Part III: Who or What is Man?
Who or What is Man?
* Man is created in the image of God.
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Ge 1:27
* This means the whole man, not just part. Many so-called Christian views of man split man into neo-platonic categories: body, soul or body, soul, spirit.
Neo-Platonism views man's spirit or soul is good, and man's body is base, week, or evil.
Scripture views that the whole man was created good. We need to see the Scripture's mention of man's spirit, body, and soul as Scripture speaking of the whole man from different vantage points.
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without the works is dead also. Ja2:26
* Man was created with dignity to rule as God's representative as the head of all creation.
Yet thou hast made him a little lower than God, And dost crown him with glory and majesty! Thou dost make him rule over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under His feet. Ps8:5,6 [NASB]
NKJV renders verse 6 as You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands.
* Man was created to do God's work on the earth.
This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground Ge 2:4-6
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. Ge 2:15
KJV: dress it and to keep it
Amplified: guard and keep it
NASB: cultivate it and keep it NIV: work it and take care of it
* Man is fallen.
* Common notion derived from Neo-platonism: Man fell in body, but not in soul or spirit.
* Scripture teaches us that just as the whole man is created in the image of God, so has the whole man fallen, mind, body, and spirit, so that NO ONE SEEKS FOR GOD as the psalmist has said, and Paul quotes:
For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written:
There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; They have together become unprofitable;There is none who does good, no, not one.Ro 3:9-12
life and death
* Greek philosophical definition of death: the lack of movement.
* Biblical definition of death: separation from the lifegiver [God]
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. Ge 2:16,17
* Satan's lie: You will not surely die Ge 3:4
* The lie of all men who deny God's very Word: Man is not dead.
* Man died the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He did not die in part, but really and truly died, mind, body, and spirit. Decay began to set in man, he had died and began to die.
* This means that man's will is just as dead as the rest of him, making him unable to choose to obey God. He is dead in his trespasses, and dead men do not choose life.
The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt;There is none who does good, No, not one. Ps 14:2,3
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil. Jer 13:23
All creation suffers from man's fall.
Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return Ge 3:17b-19
* Out of the stock of all fallen men, some are redeemed.
* The great mystery of God's love is not that some are left to perish, for all are deserving eternal punishment, but that any are saved at all.
* Who here has chosen to be born in the first place? Who then can choose to be born again, this decision was too important to be left with men. To revolt against this truth, is to exalt man's reason above Scripture, therefore above God. It reverts back to the fallacy of the Great Chain of Being, making God accessible by human reason, independent from what God has said. This is the sin that the serpent had tempted man with in the Garden of Eden: "Hath God said . . . ?"
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "Even for this same purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared in all the earth."Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. Ro 9:14-18
* Man's will is free. . . but not from sin, not until Christ's justification is applied.
You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" Ro 9:19-20
A common attitude to this truth of God's predestination: Once one acknowledges that God is sovereign in whom will be saved, the next step toward a sinful attitude toward God is once again adopting the Great Chain of Being model. Man decides that since God has chosen, it is frivolous for us to try to hinder His will, as if God operated on the same level as man. Then one uses the truth of God's sovereign election as an excuse to become inoperative in God's world, "after all, " he says in his heart, "has not God already established it?"
We should take heed to the parable of the talents: 24 "Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 'And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, [there] you have [what is] yours.' 26 " But his lord answered and said to him, 'You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. 27 'So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. 28 'Therefore take the talent from him, and give [it] to him who has ten talents. Matt 25:24-28 (NKJV)
* Instead God operates in His realm, and man in his. We were created finite, and thus God's infallible predestination is revealed to us only by what we observe in the past. That is why we are exhorted to "walk out our salvation in fear and trembling," and to "take heed, lest we fall." In creation, real contingency, or possibility exists within the bounds God has set, but with God, all things have been predetermined.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. Jo 15:16
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons of Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will . . .in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. Eph 1:4-5,11
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