happiness, satisfaction, desires, motives are in one way or the other tethered to our understanding of individual purpose. Research and contemplation on existential questions are not insignificant in number and force both in philosophical and theological studies. In a non-theistic worldview, despite there not being a need for a purpose framework, questions on individual purpose are usually answered based on the individual's understanding of ultimate good. Two of the most popular responses in a non-theistic worldview are:

- The purpose of an individual is to maximize good for others (This is usually the answer of people conditioned in an altruistic, collectivistic environment)

- The purpose of an individual is to maximize individual happiness (This is usually the answer of people conditioned in a hedonistic, individualistic environment)

Within a Biblical worldview, the westminster catechism captures Biblical teaching on the purpose of man as to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever".  Is it possible, though, to test if one really believes in it?  It's a difficult question to answer until you see a profound (yet often overlooked) commentary on the purpose of man in Luke chapter 7:

Luke 7:

29 When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just,having been baptized with the baptism of John, 

30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.

These parenthetical statements profoundly shine a light on Gospel truth and its impact on our understanding of individual purpose. There are two categories of people in these verses. They are delineated and differentiated based on the last phrases in both verses. The words "having" and "not having" prescribe that the actions ("they declared" and "rejected") of the two categories of people are predicated on what they "had" and "had not". The first group of people had been baptized by the baptism of John. The second group of people had not been baptized by the baptism of John. The first group of people declared that God is just because they were baptized with the baptism of John and the second group of people rejected the purpose of God for themselves because they had not been baptized by John.

Its clear in the Bible that the act baptism does not inherently produce inward change but rather is a deliberate action to confess an inward change. In referring people to the baptism of John, the Lord Jesus is pointing them to their response to believing the Gospel message of John. The first group had believed and received the Gospel message of John and got baptized in obedience to it, while the second group had rejected the Gospel message of John and did not get baptized in disobedience to it. So far, this is no different from any proclamation of the Gospel- some believe and some reject. What is remarkable is what the Lord Jesus attributes as the fruit of believing and the fruit of rejection.

The fruit of believing is an acknowledgement that God is just. The fruit of disbelief is a rejection of the purpose of God for an individual. This is remarkable for two reasons:

1) For disbelievers: The rejection  of the Gospel message is not merely and entirely an intellectual denial of facts and propositions that have no effect on everyday life. They make an impact on an individual's perception of God's purpose for them. It is impossible for someone to reject the Gospel message and yet have accurate idea of their purpose from God. When we reject the Gospel message, we're rejecting the Creator's message and so lose all hope for real meaning, joy and satisfaction.

2) For believers: The sentence structure makes "an acknowledgment that God is just" at worst(logically) antithetical and at best mutually exclusive to "the purpose of God" for an individual. This means that a great sign of our understanding of purpose is our understanding of the acts of God in the Bible. Our belief in God's purpose is intricately tied (proportional, perhaps) to our acceptance of all God's actions as being just. When we read through wars in the old testament, the commandments of God in the wilderness, the book of Judges, the doctrine of election, the reality of Hell, our resonance of acknowledging that God was just in all that He did, is the force with which we really believe in God's purpose for our life.

Someone who asserts accepting the Biblical description of individual purpose and yet does not believe that God is just in all His actions is dishonest, or at-least misguided. The strength with which one believes that the Biblical God is just is the strength with which one believes the Biblical description of individual purpose.