Why Was Man Created?

You can watch a video on this topic here: Why Did God Create Man?

There is a very important question that most people ask at some point: why am I here? Many believe that they are here for their own pleasure and that life is all about them. Others believe that life is about serving others even if they do not understand why. Some believe there is no purpose to life at all.

We are working on faith that there is a God and the Bible is His word. Let us see some of what God has told us about our purpose in life. Why did God create us?

Genesis 1:26-28 - Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God made man in His own image. This does not mean that they physically look like Him. Both man and woman are made in His image. God is spirit (John 4:24) and so to be made in His image, we must also be spirit. We have many of the same characteristics of God–but not the things that make Him God, like being all knowing, all powerful, and being everywhere at once. Man has the capability of becoming even more like God. After they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it says:

Genesis 3:22 - Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—

Knowing good and evil is one way in which we can be like God. Adam and Eve came into this knowledge through sin, but we can grow in this knowledge through just learning God’s word and maturing in our understanding.

Psalm 119:9 - How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.

Hebrews 5:12-14 - For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

God was providing everything for them, like a father provides for his children. When they came to understand good and evil, they were no longer like children and became like God in other ways than they already were. God still provided for them, making them clothes from animal skins.

It is important to note that God said Man had become more like Them, not corrupt and unable to do good. God did not change the purpose He had for man from the beginning. When man did not fulfill the purpose for which God had made him, it upset God.

Genesis 6:5-7 - Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

If, as some accuse, God caused man to be wicked (total hereditary depravity), why was He sorry that He had made man? That wouldn’t make any sense. According to that teaching, God has the ability to change people so that they will be righteous, but instead He was grieved in His heart. Man was not living up to the purpose for which God had made them. But what was that purpose?

Paul writes about Jesus being the One for Whom we were created. We (and every other created thing) were made for His purposes, not our own. This is true not only of those who have submitted to Christ, but all were made for Him and should submit to Him because of this.

Colossians 1:16 - For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

Luke 7:30 - But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

Paul then writes about how we are renewed according to the image of the One who created us. This gets back to the original purpose of creation. When we go into sin, that is not according to the purpose for which we were made. We are to all be like the One Who created us–Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:9-11 - Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

God created man to be like Him. God made man to do good works. In being like God and having the training from His word (true knowledge), we can understand good and evil and recognize that God is always good. We give Him glory because of it.

God made man to live with Him. This was seen in the relationship God had with Adam and Eve, but when they sinned, that did not destroy this purpose. This is seen in the promise of what will be for eternity.

Revelation 21:3-4 - And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

God made man to be His friends. It is incredible to think that we could be friends of the almighty, holy God. But we find this taught by God.

2 Chronicles 20:7 - Did You not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?

Isaiah 41:8 - “But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend,

James 2:23 - and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

Besides Abraham being the friend of God, Jesus used this language with His disciples.

John 15:13-15 - Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

God did not have to reveal His plans to us, but He chose to do so anyway. He does not want slaves, but friends. That is why He made us in His image. While the rest of creation is wonderful and displays God’s power and wisdom, it cannot understand Him as we can. When God created man, He was creating friends.

Another term we find in the Bible even more than friends is “children.” There is a reason we call God our Father.

Acts 17:24-29 - The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

All mankind are children of God in one sense. There is a special sense in which Christians have been adopted as sons (Romans 8:15), but God made all of man to be His children. Why do we have children? We want to pass along who we are to others. We want someone we can bless in a very personal way. We want to show love to someone who can never repay us. We are like that because we are like God–we were made in His image.

We are made to be God’s children who grow up to be His friends. What a blessed purpose! Yes, there are other things we can talk about when it comes to our purpose, especially glorifying God, but these are some very important ideas that God has taught us about our purpose. The problem is that we do not live up to this purpose and that will be seen in the next lesson.