Enjoying God: The Key to Christian Education

It is stunning that the most well-known and well-respected catechism in the Reformed tradition of Christianity, of which I consider myself a happy part, begins by asserting the eternal ultimacy of the human emotion of enjoyment. The Westminster Catechism begins with the question, “What is man’s chief end?” Chief end. Not secondary, not proximate, not subordinate. Chief. Final. Ultimate.

And the catechism answers, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Not trust him forever. Enjoy him. Not fear him forever. Enjoy him. Not obey him forever. Enjoy him. Not worship him forever, or praise him, or adore him, but enjoy him. Perhaps this is because, in the mind of those seventeenth-century divines, enjoyment of God is the essential component of all those other heart acts, so they went straight to the heart of the matter. Perhaps.

• “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4).
• “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
• “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4).
• “Be glad in the Lord” (Psalm 32:11).
• “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 3:1).

Perhaps they saw these commands as the very marrow of the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The chief of all human experiences is enjoyment.

Joy in the Puritans

This is stunning for at least three reasons.

First, if those seventeenth-century Puritan theologians were right (and I think they were, and I will try to show why), and if man is the chief actor under God in the theater of creation (and I think he is), then they are saying that, alongside the glorification of God, the human emotion of enjoyment — the enjoyment of God — is the chief reason that all of creation exists. Stunning.

They are elevating the reality of human emotion to a place of supreme significance and importance alongside the glorification of God. It’s not a caboose at the end of the train of faith. It’s not peripheral to what makes a person a Christian — or a human. It’s not dispensable icing on the cake of commitment. It’s not secondary to faith or obedience or hope or love. Of all the acts of the human heart, of all the kinds of experiences of which the soul is capable, the Westminster Catechism chose enjoyment as chief of them all: an emotion, a feeling, an affection — pleasure, gladness, delight — chief of every human experience! Stunning.

The second reason the catechism is stunning is that it doesn’t show us how to understand the relationship between the glorification of God and the enjoyment of God, except in one way: It describes them as one end, not two. The question is not, “What are the chief ends of man?” The question is, “What is the chief end of man?” And it answers (in the singular, not the plural), “Man’s chief end [not ends] is to glorify God and enjoy him forever” — which leaves us thinking, They must believe that this is somehow a God-glorifying enjoyment of God, and a very enjoyable glorification of God — as though God’s glorification as the chief end of all things consists in the human enjoyment of God above all things. Perhaps. Stunning.

The third reason this first question of the catechism is stunning is that, among many of those who love the Westminster Catechism, this reality of the ultimacy of the human emotion of enjoyment has not taken deep root or borne its proper fruit — not in worship, not in daily obedience, not in education. Why would this be? Some may think, That’s just a quirk of language in an old catechism. For others, their personality may be so governed by the intellectual life that their emotional life has atrophied; the primacy of emotion doesn’t fit. For others, the emotional excesses of revivalism and Pentecostalism make them resistant to the foregrounding of emotion — let alone making it supreme as the chief end of human existence.

Faith of Our Forefathers

But it’s not as though we don’t have forefathers of mighty intellect who gave the enjoyment of God chief prominence. Surely, we would all think of Augustine, the towering intellect in the history of Christianity whose Confessions virtually sings with the supreme importance of the enjoyment of God.

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose . . . ! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure. (Confessions 9.1, emphasis added)

And for my own personal formation over the last 57 years, another towering intellect — Jonathan Edwards — wrote,

I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with. (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:387)

This brings us now to a turning point in this message. From here on, the questions I will try to answer are these:

1. Is this elevation of the human emotion of enjoyment to the highest place, as the chief end of human existence, biblical? Is it true?
2. Closely related, how is it related to the glorification of God — or, more specifically for the purposes of the theme of our conference, to the preeminence of Christ?
3. And finally, how does this shape classical Christian education?

That’s a very tall order, so this will be condensed.

Enjoying and Glorifying God

Let’s take the first two questions together. How is the enjoyment of God related to the glorification of God? And does that warrant the elevation of the enjoyment of God as the supreme end of human existence?

“The enjoyment of God is the key to classical Christian learning.”

Let’s stay with Jonathan Edwards for just a moment because, in my experience, no one has even come close to the help Edwards has provided to me in wrestling with these questions — and they have been the most central questions of my life for half a century. So, here is Edwards’s answer to the question of how the enjoyment of God relates to the glorification of God:

God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: (1) by appearing to . . . their understandings; (2) in communicating himself to their hearts, and [he glorifies himself] in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. . . . God is glorified not only by his glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in, when those that see it delight in it: God is more glorified than if they only see it; his glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. (Works, 13:495, emphasis added)

That may be the most important paragraph I have ever read outside the Bible. I’ve often said, “Books don’t change people; paragraphs change people.” Well, that one did. And what I have tried to do for the last 57 years is observe, understand, evaluate, feel, apply, and express the reality of that paragraph. Being the mediocre, amateur poet that I am, it has seemed good to make it a couplet:

God is most glorified in us
when we are most satisfied in him.

So, Edwards’s answer and my answer to the question of how the enjoyment of God relates to the glorification of God is that they are in significant measure one thing — in the sense that enjoying God is essential if you would consciously make him look glorious in your life. I am not saying that God will not be glorified if you turn from him and enjoy other things more. (Then his justice would be glorified in your damnation.) What Edwards and I are saying is this: If we do not enjoy God himself above all other things, we do not glorify him as we ought. To use a rhyme:

Our greatest Treasure is made clear
by what gives us most pleasure here.

So, I am very happy to restate the answer to the first question of the catechism: “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” If this is true — that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — then the answer to our first question is yes, the catechism was right to elevate the human emotion of enjoyment as the chief end of human existence. The enjoyment of God is the final, ultimate goal of human existence. It is not a means to anything.

Supreme enjoyment of one who is supremely enjoyable is not, and cannot be, calculating — as if the enjoyment of God were a performance to attain something beyond God. Joy is the end (the final goal) of human existence. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). There is nothing fuller than fullness. There is nothing longer than forever. This is the final, everlasting end of human existence. And it is not only the best end, but also the best imaginable end.

Counterintuitive Experience of Gladness

So, is it true that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him? Is it biblical? Or, to put the focus specifically on God the Son, Jesus Christ: Is Christ most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him? Those are virtually the same question, because Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And he prayed,

Father . . . glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1, 4–5)

The first sentence on the webpage announcing this conference says, “Classical Christian education is ultimately about the glory of God through Christ.” The glory of God through Jesus Christ. That’s exactly right, because Jesus said, “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). There is no glorification of God that is not a glorification of Christ.

So, I ask again: Is it biblical that Christ is most magnified in us when we are most satisfied in him? Is Christ most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him?

Jesus said in Matthew 10:37, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Some people are so resistant to this truth that they try to limit the reality of love for Jesus to acts of obedience. That is clearly not the way we love our children. But Jesus says we must love him more than we love our children. We love our children with strong affection. They are precious to us. And Jesus says, “I must be more precious to you than your children and your parents, or you’re not mine.” Why would that be? Because treasuring Christ above all is how we glorify Christ above all.

The apostle Paul showed this truth in his own life. God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being conceited (2 Corinthians 12:7). Paul pleads three times that the thorn be taken away. Jesus responds, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). So, the grace of Jesus and the power of Jesus are going on display in Paul’s pain. How can that be? It will not happen if Paul is resentful, and angry, and bitter at the Lord Jesus for sending this thorn. That emotional condition of Paul’s heart would not reveal the beauty of Christ’s grace or the greatness of his power. How does it happen? How is the glory of Christ’s grace and power put on display?

It happens by Paul’s heart response. He says in verse 9, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly [hēdista, from which we get “hedonism”] of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” It is precisely the utterly counterintuitive experience of gladness in the all-sufficient grace and power of Christ that magnifies the worth of Jesus in Paul’s pain. The enjoyment of Jesus, and all that God is for Paul in him, is the essence of how Christ’s glory shines in his life.

Therefore, I am arguing that it is thoroughly biblical, and therefore true, that Christ is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, especially in our suffering. That God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That it is right to paraphrase the catechism, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” It is right to elevate the human emotion of enjoyment — the enjoyment of God — to the highest place. It is the chief end of human existence.

Key to Christian Learning

Finally, we approach the question, “How does this shape classical Christian education?”

I had lunch last week with Russ Gregg, who founded Hope Academy six blocks from our home, and who is on the board of the Society for Classical Learning. I asked him how he would describe a classical Christian education. The first thing he mentioned was the unapologetic aim of shaping the students’ character. Second, he mentioned a focus on goodness and beauty and truth. And third, he mentioned the preeminence of Christ as the origin, and substance, and goal of everything. Only then do we come to some of the distinctive subject matter.

I’m going to focus in these last few minutes on how the elevation of the enjoyment of God to its supreme place shapes the formation of students’ character. One way to sum up character formation is that the power of sin is broken, and the goodness of love overflows. How, then, is the power of sin broken? And how does love overflow?

The seven deadly sins are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. Every one of those is a heart craving, not just a mental state. They all involve the emotions. The craving has run rampant and is out of proportion with reality. Pride craves praise. Greed craves money. Lust craves sexual stimulation. Envy craves the failure of others. Gluttony craves food. Anger craves vengeance. Sloth craves ease. How shall these sins (cravings, emotions) be rooted out of our students?

They must be born again, through the living and abiding word of God, the gospel. They must embrace Jesus as the Savior, Lord, and Treasure of their lives. They must taste the sweetness of forgiveness and a right standing with God through Christ and come into precious fellowship (friendship!) with the living God — into the enjoyment of God. How, then, does this sever the root of deadly sins?

Augustine has already told us:

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose . . . ! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.

The power of the pleasures of sin is broken by a superior pleasure. Christian character is formed by the preeminence of the enjoyment of God.

Here’s the way Jesus said it:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. (Matthew 13:44)

The sinful bondage to everything in his life is broken by the superior pleasure in the newfound treasure. “In his joy” he sells everything. “I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing King Jesus, my Lord” (see Philippians 3:8). This is what Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection.” And that new affection is the enjoyment of God as the chief end of human existence.

If that’s how the God-demeaning, people-destroying, deadly sins are broken, what about the God-exalting, people-serving power of love? How is that released? Here’s Paul’s answer in 2 Corinthians 8:2:

In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy [in the grace of God, verse 1] and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity.

In spite of affliction, in spite of poverty, their abundance of joy in God overflowed in generosity. Paul calls this “love” in verse 8. So, love is the overflow of the enjoyment of God that meets the needs of others. Love is the impulse in the enjoyment of God that expands to include others in it, even if it costs us our lives.

I conclude, therefore, that the enjoyment of God is indeed rightly called the chief end of human existence not only because it is the essence, the marrow, of all God-glorifying acts, but also because it is the only way that the bondage of sin can be broken and the power of love unleashed. It is the key to all Christ-exalting character formation. And therefore, the enjoyment of God is the key to classical Christian learning.