God’s Glory Is the Goal of Creation

The creation exists for the praise and glory of its creator God. We humans, being creatures ourselves, share in that reason for existence. As the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Our “chief end”, the prime goal of all human life, is to bring glory to God, and in doing so to enjoy ourselves because we enjoy God.

But that God-focused goal of human life (to glorify and enjoy God) is not something that sets us apart from the rest of creation. Rather, it is something we share with the rest of creation. That is the “chief end” of all creation. The only difference is that we human beings must glorify our creator in uniquely human ways. We are the only creatures who are made in the image of God, and so the praise and glory we bring to God reflects that status. So, as humans we praise God with hearts and hands and voices, with rationality as well as emotion, with language, art, music and craft—with all that reflects the God in whose image we were made. Our praise is explicitly human praise.

But all the rest of creation—animate and inanimate—already praises God. Indeed in the Bible, the creatures are summoned again and again to praise God! Just read Psalm 148, and the closing line of the whole book of Psalms: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD” (Ps. 150:6; cf. 145:10, 21; 148). There is a response of gratitude that befits not just human beneficiaries of God’s generosity, but comes from the nonhuman creatures as well (e.g., Ps. 104:27–28).

Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, Biblical Theology for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 53.