But the Catechism adds a second phrase to its formulation of our chief end: ‘to enjoy him forever.’ At first it is difficult to see how these two phrases fit together. The first is theocentric, but the second appears to be anthropocentric. The first is distinctly biblical, but the second sounds rather like the goal of pleasure in secular teleological ethics.

 

It helps to notice, however, that even the second phrase is centered on God. We are not to enjoy ourselves, but to enjoy him. So the second phrase calls us to find our chief enjoyment in God, not in the world. To embrace the enjoyment of God as the goal of life is to sing with Asaph:

 

Whom have I in heaven but you?

   And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

   but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

  you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

But for me it is good to be near God;

   I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,

   that I may tell of all your works. (Ps. 73:25-28)

 

Although Asaph uses forms of the first person pronoun ten times in this passage, and thirty-three times in the whole psalm, these verses are profoundly theocentric. So when the Catechism moves from the first phrase to the second, it is not moving form God-centeredness to man-centeredness. Rather, it is looking at God-centeredness from two perspectives.

John Frame, Doctrine of the Christian Life, 303f.

Some speak of how far reason will go if put to good use; but, alas! the plumbline of reason is too short to fathom the deep things of God. A man can no more reach the saving knowledge of God by the power of reason, than a pigmy can reach the pyramids. The light of nature will no more help us to see Christ, than the light of a candle will help us to understand. ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: neither can he know them’ (1 Cor. 2:14). What shall we do, then, to know God in a soul-saving manner? I answer, let us implore the help of God’s Spirit. Paul never saw himself blind till a light shone from heaven (Acts 9:3). . . .

We may have some excellent notions of divinity, but the Holy Ghost must enable us to know them in a spiritual manner. A man may see the figures on a dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes unless the sun shines. We may read many truths in the Bible, but we cannot know them savingly till God’s Spirit shines upon us.

Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture, (BoT, 1666/rp. 1992), 27.

Prof. Mackintosh says many good things well and strongly. We have noted numerous passages where truths of importance, often truths disputed in circles with which Prof. Mackintosh manifests a certain sympathy, are stated with clearness and force. And the drift of the whole discussion is on the side of the angels. But the points of view from which Prof. Mackintosh approaches his task and the presuppositions with which he endeavors to accomplish it, gravely compromise his results, or rather, if we are to speak quite frankly, render it from the first impossible that he should succeed in reaching a satisfying solution of the problems which it offers.

Warfield, Critical Reviews, in Works, vol. 10 (Baker, rpt), 307.

What a shame it is to be without knowledge! ‘Some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame’ (1 Cor. 15:34). Men think it a shame to be ignorant of their trade, but no shame to be ignorant of God. There is no going to heaven blindfold. ‘It is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them’ (Isa. 27:11)

Watson does not divide doctrine and life:

How many knowledgeable persons are ignorant? They have illumination, but not sanctification. Their knowledge has no powerful influence upon them to make them better. If you set up a hundred torches in a garden they will not make the flowers grow, but the sun is influential.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Many in the old world knew there was an ark, but were drowned because they did not get into it. Knowledge which is not applied will only light a man to hell.

Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture, (BoT, 1666/rp. 1992), 25f.

It has been customary among a certain school of writers to speak of the Scriptures, because ‘inspired,’ as a Divine-human book, and to appeal to the analogy of Our Lord’s Divine-human personality to explain their peculiar qualities as such. The expression calls attention to an important fact, and the analogy holds good at a certain distance. There are human and divine sides to Scripture, and, as we cursorily examine it, we may perceive in it, alternately, traits which suggest now the one, now the other factor in its origin. But the analogy with Our Lord’s Divine-human personality may easily be pressed beyond reason. There is no hypostatic union between the Divine and the human in Scripture; we cannot parallel the ‘inscripturation’ of the Holy Spirit and the incarnation of the Son of God. The Scriptures are merely the product of Divine and human forces working together to produce a product in the production of which the human forces work under the initiation and prevalent direction of the Divine: the person of Our Lord unites in itself Divine and human natures, each of which retains its distinctness while operating only in relation to the other. Between such diverse things there can exist only a remote analogy; and, in point of fact, the analogy in the present instance amounts to no more than that in both cases Divine and human factors are involved, though very differently. In the one they unite to constitute a Divine-human person, in the other they coöperate to perform a Divine-human work. Even so distant an analogy may enable us, however, to recognize that as, in the case of Our Lord’s person, the human nature remains truly human while yet it can never fall into sin or error because it can never act out of relation with the Divine nature into conjunction with which it has been brought; so in the case of the production of Scripture by the conjoint action of human and Divine factors, the human factors have acted as human factors, and have left their mark on the product as such, and yet cannot have fallen into that error which we say it is human to fall into, because they have not acted apart from the Divine factors, by themselves, but only under their unerring guidance.

B. B. Warfield, "The Biblical Idea of Inspiration," in Works (OUP, 1932; reprinted, Baker, 2003), 108f.

Ezra and Nehemiah recount the restoration of a remnant of Israelites to the land. Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt. Yet the people were caught in the same sins that led to the exile (Ezra 9; Neh. 5, 13).

Haggai and Zechariah ministered as prophets during this period. Haggai confronted the people for once again breaking the covenant and calling its curses down on their heads (Hag. 1). But he also closed the book with a note of hope for the Davidic dynasty. God told the Jeconiah, the last Davidic king, He would cast him away even if he were a signet ring on God’s right hand. Now Haggai tells Zerubabbel, Jeconiah’s grandson, that God chose him to be a like signet ring—one that God is not going to cast off.

Zechariah saw a vision of Joshua, the high priest, covered in filthy garments (Zech 3:1-3). This was a picture of Israel in her sins. [Three reasons exist for identifying Joshua as symbolic of the entire people. First, the priests represented the nation before God. Second, God responds to Satan’s accusations by saying that He has chosen Jerusalem (Zech 3:2). Third, God purposed to remove iniquity from the land (Zech 3:9).] Yet the Lord had these filthy garments replaced with clean garments. This symbolized the removal of iniquity and the gift of purity.

In this context, God told Zechariah the solution to Israel’s sin problem is found in his "servant the Branch." Other references to the Branch in the Old Testament equate this figure with the Davidic Messiah. The timing of this promised removal of iniquity is linked to "vine and fig tree" language (Zech 3:10). Micah 4:1-7 uses vine and fig tree language in connection with the rule of the Lord from Zion. The Micah passage is parallel to Isaiah 2. The prophet Isaiah identifies the Lord who rules from Zion and the Davidic Messiah.

In Zechariah 6:9-15 Joshua, the high-priest is symbolically crowned to indicate that the Branch would be “a priest on his throne” (Zech 6:13). As the book progresses Zechariah predicts a king that will come “having salvation” (Zech 9:9). He is contrasted with false shepherds (Zech 10-11). When that king comes he is found to be the Lord (Zech 14:9). Yet he is a pierced Lord (Zech 12:10) who provides a fountain of cleansing for the people’s sin and uncleanness (Zech 13:1). The Lord the king is thus able to do what the sacrifices were intended to do. In the end the whole earth will be made holy to the Lord (Zech 14:20-21).

Phil Gons has information on a free commentary offer from Logos:

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