Anthropology - Nature of Man

Open your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Genesis and go to chapter 1 and find your place at verse 26. I don't know what it is. I am a little chilly.

You're getting old.

I'm getting old. And that is, no truer words have been spoken than that. Well, we are in part 2 tonight of our anthropology class. And you'll notice that we are looking tonight at the nature of man. Last week, we began our study of anthropology with the origin of man.

This course is a four-part course. The origin of man, the nature of man, the unity of man, which will be next week, Lord willing, and the constitution of man, which will be in week 4. I'm drawing from several sources for this study.

Not just from the Moody Handbook of Theology, which I had been using. We're also drawing from Thiessen's theology, his systematic theology, Beuys' systematic theology, as well as Millard Erickson. When we talk about the origin of man, which is what we did last week, we're referring specifically to the question of where did we come from.

There's a lot of debate about that in the secular realm. If you go to the average college campus, and you go to a class on anthropology, and you study the origin of man, you will learn, most likely, that man came about through the process of evolution.

That we are part of a very long chain of growth, which began with a single-celled organism, and it began to multiply and develop into other organisms. We talked about last week why there is no allowance for this in the Bible.

The Bible simply does not allow for the evolutionary teaching of man. The origin of man, from Scripture's perspective, is that man was created immediately. If you remember from last week what the word immediate means, oftentimes we think immediate means instantly.

In a sense, it does mean instantly, but the word immediate means without a medium, or without anything in between, without a mediator, without anything. God did not create us from another animal. God didn't look at all the animals He had made, and pull from one of those animals, and use that as the medium, or the tool, and say, OK, now I'm going to build man out of this thing.

No, man was made immediately. He was formed up from dust, and all of our parts were made, and then God breathed into the dust of the ground. Now, somebody might argue and say, well, the dust was the medium.

Well, the dust was still not another animal. We didn't come from another animal. We're certainly not a grown-up ape, or an advanced form of monkey. So we've looked at the origin of man last week. Today we're going to look at the nature of man.

The Image of God and the Nature of Man

We know where we came from. God created us. But the nature of man asks the question, what are we? And why are we unique? Maybe the better question is, are we unique? If you notice, there's been a hard push among some to try to make man not really that special.

In fact, some people are really elevating the animal kingdom, and they are diminishing the human, and trying to bring some kind of a balance there to where animal life and human life are somehow equal.

You've noticed this in people who have their animals, and they treat their animals like children. Now, if you have animals that you love, I'm not challenging you. I'm just saying that oftentimes this takes the place of a child.

There are people now who go around and take pictures of cows, and they put them on the meat at the grocery store. And they say, I had a name, and I wanted to live.

Too bad.

That's what I said. You're delicious. One of the ones that I saw, this was a real picture of one of those that had been placed on a piece of meat at a grocery store. It said, you killed me in the name of choice.

And I thought, how ironic that 3 ,000 babies are murdered every day in the name of choice in the United States. And that's not an exaggerated number. 3 ,000 babies is not exaggerated. It's a very real number, and it very really happens.

So what are we? Are we just another animal? Well, let's look at Genesis 1, 26 and 27. And this is one of those verses that I've talked about many times, and I look forward to preaching it on Sunday morning whenever I get there, because it's taking me a little while to get out of Genesis 1 -1.

But we'll be there eventually. It's one of my favorite verses. It's so packed and so immediate, and so we're going to look at it tonight. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. So what do we learn from this simple two-verse passage?

Well, the first thing we need to realize from this passage is that man is a creature. You say, what does that mean? Man is created by God. He is not an independent being. God is the only self-existent being.

I preached this last Sunday. Remember when I talked about God and His nature? And I said the God of Scripture is the only being that is Himself uncaused, is Himself existent, self-existent, and is Himself independent.

You can't say that about yourself. You are not uncaused. You are caused. Your parents caused you, in a sense. Their parents caused them, in a sense. And back and back and back we go all the way to Adam and Eve.

You are the result of a cause. Therefore, you are in effect. God is not in effect. Nothing caused God. He is the uncaused cause of all things. And when I say man is created, I am trying to stress a truth that we need to really understand in our hearts.

We are not equal with God. We are nowhere near being equal with God. We are not even on the same playing field. We are not even using the same equipment.

We are nowhere near.

People always try to bring God down and bring themselves up. They try to devalue and diminish the glory of God. And they try to lift up and exalt the glory of man. You are a creature. In the ninth chapter of the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul asked the question, Who are you, old man, to answer back to God?

Who are you, old man, to answer back to God? I can't believe I'm forgetting exactly how it goes. So a thing formed, say to him who formed it, Why have you made me this way? But the point that I'm trying to get to is that verse in the Greek actually begins with the word man.

And it could read as such,.

Man, who are you?

Who answers back to God. Because the point of man, who are you, that Paul is making, is as man, what do you think you are? As man, who do you think you are? So the first thing that you need to understand about the nature of man is that you are a creation.

You are created. You are a creature. And God is the only creator. The second thing that I want us to notice is that man is, while he is a creature, he is unique because he is made in God's image. Now I've given you notes, right?

Everybody has their hand out? So you're following along with me? Man is made in God's image. The Latin there is imago dei, or sometimes pronounced imagio dei, depending on how you might try to say it.

It is a very important phrase, and it is the phrase that comes out of this when it says in verse 27 of Genesis 1, So God created man in his own image, in the imagio dei. And there are debates about what this means.

What does it mean that we are created in the image of God? Well, some people take this with crass literalism.

And you know me.

If there's one thing I don't like, especially if you took the How to Study the Bible course, I don't like crass literalism because crass literalism gets people into a lot of trouble. And crass literalism would say we look like God because we're made in His image.

You say, nobody believes that. Au contraire. There are people who just believe we just look like God looks. In fact, there is a word for that. There's always a word for everything. Anthropomorphites. Anthropomorphites, including the Swindon-Borgins and the Mormons, view the image of God as indicating that God has a body like a man.

The Book of Moses, which is in the Book of Mormon, reads, quote, In the image of His, that is, God's own body, male and female, created He them. Anthony Hokema is correct. Mormons understand the expression image of God as referring primarily to man's physical nature.

End quote. So that is to say that there are those who believe that when it says we are made in the image of God, that God looks like this. Maybe more better than this. But this type of thing. Two eyes, two ears, one big mouth, a nose, hair.

Isn't that silly? Doesn't the Bible say God is spirit? And those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. That's John 4, 24. God does not have a body like ours. We don't look like Him. He doesn't look like us because God doesn't look like this.

The imago Dei is related to man's inner nature, not his outward appearance. And I want to give you three things that it relates to primarily, and then I'm going to give you three things that I think are secondary to the image of God in man.

First, it begins with personality. Now, you'll remember if you've been here for this course and you've been studying systematic theology with me, you'll remember that I put a lot of stock in the subject of personhood.

Remember when we talked about God as person, meaning He has intellect, emotion, will. We talked about the Holy Spirit as person, intellect, emotion, will. We talked about Jesus as person. We talked about angels having personhood.

This is important because some people believe the Holy Spirit is just an energy force. Some people believe that angels are just forces of power and energy. They're not personal. Personal personhood is important.

I don't know why I'm popping the P so hard, but maybe stick it in your brain. Personhood is very important. Personhood distinguishes the it from the who. You walk out and you kick a tree. You haven't hurt the tree.

Did you see the thing today that was posted about the seminary? Fuller Theological Seminary used to be one of the greatest seminaries. Now it is the bastion of liberalism. And what they had done is they had had for their chapel service, they had brought in plants, so everybody could confess their sins to the plants.

This was real. I didn't make this up. They're confessing their sins against the plants. As if the plants can provide absolution. As if the plants could say,.

I forgive you for your sin against the Green New Deal. Sorry, I had to throw it in there. But you understand, plants don't have personality. They're not personal. Animals have a form of personality, but it's not like ours.

You can say, my dog has a jovial dog, or I've got a mean dog, or whatever, he's got personality, he's got intellect, emotion, will, but nothing like human beings, right? People say, oh, there's 1 difference between apes and humans.

Yeah, well, that 1 got us to the moon. The 1 created symphonies. The 1 designed planes and submarines and battleships. 1 is pretty huge if you can do all that with it. So much more different between us and apes.

1 is ridiculous. We're made of the same stuff because God used the same stuff to make us. Dust to the ground. That's no problem. We can say we're made of the same stuff. It doesn't mean we're the same.

But it's not the physical that makes us different. It's the image of God that makes us different. And the first part of that is giving us a personality, intellect, emotion, and will that makes man markedly different than anything else.

Nothing else in the world relates like we do. Cows don't write poetry. Monkeys don't make movies. Fish don't write symphonies. Personality in man is so different and distinct. So that's one, number one.

The second is morality. This is even more important than personality because in the image of God, we are given an understanding of ought and ought not. People always say right and wrong.

Well, right and wrong, yeah.

Ought means it is imperative. It is insisted upon us that we should or we should not. Ought, you heard that. You grew up in the South. You ought not do that. Brother Andy mentioned in his prayer time about Spurgeon saying, given the option of two evils, I would choose neither.

That's an important statement. We're teaching Christian ethics on Thursday night, and I've mentioned that several times, but I also added this thought because Spurgeon's right. Given the choice between two evils, choose neither.

And then I point out the fact that Jesus never chose the lesser of two evils because Jesus never did evil.

Ever.

So that's just to add a thought to what Brother Andy said. And the idea is Jesus was 100 moral.

You are not.

I am not. 100 moral. Even on my best day. But I understand ought and ought not. Even the evil man understands ought and ought not. In fact, how do we define psychosis? The man who doesn't differentiate between ought and ought not.

We say that man has a brain that is disturbed, a sickness because he doesn't distinguish between the ought and the ought not.

Right?

So that's morality. And by the way, I want to say this.

Adam and Eve.

And I'm going to say this. I hope I don't get challenged on this. I hope you hear what I'm saying because I'm not contradicting Scripture here. But get ready because what I'm going to say sounds funny.

Adam and Eve understood ought even before the fall. People say, but wait, they didn't understand evil until after the fall. Yes, they did not have a personal experience understanding with evil. But Eve knew she wasn't supposed to do it because she said, God said, do not do that.

And she was deceived according to 1 Timothy. So ought is not just a result of the fall is my point. Ought is inherent in man. Prior to the fall, there was a sense of ought. A sense of duty to God.

Okay?

Now again, experience of evil and understanding evil and all that came after the fall. There was something that happened that happened as a result of eating the fruit. But the sense of ought is part of that image of God.

Okay, now, number three. I said the personality, morality.

Personality.

Number three, spirituality. Spirituality. Now you'll hear people say, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. That's a bunch of hooey. Number one, everybody's religious. I've never met a person that wasn't religious.

And the most religious people I know are atheists. They are the most religious people in the world because they're just dying to tell you about it and convince you to become one. You spend time with them.

Come to the fair with me and meet some atheists. They're just dying to tell you about it.

You said dying to tell us? Yeah. Yeah.

They're very good at proselytizing their atheism. They even have free thinker fairs. They have a march on Washington every, I think it's every year they go and they march as the free thinkers go and try to impose atheism on our government.

At least our government tries to say, in God we trust, which is really, you know, we can discuss that another day. But they go and they carry around money that was printed before the 50s. You know why they carry that money around?

Because it doesn't say, in God we trust. That motto wasn't adopted until the 50s. And so if you can get money that was printed before that, it won't say it. And they carry that, this is who we should be.

We don't trust in God. God is spirit. When He created man, He created him a physical and spiritual being. And even men who are dead spiritually understand they're missing something. And often times try to fill that gap of spirituality with something else.

This is where other religions come from. Men are called homo sapien, that means the wise man. They're also called homo religiosus, the religious being. Because they're the only being that worships. And all of them worship something.

Man is incurably worshipful. Even the guys who don't go to church on Sunday often worship at the feet of the television watching the gods play the game with the pig skin. Worshiping at the feet of the jaguars.

Oh, what a temple there. So we have morality, we have spirituality, we have personality. That's the three primary things that I would say constitute what I would say are the image of God. But there are other things that you should consider.

Creativity is part of the image of God. Man creates, and every time he creates, he shows the image of God in him. I remember R .C. Sproul made a point one time when he was teaching. He said when he listens to these atheists who write these wonderful novels, he says they're exposing the image of God in their genius even in spite of themselves.

Because they're showing God's mark of His image even in their lost condition. And we see this in you have lost people who build buildings that are tremendous. And they paint paintings which are incredible.

And they write songs which are outstanding. And you say there is the image of God even in a reprobate, even in a sinner.

God's image is shining through. It's like the heavens declare the glory of God.

So does every man and woman because everyone bears the image of God. And they show that through their creativity. And number five, relatability. We're all relational. Know this. God was in a relationship before time began because the Trinity is an interrelational being.

When I say the Trinity, I'm talking about the God who exists. The God who has always existed. He has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they have always loved one another within the person of the Trinity.

Within the being of the Trinity, the three persons have always loved one another. Therefore, when God created man, He created man as a relational being because God is a relational being. There is that image marked.

Number six. And I could go on, but these are the six that really just came to me as I was preparing. Number six, rationality. Every time we use reason, we are displaying the image of God. Because God is rational.

People ask silly questions. Can God put a round peg in a square hole?

I say no.

Unless God changed the laws of physics that He Himself has created, God is not in the business of doing the irrational. I never said God could do anything. I say God can do everything that is in line with His nature.

God is rational. Therefore, God does that which is rational. God can't lie. The Bible says He cannot lie because He is truth. And therefore, I can say God can't lie.

You understand what I'm saying?

So if anybody tries to get you with that whole round peg, square circle thing, God is not irrational. But you are for asking that question.

Because you know God exists,.

And you're looking for a reason to deny Him and suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Who is irrational now? All right. So now I want to jump ahead. I'm going to spend a few more minutes on this. I've been working real hard at trying to keep these things to one lesson at a time.

I've got a lot more to go. So let me get through this. Some have misunderstood the Imago Dei as teaching little God theology. You see that on your notes? Let me just quickly tell you what that is. In the pantheon of what is known as health and wealth theology, also known as prosperity theology, also known as heretical theology, there is something called little God theology.

I'll give you a quote. Earl Polk, a teacher in this group,.

Quote,.

Adam and Eve were placed in the world as the seed and expression of God. Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods. We have trouble comprehending this truth until we comprehend that we are little gods.

Joyce Meyer, you ever heard of her?

Quote,.

Why do people have such a fit about God calling His creation, His man, not His whole creation, but His man, little gods? If He's God, what's He going to call them but the God kind? I mean, if a human being has a baby, they call it a human kind.

If cattle has cattle, they call it cattle kind. So what's God supposed to call us? He calls us the God kind. Again, the idea of little gods. I would say, this is a Greek word for this, it's baloney, but this is more like manure.

It really is. It's just that bad. Please don't let, because all again it is, is trying to devalue and dethrone God and exalt man. And if we learn anything from John the Baptist, we should learn this, that for Christ to increase, we must decrease.

That is the way it works.

It's like a teeter-totter.

You cannot be equal. You've got to go down so He can go up.

And every time you try to go up, you're going to bring Him down. Little God theology is bad theology. God is creator. You are creature. That's why I made that stress at the beginning, because I wanted to bring it back up now.

Alright, next thing. And this might sound like I shouldn't even have to say it, but I'm going to say it because I know people. And there are some people who believe some weird stuff. And there are some people who believe that women do not possess the image of God.

They believe that it's limited to man only. Now, where would such a thing come from? Very quickly, if you want to write this note, and you can read it later because of time, 1 Corinthians 11 .7. 1 Corinthians 11 .7, the Apostle Paul is talking about head coverings, and he's talking about the difference between men and women, and he says this, For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

Okay?

So we have that passage that we have to deal with. It says Adam, or the man, is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. But notice that it doesn't say the woman is the image of man.

We go back to Genesis 1, and what does it say? Male and female, He created them. In the image of God, He created them. Not him, but them. The point in 1 Corinthians 11 is not to diminish the woman as an image bearer of God, but to show that God, when He created man, created man as a glory to Him, and then He made a woman, and she glorifies the man.

And if you don't like that, that's just what the Scripture is saying. The woman's purpose was to bring glory to the man, and they both are the image of God, and therefore they both bring glory to God.

But there was a separate and distinct purpose for the woman in being created to bring glory to the man for whom she was created. Eve was created to be the helpmate of Adam, and to glorify him as his partner in life.

When you understand the marriage relationship as being a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church, and how the church glorifies Christ, then you have no problem with seeing how a wife can glorify her husband.

And, when you read Proverbs 31, it's the very thing we see about the virtuous woman, is that she makes her husband's name known, and she glorifies him. There's nothing wrong with that. There's this whole battle of the sexes thing.

It's garbage. I want my wife to be the happiest woman in the world. And I want her to know that she's loved more than anyone else in my life. Even my children. And she wants the same for me. I truly believe that.

And in that, we glorify God in loving each other. Nothing wrong with that. So don't ever think that 1 Corinthians 11 is diminishing a woman's image bearing. It's not. A woman bears the image of God, as does a man.

This does not mean that God is multisexual or unisexual. God is not sexual. Some people try to argue that you've heard the whole thing, God is a woman, that kind of stuff. That's just silly talk. Again, baloney.

Don't even need to go there. So, this last one I do need a few minutes on, so I'm going to ask you to bear with me. Did the fall eradicate the imago dei, or the image of God? You say, why do you ask this question, Pastor?

Well, because a lot of people believe it. In fact, the more I looked into this, the more I found that a lot of people do believe this. They believe that Adam was the image bearer of God and Eve, but that when they sinned, the image was removed, and their children do not bear God's image, but bear their image.

I'll just quote, I'll quote you. This is from a man who simply identifies himself as an elderly biblical scholar. Quote, man's disobedience of God resulted in Adam no longer being the image of his creator because it introduced sin as a characteristic of mankind.

Sin is not a characteristic of God, and since every man who descends from Adam carries the sin in our nature, we cannot be the image of God, end quote. That's the argument. Because we carry the sin nature of Adam, we no longer carry the image of God.

Now, that man was nobody, not even named. Now I'm going to quote to you somebody you may have heard of. R .L. Dabney, 19th century American Presbyterian preacher,.

Very well known.

Quote, this image of God has been lost in the fall and regained in redemption. Hence, it could not have consisted in anything absolutely essential to man's essence because the loss of such an attribute would have destroyed man's nature.

So again, I think R .L. Dabney is a good guy. I'm not here to kick him in the shins, especially since he's dead. But his point is simply this. We don't have the image of God until we're born again. I'm not agreeing with you.

I'm not agreeing with him. I'm simply saying this is a position. I was surprised how many people did agree. So I want to make an argument against that. If I could now become a little bit of an apologist, I want to defend the image of God in man after the fall.

Okay?

Because that's all you've got to do, right? To prove this is true, you've got to show that the image of God still resides in man even after the fall. And for this, I'm going to invite you to open your Bibles and go with me and we'll spend the last few minutes just looking at these passages.

The first one is Genesis 9 -6. So you're already in Genesis. So just turn a few pages over to the right. Go to chapter 9. Now chapter 9 is after chapter 3, right? Okay, just being clear, just so we know, this is after the fall.

We would agree?

Okay.

This is also after the flood because the flood happens between chapter 6 and chapter 9. So this is not only after the fall. This is after the flood when God has declared all men evil and brought about the destruction of all but eight people.

And he says in chapter 9, verse 5. We'll read verse 5 and then verse 6.

It says,.

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning from every beast I will require it, and from his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Why, God? Verse 6. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Why is it that there is a capital punishment which is given to a person who commits murder because that person has attacked an image bearer of Almighty God? If you kill somebody, you're taking the life of somebody who bears the image of God.

Whether they be sinner or saint. You are attacking the image of God. And therefore, the highest of punishments is reserved for you. The punishment of life for life. Very quickly turn to James. Now this is on the other end of your Bible.

James chapter 3. Because some people argue, Well, wait a minute, pastor, that Genesis passage, that doesn't prove everybody has made the image of God. It just says man was made in the image of God. It's only talking about the first man, not all men.

While I would disagree, and I don't think that bears weight linguistically, I like to add to my defense when I am making a case as an apologist. And that's what I'm doing right now. I don't mean to sound so sassy, but this is important.

In James chapter 3, James is talking about the tongue, and how it's a restless evil that we can't really tame, and it's a difficult thing for us to deal with, our tongue. And he says in verse 9 of chapter 3, With it, that is with the tongue, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

Notice there he doesn't say a person, referring to Adam, but he says people. And he's obviously referring in a contemporary setting to people that we would see, therefore we could speak against. And he says they are made in the likeness, which is the same root of the idea of image of God.

So we have in Genesis 9, and in James chapter 3, two passages which tell us very clearly that man still bears the image of God, even though we are fallen. So, let me give you an illustration to draw to a close.

When I was a young man, I used to love to draw. In fact, it was one of the great joys of my life. I'm glad I didn't grow up with the internet. I mean that, because I didn't have anything but a piece of paper and a pencil sometimes.

And I would just draw and draw. And I remember one time my dad took me to Ready Arts. Mike, you're an artist, you know where Ready Arts is downtown. I was so excited to get to go to an art store. Never been to an art store before.

And I bought charcoal pencils. Charcoal pencils are interesting because you can draw with them, and when you draw with them you can then go back with your finger and you can use your finger to make shadows in the drawing.

And you can create depth in your art with the charcoal because it sits on top of the paper. It doesn't stay in like a pencil. It's more movable. It's able to be twisted and shaped. Well, I remember the first time I drew with them because I didn't know that was going to happen.

And I'm a dragger. That means when I draw, I drag my hand. So I always have to draw left to right because if I draw right to left, my hand gets ink all over it.

Right?

And I was drawing with those charcoal pencils, and I drew a real pretty nice picture. And when I lifted up my hand, the whole side of the picture had been smudged and marred from my hand which had been laying on the charcoal and dragging as I was making the picture.

Beloved, that is how I understand the image of God in man now. It's there, but it has been marred by sin. It has been smudged. It has been beaten, but it hasn't been removed. We are made in God's image.

And when we are redeemed, the Bible says we become agents of God's good work, and we become His masterpiece. Ephesians chapter 2,. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. That's why He created us. That's why He recreated us to do things in His image and to bear His image rightly, rather than being the marred image of God, but to go and do those good works which He prepared beforehand for those who love Him.

Beloved, I pray this was an encouragement to you tonight. And I want to end with a quote. This is from Ligonier Ministries, R .C. Sproul's ministry. I believe he wrote this. Sin did not destroy the image of God in man.

All people still reflect in some way the dignity of the Lord, no matter how we have marred His image. Thus our treatment of others reveals what we think of our Creator. If you have been cruel to another person, go and apologize and remember that if you are cruel to His image, you are sinning against God.

How we treat others shows what we think about God, because that person bears the image of His Creator.

Bearing God’s Image in Redemption and How We Treat Others

Let's pray.