The Purpose of Scripture

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  (​Ecclesiastes 12:13)

Question 3: What do the Scriptures principally teach?[i]
Answer: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.
 
In our church statement of faith, we say we believe scripture has “God for its author, His glory for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.  All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.”  For the purpose of this discussion, the point is that all scripture has God’s “glory for its end;” that is, the ultimate goal of scripture is to exalt the glory of God, and that Christ is “the focus of divine revelation;” that is, all scripture is about Christ from beginning to end, Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.  It is all about Him.  Christ walks through the pages of all of scripture.  In John 5:39 Jesus says to his Jewish audience, “You search the [Old Testament] Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”  The Old Testament is all about Jesus.  And to be even more clear, he then says to them that “if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me” (v.46).  Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and Jesus says those books are about him.  Thus, the scriptures “principally teach what man is to believe concerning God [specifically Christ], and what duty God requires of man.”  Ecclesiastes 12:13 says, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”  The whole duty of man, the thing that we should strive for most, our main goal and purpose in life, should be to “fear God and keep his commandments.”  Toward this end all our prayers and striving should be.  

[i] “A Catechism with Proofs” compiled by Charles Haddon Spurgeon