Genesis 1. Man, has God got a plan for you! But about 3,000 years ago, it was King David who asked a question that philosophers have wrestled with for generations. "What is man?" they ask. What is man? The study of man is known as anthropology, and there are as many answers to that as there are people, no doubt.
Some decide to view man through the lens simply of science, others simply through the lens of philosophy. I suppose if you asked the average secular humanist, "What is man?" they would give you the scientific answer—the genus and the species, homosapien, a product of random evolutionary processes.
Mark Twain said, "Man is a machine." Aristotle said, "Man is a political animal." Ben Franklin called him, "The tool making animal." Years before him, philosopher and mathematician, the Frenchman, Blaise Pascal, said, "Man is a reed. He is of all things in creation the most flimsy creature that breathes and crawls upon the earth." And going way, way out on a limb, Shirley McClain said that "man is a reincarnated self with a Christ-consciousness."
The best way to answer the question, "What is man? Who are we?" is not by a speculation or imagination, but by revelation, and here's why. If we begin by imagination, we begin with ourselves, that's our point of reference, build upwardly, outwardly, and eventually we will create God in our image. If we begin by revelation, then we begin with God, and we will see man as created in God's image. Two very different approaches. Two very different results. So, to be truly anthropological we must be truly theological and decide to see man through the eyes of man's creator, God. So, you've turned to Genesis 1, and we're going to look at that tonight.
There's a mistake people make, and I hope none of us make the mistake. It's the mistake that a little eagle made years ago.
Once upon a time, a little boy found an eagle's egg, and he dropped it in the nest of a prairie chicken, and the eaglet hatched along with the baby chicks. But because all this eagle knew was the life of a prairie chicken, it began to think it was a prairie chicken. It started acting like a prairie chicken. It did all the things that prairie chickens do, because it thought, after all, it is one. It was raised with one. It clucked and cackled. It scratched the dirt to find insects and seed. It thrashed its wings just a few feet off the ground, flying in little increments. That's all.
And one day when the eagle was very, very old--the whole life is passed--he looks up in the sky and sees a magnificent bird, spread wings soaring effortlessly, and he says, "What is that?"
And the prairie chicken brother said, "That is an eagle, the king of all birds."
"Wow," said the eagle.
But the prairie chicken said to the eagle, "Don't even give it a second thought. Forget about it." (New York accent) It was a New York chicken. "Forget about it. You could never be one of those."
So the eagle died believing it was a prairie chicken.
Don't you dare go through life thinking you are a prairie chicken when God has made you the crown of all his creation, to soar, to have dominion over all else that God has made.
We're going to look at God's creation of man tonight in brief, just to start, and we'll finish more of it next week. But we'll discover something. That God's creation of man includes God's reflection in man for the purpose of God's interaction with man.
Let's look at the very first verse of the Bible, God's creation of man. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. But if you go down to verse 26, Then God said, "Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
This is the verse of primary reference. This is God's original idea, his original intention. And the Bible says, as we have just read that God made, created man, in his image. That's revelation. But man has strayed from revelation to speculation, imagination, and ask the question, "Well, what really is man? Who really are we? Why are we here?"
There's a temple in Greece, the temple of Apollo and Delphi, with that famous inscription that says, "Know thyself." And people go there every year and go, "Wow. Heavy, man. Know thyself." But how can I know myself? Who am I really? And philosophers have evaluated, and cogitated, and tried to figure all that out.
You know, philosophers, it's been said, are people who don't know what they're talking about. Then they blame it on you, make it sound like it's your fault.
What is man? Who are we? Well, we just read it, but that doesn't agree with what's going on around us. There is speculation as to who we are. Philosophically, even in this country, in this generation, we have to look back to sort of the roots of it all, the classic view of man, the Greco-Roman view. And the classic Greco-Roman view is that man was set apart from everything else because he was a reasoning animal. He had the capacity to reason, to think, and that was his primary attribute that set him apart from everything else. And that is still a philosophy very prevalent today, except it's taken to an incredibly ridiculous extreme to the point that we have made our reasoning supreme, and we are anthropocentric. It's all about us. It's all about anthropos, man, me.
You know, sometimes we will sing the song "I'm getting back to the heart of worship, 'cause it's all about you, Lord. It's all about you." The humanist would have to say, "I'm getting back to the heart of selfishness, 'cause it's all about me. It's all about me." The capacity to reason.
There are assumptions that these group of philosophers, ancient and modern, have made that are wrong. The first assumption is that man is basically good. They deny there was a fall. We'll see the fall next time we gather. Number two is the false assumption that man is progressing. We're getting better and better with each other. Now, you would think that after two world wars and all the international unrest that we see constantly, that we would quickly get over that way of thinking, but we haven't. Then along with that classic viewpoint of man, the reasoning animal, there was also part of the ancient Greek thought that came from the mystery religions of Greece that saw man as purely mechanical, a machine. Of course, that is still with us, too, via that theory of evolution. "We're a highly evolved species, but we're evolved, and still evolving."
A man went to the zoo, and he knew the zoo keeper, and the zookeeper said, "Man, you got to check out an orangutan we have. He's unbelievable. He reads."
And so the guy went over to the orangutan exhibit, and sure enough, there was that ape standing there with a Bible in one hand looking at it. And in the other hand Darwin's Origin of the Species looking at it. And he looked at one, and he looked at the other, and the guy, the visitor, said, "Excuse me, but are you actually reading those books?"
The orangutan turned and said, "Well, of course, I am."
"Oh, well, do you understand what you're reading?"
And the orangutan got a frown on his face. He goes, "Well, now, there is a problem, because this book says that I'm my brother's keeper. This book says I'm my keeper's brother, and so I'm confused."
I think a lot of people are confused, because that way of thinking, both ancient and modern, both classical Greek way of thinking that has spilled over into modern way of thinking, or the mystery religion way of thinking that says we're purely mechanical led back then, and I believe leads today, to a fatalism. You finally come, if you follow that true, to a "What's the point then of it all? What's the whole point of it all?"
For instance, the writer of the Iliad, Homer, had Zeus saying, "There is nothing, me thinks, more piteous than a man of all things that creep and breathe upon the earth. Aristotle said, "Not to be born is the best thing, and death is better than life."
So, classical Greek philosophy spilled over into modern philosophy, basically looked at history and existence with a Solomon type of an outlook. A "vanity, vanity, all is vanity." There's really no point to our existence, to history. But we saw it in verse 26. That's imagination. That's speculation.
Here's revelation. God said, God said, Ah, let us make man, let us make, let us create man, in our image, and so God formed man.
Now right here we diverge. Right here we are not anthropocentric. It's not all about us. It's theocentric. It's God. It was his idea. It was his brain child. And when we see life, mankind, through the lens of God, it's like we go, "Ahh. I see a purpose. I see a reason for existence—a divine reason."
Like the little boy who wanted to have a little alone time with Dad, and Dad wanted to read the paper and just sort of diffuse after a long, hard day. So he tore out, out of the newspaper, a photograph, a black and white picture of the earth taken from outer space. It was a picture of the world. He tore it up, gave a handful of the bits of paper to the boy and said, "Put the puzzle together, and then come and see me."
Well, the boy tried, and the boy tried, and couldn't figure it out, brought it back to Dad in a handful. Dad had it together in about 45 seconds, taped.
The boy said, "Dad, how'd you do it? It was so confusing to me."
He said, "Well, son, on the back is the picture of a face, and when I put the face together, especially the eyes, and the mouth, and the nose, the world came together.
And so it is here. When we dare see our existence through the eyes of God, it all makes sense. It all comes together. We see purpose, and we see reason.
The popular belief today is that you are here as a result of an accident. Doesn't that make you feel really good? Spontaneous biogenesis, or it's been sort of reworked, punctuated equilibrium. It's amazing. You are just an accident. But you're a cool accident, but you're an accident none the less. You have no real meaning or purpose. Just by chance amino acids formed, and from them proteins formed. And that's why every now and then somebody will dare even ask this question: "Is it possible that by random chance over x amount of years, you choose the amount of years, life could come into being?" That's been asked.
One of the foremost studies done at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia assembled during one summer, 50 biologists, mathematicians, thinkers, and they asked that question. Dr. Eden of MIT said, "Based on our understanding of the laws of chemistry, and physics, and what we know about randomness we see no way that the tremendous complexity in life could even come about." Interesting, penetrating statement.
Why? Because man cannot be explained simply philosophically. Mankind cannot be explained simply biologically, mechanistically. We must see ourselves Biblically. And here it is: God said, "Let us create" us being the trinity obviously. This inner Trinitarian communication. It's, like, I've got an idea. Let's make man in our image, after our likeness. Give him dominion over all creation. That's where it began.
There were kids who were in a class and the teacher let them form their own worldview, and the kids said that the hope of all civilization lay in the pursuit and the application of scientific knowledge. Did you hear that? "The hope of civilization lay in the pursuit of and the application of scientific knowledge." They said in the class, the kids, "There's no room for religion. This life is all there is. After this there's nothingness." And at the end of the class each of the students wanted from the teacher a reference for yet another college in their future or a job placement.
Listen to one of the teacher's, the teacher's response to one of the students. This is how he phrased it: "John, student. Biological description: John is a living organism. Group: vertebrata. Class: mammalia. Order: primates. Genus: homo. Species: sapiens. Body structure: organs, tissues, cells, protoplasm. Five organs of sight, taste, touch, sound, and smell. Chemical description: a large quantity of carbon, some gallons of water, various amounts of iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, sulfur, lime, nitrogen, some mineral salts. Psychological description: mind, conscious, unconscious, intellectual, emotional, volitional powers, various instincts. IQ: 130." He continues, "I hope John will fit as an admirable unit into the various machines--industrial, commercial, and so on—that make up our scientifically planned society, but," he continues, "but regrettably, I have some serious misgivings about this. For there is something in John that refuses to be cribbed, cabined and confined, and reaches out to a fulfillment beyond the capacity of a machine-like destiny to supply. In his eager pursuit of scientific knowledge and passionate love of music, as well as in the deep discontent to which he once confessed at his inability to live up to his own ideals, it seems to me that John is on a quest that existence, even in a four-dimensional space/time continuum can never satisfy. So, okay, I grant you that you are a scientific machine, but I also recognize," said the teacher, "that there is a yearning, a longing, a reaching out that accurate scientific descriptions can never fully account for. There's more to you than just that. So to define what it is to be human, you cannot just stop philosophically, or scientifically, but you must look, to get down to the root of the matter, as we have done and are doing, biblically."
Why? Because the creation of man by God includes God's reflection in man. Look at it. Verse 26, God said, "Let us make man, notice, in our image, according to our likeness." Verse 27, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, it's mentioned three times, he created him, male and female. He created them, and God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "See, I have giving you every herb that yield seed which is on the face of the earth, every tree whose fruit yield seed. To you it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, to every thing that creeps on the earth in which there is life." God said, "I have given every green herb for food." And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
In other words, God said, "I am going to make man unlike, unlike any other creature I have ever made before on the earth, absolutely unique he shall be."
Look down in chapter 2, at verse 7. The Lord formed man out of the dust of the ground. It's a bit humbling, isn't it? "Oh, we are so great, mankind. Look what we've done." Yep. Pretty good for dirt clods. This is humbling. We are at the same time from the lowest stuff and the highest stuff. From dust and dirt, and yet fashioned in the image of God, breathed into by the breath of God. Through, God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and out of the ground—oh, verse 7 again—and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put man whom he had formed. Man in the image of God.
You know, physically speaking, you're not all that impressive, in terms of what you're worth. They say that the chemicals in your body are worth, with inflation, about 2 bucks. But you're more than that. You're a multi-dimensional being. There's more to you than just that, as the professor even pointed out to his class.
What does it mean to be in the image of God exactly? Well, certainly, it means I'm different than a dog, a cat, an elephant, a whale, a dolphin, or a spotted owl. There's something more unique and higher in mankind than that.
Keep a finger here, a marker, and go to Psalm 8 for just a moment. Psalm 8. You want to know what it is to be in the image of God? The Psalmist begins, Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. Who has set your glory above the heavens. Verse 3, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and of the son of man that you would visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep, oxen, beasts, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.
So what is it to be in the image of God? The image of God means we have part of his attributes, his communicable attributes. We are lower than the angels. Here's the order of creation: God, angelic spirit beings, man, animals, and plants. We're lower than the angels above us. We're higher than the animals which are below us. Angels have a spiritual but no body. Animals have a body but no spirit. Mankind has both spirit and body. We're right there in-between in the created order, but a little lower than the angels.
So what attributes do we have that would make us in the image of God? Well, number one, you have something called a rational mind. You are rational, for the most part. I know sometimes we get nuts, hysterical, but you can think. You can formulate thoughts. You can originate thoughts. Animals don't do that unless it's on television, of course. Mr. Ed, of course, he can, "Wilbur," or Donald Duck, or imaginary animals can think, and formulate, and communicate; but, of course, it's a man or woman behind them doing their voices. But we're different, you see. We can create like God the Creator. We can think. We can formulate thoughts. We can make choices, and we can choose in a relationship to have love.
Oh, that's different from the animal kingdom. They live by instinct. They can mate, but we can have a lifetime relationship of love, because human love created in the image of God is this reciprocal love that is more than instinct. Our love is more than an endocrine system reaction. We're rational beings.
There was an article sometime back in Sunshine Magazine that compared man's brain to a computer, and they asked a group of scientists, "If you were to build a computer that would give out all of the functions of a single brain, a single mind, over a lifetime, a man using his brain in a lifetime, or a woman using her brain in a lifetime, what would you need to build in terms of power, electricity, in terms of size, cooling system, etc.?" The scientist in this article said that if all of the parts were transistorized and built on a minute scale, the following would be needed: a machine the size of the United Nations building in New York, a cooling system with an output equal to the Niagara Falls, and a power source that produce as much electricity as is used in homes and industry in the entire state of California." We're rational beings, thoughtful, formulating thoughts.
Number two, we are immortal. This sets us apart from every other creation, every other plant, animal. We're immortal, and you might add to that spiritual. Solomon was right, wasn't he? He said, God, you have set eternity in their hearts. There's something that makes us think there's got to be more to life than just this. There's something beyond time, beyond my immediate existence. It's only man that has those probings, that dissatisfaction. My dogs don't.
I have two dogs. You know what? If you feed them, and you pet them, a little bit of attention, they go to sleep. They're happy. They're satisfied. They don't think beyond their own existence. I've never seen one of my dogs, just like, contemplating, pensive.
"What's up, Winston? What's going on?"
"Well, I'm trying to discover the meaning of my life, Master. I mean, is this all there is? Chasing cats, digging up the yard? Certainly there's more."
No, they don't do that, do they? But people strangely do. We have this restlessness inside of us.
You know, the term man in Greek, anthropos, comes from two words that basically means{sic} "one who looks up". Isn't that interesting? What is man? One who instinctively, by creation, looks up to the Creator, and asks, "Who am I? Where am I going? Why am I here?"
So we're rational. We're immortal. We are spiritual. This explains why young children ask you the kind of questions that you can't answer. Those deep probing questions, "Daddy why?"
"Well, that's a tough one."
They're probing. They're looking up. Augustine was right. He said, "God, you have made us for yourself, and we are restless until we find our resting in Thee."
Fourth, we are responsible. If you look back to Genesis, we see that God said something about his creation. In chapter 1, he gave us a task. Verse 28, God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth," notice, "subdue it." Kaybosh is the Hebrew word. It means "tread upon. Subdue it. Make it yours. Let it serve you." Why? Because this is the highest order of creation, mankind. "You subdue it. You tread upon it, and have dominion over it." Rule over, subjugate it.
Remember what we read in Psalm 8. David said, You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You've put all things under his feet. So, we're not on a par with a spotted owl, or an elephant, or a dolphin. We are ruling over them. We are the highest in all of creation.
It's sad, and we ought to be ashamed of ourself anytime a human being acts like an animal. And we see it all the time. And it's funny to hear educators marvel at this. "I can't believe these people in that crowd they acted like animals." Well, what have educators been telling them for the last four decades? "You are an animal. A highly evolved animal, but that's all you are is a biological animal." So when they act like animals, why should you gripe? But we should react not because we're animals, because we're made in the image of God with the ability to make choices. The truth is sometimes we don't make the right choices.
So, to be in God's image is to embody some of God's communicable attributes. To be in the image of God means that we are a creature that can do what no other creature can do. We can reason. We can think. We have rational life, will, emotion, not just instinct. It means that we have a mind to know God, a heart to love God, a will to obey God or disobey God, and a destiny to be with God. We are responsible.
That's the image of God, but the image has been marred. Something has been lost. Something beautiful and wonderful in God's original intention has been scuffed and marred. It's not the same anymore.
Next week, we'll see more about that, but go with me to chapter 3 for just a moment, and we'll close with this.
And this is what we discover: God's creation of man included God's reflection in man, the image of God, for the purpose of God's interaction with man. He didn't just want to put man on the earth as an experiment. He had a purpose. And we're going to skip ahead, because some of this we're going to cover next time. But look down at verse 8 with me of chapter 3. And they heard, that is Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to Adam and said, "Where are you?"
It's an amazing phrase to me. It suggests that God appeared, or manifested himself somehow audibly or visibly. In the cool of the day, it's like the evening time, the best part of the day. In fact, one translation says, walking to and fro in the garden in the breeze of the day. The way the wording is it suggests that this was just sort of a daily occurrence. God went out to look for Adam and Eve to take a walk, to fellowship, to hang out, to spend time with each other. In fact, the word walking here means "to move among, to be at ease, to be conversant with." In other words, man was created by God with a purpose of fellowship, walking with, being conversant with, hanging out with, reciprocating love with.
So God said, chapter 1, verse 26, Let us make man in our image. Can you picture it? Can you see it? Can you hear it? It's this inner Trinitarian communication in heaven before God created mankind. There was such love, and such fellowship, and such intimacy, and such warmth that God wanted that expanded outwardly. Let's make man like us, in our image—rational, immortal, spiritual, responsible for this creation. "And let's walk with this creation. Let's have fellowship with, so that this creature, if he or she chooses to, can reciprocate our love, can love us back." So the creation of man, that included the reflection of God in man, was so that God and man might have a fellowship, an interaction. Puny man in comparison to the whole universe. David said, What is man that you are mindful of him? But man is the pinnacle of it all. Lower only than the angels. Having dominion over everything.
Did you notice something as we close, that God called to Adam and said, "Where are you?" This was a personal calling. "Adam, where are you?" "Adam, I've been looking for you. Adam, what have you done?" God knew him by name. You say, "Well there was only one, two. It wasn't hard to do." But I notice this throughout the Bible, God doesn't call us by numbers. "Well, Adam, you shall be number one." He doesn't say to you, "Hey, number 43,600,243,005." He knows you by name. So that of all of God's creation, all that exists in the biosphere man is the pinnacle. And even with the billions that exist on the earth, God loves you, knows you, and would call you by name. Do you feel that kind of love?
One author put it this way, "When I see a flock of sheep, that's what I see—a flock a rabble of wool, a herd of hooves. I don't see a sheep. I see sheep all alike, none different. That's what I see. But not so with the shepherd. To him every sheep is different. Every face is special. Every face has a story, and every sheep has a name. The one with the sad eyes, that's Droopy. The fellow with one ear up and the other down, I call him Oscar. And the small one with the black patch on his leg, he's an orphan with no brothers. I call him Joseph. The shepherd knows his sheep. He calls them by name. When we see a crowd, that's what we see, a crowd filling a stadium, flooding a mall. When we see a crowd, we see people, not persons, just people, a herd of humans, a flock of faces. That's what we see. But not so with the shepherd. To him every face is different. Every face has a story. Every face is a child. Every child has a name. The one with sad eyes, that's Sally. The old fellow with one eyebrow up and the other down, Harry is his name. The young one with the limp, he's an orphan with no brothers, I call him Joey. The shepherd knows his sheep. He knows each one by name. The shepherd knows you. He knows your name, and he will never forget it. In fact, you know what God said? "I've inscribed them on the palms of my hands." Remember doing that in school? Girls did that more than guys did. They were too cool. They'd do it, like, on the bottom of their tennis shoes if they liked a girl. The girl would, like, write it right on the hand. She liked that boy across the class. God writes your name, so to speak on his hand. "Oh, I love him. I love her. I know them."
You are God's crowning of creation. You are the eagle, so to speak. That's his intention. Not the prairie chicken. We fall into that level, which makes you special because of all the creatures on the earth you're the only one that God ever came to redeem. Not angels. God never redeemed angels. Not prairie chickens. Not even eagles. But you he did.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God. And so, Father, we close bowing before you, knowing that even more than just seeing us in your image, we see that the image has been marred. And you needed to send your son to restore the image that had been lost. What love. How incredibly special that makes each of us feel. Your creation of us that includes your reflection in us is so that you might interact with us. You want our fellowship. You want to walk with us. You love it when we lift the head or the eye and speak to you, when we turn something over and say, "Lord, I include you in this. I make you part of my day, part of this moment. I worship you here. I turn my marriage over to you, my children over to you, my future over to you. What is your will? I want to love you." You love that kind of spontaneous, sweet fellowship. And, Lord, I pray that you would build out of this flock of people that kind of fellowship. Not one who would relegate our walking with you to a single day, but to a daily lifestyle. That when we walk out of here tonight and go to the car, church would continue. When we head home, have a meal, sit down to watch the news, you would be included; and because we are redeemed, we would fulfill your intention in creation. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.