I usually have a couple opportunities a year to ask students the question, “What would you say is the meaning of life?” The replies are usually confounded stares, shrugs, or somewhat more knowing responses along the lines, “The meaning of life? Well, you know, that’s such a big question. How can we know such a thing?” Then, when they’re good and ready, I say, “Well, actually, it’s pretty simple” and I hit ’em with Westminister Shorter Catechism:

Q. 1: What is the chief end of man?
A. 1: To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Westminster helpful condenses the Bible’s answer to the ultimate meaning of life into one short, seven word answer. We were made to glorify and enjoy. That’s why God made us. It’s that simple. Everything in our life is somehow supposed to be ordered towards the glorification of God and our enjoyment of God.

Of course, that just raises a host of other relevant questions. Assuming we buy that answer, what is God’s glory and what is it to glorify God? Why should we glorify God? And how can we glorify God? Well, it is to such questions that the great 17th Century Puritan Divine Thomas Watson turned his attention in the first proper section of his classic sermon series commenting on the catechism A Body of Practical Divinity. I picked the work up this week and I gotta be honest, this is fantastic stuff. It’s rich, careful, and learned, but because Watson is preaching, the writing is just lively!

What and Why?

So what does Watson have to say? Well, to begin, he distinguishes the nature of God’s glory. First, there’s God’s own, internal glory, his luminous being that he possesses without any relation to anything but his own Triune life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is glorious. But second, there’s ascribed glory–the kind of glory that creatures can “give” him so to speak, through their being and actions, that reflect or acknowledge God’s glory. It’s the honor we show him.

Okay, but what is it to glorify God? Watson says that “glorifying God consists in four things: 1: Appreciation, 2. Adoration, 3. Affection, 4. Subjection. This is the yearly rent we pay to the crown of heaven.” As we appreciate God, worship him alone, love and delight in him, as well as obey him in all things, we give him glory.

Inquiring minds might persist in asking “Well, why should we?” Watson gives five reasons for that as well. First, God gives us our being. He made us. So give him glory. Second, he gave us our being so that we might glorify him. That’s the purpose written into our DNA. Third, God is actually worthy of the glory. He just is that good. Fourth, everything else from angels to anthills glorifies God, so why not humanity? Are we the only ones going to be that obtuse? Fifth, we must glorify God. It’s really our only hope in this life of any ultimate good.

But How?

Well, now that those preliminaries are out of the way, the question becomes, “How can we?” If it’s that important, how should I go about this all-consuming task? I mean, I’ve got a job, a spouse, maybe kids, an education, and any number of other things that occupy my time. How do go about glorifying God in all that? Well, being a Puritan, Watson doesn’t leave you in the lurch. He actually lists 17 ways you can go about glorifying God. (And for those of you wondering, no, he doesn’t actually say “seventeenthly”, but he legitimately could.)

I’ll go ahead and just give you the abridged list, but it’s worth following up and reading the whole exposition here:

[1] It is glorifying God when we aim purely at his glory. It is one thing to advance God’s glory, another thing to aim at it. God must be the Terminus ad quem, the ultimate end of all actions…We do this…

(1.) When we prefer God’s glory above all other things; above credit, estate, relations; when the glory of God coming in competition with them, we prefer his glory before them…

(2.) We aim at God’s glory, when we are content that God’s will should take place, though it may cross ours…

(3.) We aim at God’s glory when we are content to be outshined by others in gifts and esteem, so that his glory may be increased…

[2] We glorify God by an ingenuous confession of sin…it acknowledges that he is holy and righteous, whatever he does.

[5] We glorify God by believing. Rom 4:40. ‘Abraham was strong in faith, giving glory to God.’ Unbelief affronts God, it gives him the lie; ‘he that believeth not, maketh God a liar.’ I John 5:50. But faith brings glory to God; it sets to its seal that God is true. John 3:33.

[4] We glorify God, by being tender of his glory. God’s glory is dear to him as the apple of his eye. An ingenuous child weeps to see a disgrace done to his father. Psa 69:9. ‘The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.’ When we hear God reproached, it is as if we were reproached; when God’s glory suffers, it is as if we suffered. This is to be tender of God’s glory.

[5] We glorify God by fruitfulness. John 15:5. ‘Hereby is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.’ As it is dishonouring God to be barren, so fruitfulness honours him. Phil 1:1: ‘Filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are to the praise of his glory.’ We must not be like the fig tree in the gospel, which had nothing but leaves, but like the pomecitron, that is continually either mellowing or blossoming, and is never without fruit. It is not profession, but fruit that glorifies God. God expects to have his glory from us in this way…

[6] We glorify God, by being contented in that state in which Providence has placed us. We give God the glory of his wisdom, when we rest satisfied with what he carves out to us. Thus Paul glorified God. The Lord cast him into as great variety of conditions as any man, ‘in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft,’ 2 Cor 11:13, yet he had learned to be content. Paul could sail either in a storm or a calm; he could be anything that God would have him; he could either want or abound. Phil 4:13….This man must needs bring glory to God; for he shows to all the world, that though he has little meal in his barrel, yet he has enough in God to make him content: he says, as David, Psa 16: 5,’The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance; the lines are fallen to me in pleasant places.’

[7] We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together his glory and our good. We glorify him by promoting our own salvation. It is a glory to God to have multitudes of converts; now, his design of free grace takes, and God has the glory of his mercy; so that, while we are endeavouring our salvation, we are honouring God…

[8] We glorify God by living to God.2 Cor 5:55. ‘That they which live should not live to themselves, but unto him who died for them.’ Rom 14:4. ‘Whether we live, we live unto the Lord.’ The Mammonist lives to his money, the Epicure lives to his belly; the design of a sinner’s life is to gratify lust, but we glorify God when we live to God. We live to God when we live to his service, and lay ourselves out wholly for God…

[9] We glorify God by walking cheerfully. It brings glory to God, when the world sees a Christian has that within him that can make him cheerful in the worst times; that can enable him, with the nightingale, to sing with a thorn at his breast. The people of God have ground for cheerfulness. They are justified and adopted, and this creates inward peace; it makes music within, whatever storms are without. 2 Cor 1:1. I Thess 1:1…

[10] We glorify God, by standing up for his truths. Much of God’s glory lies in his truth. God has intrusted us with his truth, as a master intrusts his servant with his purse to keep. We have not a richer jewel to trust God with than our souls, nor has God a richer jewel to trust us with than his truth. Truth is a beam that shines from God. Much of his glory lies in his truth. When we are advocates for truth we glorify God…

[II] We glorify God, by praising him. Doxology, or praise, is a God-exalting work…Though nothing can add to God’s essential glory, yet praise exalts him in the eyes of others. When we praise God, we spread his fame and renown, we display the trophies of his excellency. In this manner the angels glorify him; they are the choristers of heaven, and do trumpet forth his praise. Praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion. In prayer we act like men; in praise we act like angels. Believers are called ‘temples of God.’ I Cor 3:16. When our tongues praise, then the organs in God’s spiritual temple are sounding…

[12] We glorify God, by being zealous for his name...Zeal is a mixed affection, a compound of love and anger; it carries forth our love to God, and our anger against sin in an intense degree. Zeal is impatient of God’s dishonour; a Christian fired with zeal, takes a dishonour done to God worse than an injury done to himself…Our Saviour Christ thus glorified his Father; he, being baptized with a spirit of zeal, drove the money-changers out of the temple. John 2:14-17. ‘The zeal of thine house has eaten me up.

[13] We glorify God, when we have an eye to God in our natural and in our civil actions. In our natural actions; in eating and drinking. I Cor 10:0I. ‘Whether therefore ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.’ A gracious person holds the golden bridle of temperance; he takes his meat as a medicine to heal the decays of nature, that he may be the fitter, by the strength he receives, for the service of God; he makes his food, not fuel for lust, but help to duty. In buying and selling, we do all to the glory of God…We glorify God, when we have an eye to God in all our civil and natural actions, and do nothing that may reflect any blemish on religion.

[14] We glorify God by labouring to draw others to God; by seeking to convert others, and so make them instruments of glorifying God. We should be both diamonds and loadstones; diamonds for the lustre of grace, and loadstones for attractive virtue in drawing others to Christ.

[15] We glorify God in a high degree when we suffer for God, and seal the gospel with our blood.John 21:18, 19. ‘When thou shalt be old, another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not: this spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.’ God’s glory shines in the ashes of his martyrs…

[16] We glorify God, when we give God the glory of all that we do…We glorify God, when we sacrifice the praise and glory of all to God. I Cor 15:50. ‘I laboured more abundantly than they all,’ a speech, one would think, savoured of pride; but the apostle pulls the crown from his own head, and sets it upon the head of free grace: ‘yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.’

[17] We glorify God by a holy life. Though the main work of religion lies in the heart, yet our light must so shine that others may behold it…When the saints, who are called jewels, cast a sparkling lustre of holiness in the eyes of the world, then they ‘walk as Christ walked.’ I John 2:6. When they live as if they had seen the Lord with bodily eyes, and been with him upon the mount, they adorn religion, and bring revenues of glory to the crown of heaven.

Watson keeps going through the many uses we can put this to as well as the various ways we can enjoy God, but this seems like quite enough material enough for now. Certainly Watson shows us that there isn’t an inch of our life, time, energies, affection, living or dying, that can’t be turned to the glory of God. So what are you waiting for? Get to glorifying!

Soli Deo Gloria