Purpose of life

Mankind's original purpose

When God was still busy to create,

  1. God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created humankind in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. And God blessed them.
  2. And God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and
  3. subdue it. Have dominion
    • over the fish of the sea,
    • over the birds of the heavens and
    • over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.”

-- Genesis 1:26-28 (REV)

For example:

  • God placed Adam and Eve in the garden "to work it and care for it" (Genesis 2:15)
  • God brought the animals He made to Adam so that he could give the names (Genesis 2:19)

Eden means "delight" or "pleasure". The garden's name was never "Eden". Instead, it was called the "Garden of Jahweh" (Genesis 13:10; Isaiah 51:3). God put Adam and Eve in His garden which was located in an area called "Eden" (Genesis 2:8) which means a delight place or "paradise".

It is likely that the original garden was small enough for Adam and Eve to maintain, but would need to be extended for their children as their first commandment was to "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth". The idea was not that mankind should work as slaves every day, working a garden.

The Hebrew word translated as “work” also means “serve,” or even, in a religious context, “worship.” In a very real sense, humans “serve” the land, and in so doing bless God and bless themselves with good food. -- Commentary for Genesis 2:15

Because this was in "the land of Delight", we can assume that it must have been a pleasure to serve the garden as God representative image after His likeness.

The fall of mankind

Sadly, because of the fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3), mankind's relationship with their Creator got fractured and resulted in hardship, pain and death. The world ceased to be a paradise and the world became a hard and dangerous place to live.

In the fallen nature:

  1. People no longer represent God's image or likeness as people became selfish sinful rebels.
  2. Cost of living, economic uncertainty, urban environments, women rights, entertainment industry, single parent households encourage people to avoid having children.
  3. While people still dominate animals, but instead of stewarding the animal kingdom, they often do it in harmful way selfish way through pollution, poaching, abuse and so forth.

Laws and rules

Because of the lack of a righteous relationship with God, Moses had to create the Torah with many laws and rules to govern people's behaviour indicating how they should treat each other as well as how to serve God, for example the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). These laws had consequence known as severe as death penalty, but the principles had blessings and curses associated with them, for example Deuteronomy 28.

The majority of the Old Testament records Israel's history as an example of a nation that repeatedly went through a cycle of:

  1. repentance (from their own sin) and deliverance (from some physical oppressing enemy)
  2. restoration and blessing (because of their trust and obedience)
  3. disobedience (falling back to idolatry and other sin) and prophetic warnings
  4. suffering and hardship (a new oppressing enemy emerges as God withdraw His blessings and protection)

Saviour

Since the beginning (John 1 and Genesis 3), God already promised:

I (God) will put hostility between you (the devil) and the woman (Eve), and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” -- Genesis 3:15 (REV)

Literally it could mean that snakes will bite people on their heals and people will kill snakes by striking its heads. If God really intended the literal meaning,

  • Why did He say only the woman's seed will be able to strike his head instead of Adam himself?
  • Why did He refer to the woman's seed in singular form?

The same word translated as "head" could also be translated as "rank" and "heal" could also be translated as "attacking from behind". Another interpretation is that the New Covenant that was established with the blood of the Christ, enabled reconciliation with God which effectively unranked the dominion of "the snake" over kingdoms (Luke 4).

While the first prophecy about the Christ might be a bit vague, there are many other prophecies throughout the Old Testament that indicate that:

  • The Christ would be a divinely appointed (Jeremiah 30:21; Daniel 7; Matthew 1:1-2; Acts 13:30-34), powerful (Isaiah 9:6-7), yet humble serving leader (Isaiah 52:13,53:11-12) who would ultimately bring blessings by:
    • his teaching (Isaiah 54:13) which include proclamations of liberty, hope and comfort (Isaiah 61:1-3),
    • his prophecies (Acts 3:22-26),
    • and that he would suffer (Zechariah 12:20) and die as a sacrifice for humanity's sins (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) to establish the New Covenant (Malachi 3:1-4) which will enable reconciliation with God and therefore salvation (Isaiah 28:16)
  • That the Christ would be resurrected (Luke 18:31-33, 24:45-49)

Jesus was identified in the New Testament as this Christ.

Purpose of the disciples

Jesus did not come to hit-and-run. He trained his disciples to continue the work he started and instructed them.

According to Matthew:

And Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore,

  1. go and make disciples of all the nations,
  2. baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy spirit,
  3. teaching them to obey all that I commanded you.

And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

-- Matthew 28:18-20 (REV)

According to Mark:

And he (Jesus) said to them,

  1. Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.
  2. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
  3. And these signs will accompany those who believe:
    • they will cast out demons in my name,
    • they will speak in new tongues,
    • they will pick up snakes, and if they drink anything that is deadly, it will absolutely not hurt them,
    • they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, and the Lord was working with them and confirming the message by the signs that followed. Amen.

-- Mark 16:15-20 (REV)

According to Luke:

Then he (Jesus) said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

-- Luke 24:44-48 (ESV)

According to John:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

-- John 20:21-23 (ESV)

According to Acts:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” -- Acts 1:8 (ESV)

Some reason that this commission was only applicable to the first direct disciples. However, Jesus specifically instructed:

  • "teaching them to obey all that I commanded you" (Matthew 28:20), which means the new disciples should replicate what the original disciples did.
  • "repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations" (Luke 24:48) and "you will be my witnesses... to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8), which would be impossible for the first 11 disciples to accomplish. Therefore, the understanding is that through the next generations of disciples all the other nations would be reached.
  • "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you" (John 20:21). This refers to a repeating pattern where each disciple should send the next generation as the Father originally sent Jesus.

The books of Acts also record:

Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

  • For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and
  • many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was much joy in that city.

-- Acts 8:3-8 (ESV)

Paul himself was not a direct disciple of Jesus, and he too continues this work after his repentance.

When did Jesus' commission expired or did the disciple receive a new commission? History shows that this likely happened around the second century when Christian became contained in church buildings:

  • obeying the bishop instead of Christ
  • wasting resources to maintain the church institutions, instead of investing in God's Kingdom
  • passively listening to sermons, instead of actively spreading the Gospel

The fact that God withdraw His gifts and the miracles that was recorded in Acts from churches should actually be alarming.

Purpose of the body of Christ

Some refers to the new generation of Christ's disciples as "the Body of Christ" because they represent Christ by continuing the work he had started. This is not to be confused with institutional churches who claim the same name.

The body of Christ is supposed to act like a multitude of Jesuses (Luke 6:40; John 13:34-35). Therefore, the body should like Jesus function as a body (unified group of people acting with one mind and the same purpose) (John 17:20-23; Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 4:1-6,11-16; Philippians 2:1-4; 1 Peter 4:10-11), which is:

To save people by restoring broken relationships with God (1 Timothy 4:10).

Like Jesus, this is done by:

  • Teaching the Gospel and serving communities by righteous living (Matthew 5:16; Romans 10:14-15; Philippians 2:3-4; James 2:14-17; 1 Peter 3:15).
  • To support other members of the body in their functions (Ephesians 4:11-12).
  • Be willing to suffer or even die for the sake of God's Kingdom (if necessary) (Romans 12:1-2; Galatians 6:9-10).

This is in addition to the mankind's original purpose which is to represent God, expand His kingdom and to steward His creation.

These people are supposed be different from the fallen world, because

  • They submit under the authority of Christ (Colossians 1:18; Ephesians 1:22-23), i.e. obeying his commands.
  • They have be transformed and no longer continue with their old sinful practices (Colossian 3:5-10; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:22-24, 5:8-11; Romans 8:5-8, 12:2; Philippians 2:13; Galatians 5:16-17)
  • They love one another (John 13:35) and bear good fruit (Matthew 7:16-20; James 2:14-17; Galatians 5:22-23)
  • They "have the spirit of Christ" (Romans 8:9)