Mankind
Why we Believe what we Believe
(The Baptist Faith and Message)
(Message 5)
Genesis 1:27
Introduction: Up to this point we have examined the
doctrine of scripture and taken an in-depth look at the nature and
characteristics of God.
As we continue our study in this doctrinal
series this morning, we come to the doctrine of man, appropriately called
anthropology. It is important to realize from the outset that the Bible is
Theocentric, not anthropocentric. That is, it centers around God and not on man.
One of the most common mistakes many well intended people make is to think that
the Bible is merely an instruction manual for mankind. To the contrary, it is
God’s revelation of Himself to humanity. It is only when we understand God for
who He is that we can understand ourselves for who we are. So it is within the
context of understanding Who God is, that is our perspective on theology, that
we are able to truly comprehend who we are and have a sure word about
anthropology.
Our text today is
found in Genesis 1:27. It is a short and simple text and yet it is one which is
loaded with significance. Not only does it positively declare what man is and
where he came from and Who it is that made him, it also declares what man is
not and how man was not made.
The Baptist Faith and Message, our
confessional statement, summarizes and encapsulates the biblical teaching on
man when it says,
“Man is the special creation of God, made in
His own image. He created them male and female as the crowing work of His
creation. The gift of gender is thus a part of the goodness of God’s creation.
In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with
freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin
into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the
command of god, and fell from his original innocence whereby his nature and
environment turned toward sin. Therefore, as soon as we are capable of moral
action, we become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of
God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the
creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that
God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore,
every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and
Christian love.”
For the purpose of our study I want to
divide it into three parts. We will begin by looking at how humanity came to
be, then move on to understand something about the nature of and state of
humanity, and finally understanding these things, we will consider what this
knowledge calls us to do.
I. How did we get here?
Before we get into the specifics of what the
scripture has to say about how we got here, it would probably serve us well to
address and seek to dispel the most prevalent modern myth concerning the origin
of man, the theory, and let me stress that word theory, of evolution.
As you all know, it was in 1859 that Charles
Darwin published The Origin of Species, in which he set forth his own theory as
to how humanity came to be. Interestingly enough,
Dinesh D’Souza, in his book What’s So Great
About Christianity, says that despite a long history of experimentation,
breeders have never been able to breed across species lines and produce new
species. He goes on to ask, “So how can random mutations achieve what carefully
orchestrated cross-breeding has failed to do?” D’Souza says. While the fossil record
shows evidence of microevolution, that is one type of finch evolving into
another type of finch, there is no evidence for macroevolution which shows one
species evolving into a different species. In other words, there is no proof
that evolution is valid as a theory.
While I do not agree with all of his
conclusions, Dinesh D’Souza, in his book, goes on to make a strong case not
only for the existence of God, but also for the creationism. D’Souza correctly
states that there are three things the theory of evolution cannot account for.
1) First Evolution cannot explain the
beginning of life.
2) Second, Evolution cannot explain
consciousness, which illuminates the whole world for us. We know as human
beings we are conscious. How did unconscious life transform itself into
conscious life? Evolution has no answers.
3) Finally, Evolution cannot explain human
rationality or morality. Rationality is the power to perceive something as
true. We can include in rationality the unique human capacity for language,
which is the ability to formulate and articulate ideas that comprehend the
world around us. People in the most primitive cultures developed language as a
means of rationality while cats cannot utter a single sentence.
Furthermore, authors like D’Souza and Ken
Ham, author of the book, The Lie: Evolution, demonstrate beyond any reasonable
doubt how Darwinism is based on an atheistic philosophy and is just as much of
a religious dogma as anything taught in the church. This is based on the fact
that no one is neutral. Since evolutionists and creationists both have the same
evidence as to the origin of the universe, the question comes down to how that
evidence is interpreted. While scientists would have us believe they are
totally neutral and objective in their interpretation of data, nothing could be
further from the truth. You see both the Darwinists and the Creationists work from
certain presuppositions. The Christian worldview works off of the
presupposition that there is a God who created all things and who intervenes in
time and space, many times in miraculous ways, as He relates to mankind, His
supreme creation. The Darwinist worldview is agnostic or atheistic. Agnostics
say they cannot know whether or not there is a God, while atheists assert that
there is no God. D’Souza points out that within this worldview there are two
philosophical doctrines which rule all thought, the doctrines of naturalism and
materialism. Naturalism is the doctrine that nature is all there is.
According to naturalism, there are neither miracles nor supernatural forces.
Therefore reports of the supernatural can only be interpreted naturalistically.
Materialism is the belief that material reality is the only reality and that
there is no separately existing mental or spiritual reality.
So despite any evidence which may point to a
Creator or to a Designer of the universe, modern science has predetermined that
God cannot exist and therefore is working from a bias or presupposition which
will not allow for His existence, even if the facts point to Him. D’Souza makes
his point by asking, If a space shuttle were to produce photographs of never
before seen solar bodies that bore the sign, “Yahweh Made This,” would the
scientific community still refuse to acknowledge the existence of a
supernatural Creator? Yes it would, he answers, because modern science was
designed to exclude a designer.
I mention this to assure you that secular
reasoning refuses to recognize the truth that is set before them. This is
precisely what Paul says in Romans 1:20 when he says, “From the creation of the
world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have
been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result,
people are without excuse.”
As Christians we do not check our
intelligence at the door, to the contrary, we welcome scientific discovery, for
the more we learn about our universe, the more we seen the fingerprints of God
on everything that is. While the Darwinists work from a presuppositional
position of atheism, as Christians we too have a presupposition. We work from a
worldview where God is and is the Creator of all that is. Every time we see a
sunset, a newborn baby or a bird in flight, it affirms what we know to be true
that there is a God and He is the Creator.
Not only do we rely on general revelation,
that is nature itself, to reveal the glory and presence of God, as believers we
have special revelation, scripture to give us a sure and certain word, not only
about who He is, but about who we are and how we came into existence.
You see folks, at the end of the day it
takes a lot more faith to believe in the theory of evolution than it does to
believe in the Bible. There is nothing in nature which proves the theory of
evolution, but everything in nature points to the existence of God. Every word
of God is true. While time and time again the proponents of Darwinism have had
to eat their words, scripture has never been proven false. Human history and
archeology do nothing but continue to affirm the reliability and veracity of
scripture.
The scripture gives us a clear and
straightforward affirmation about the origins of humanity. In Genesis 1:27 the
Bible says that “So God created man in His own image; He created him in the
image of God; He created them male and female.”
So while the theory of evolution says that
mankind is nothing more than a highly evolved animal, the biblical record is
clearly different. It says that man is the unique and crowing creation of God,
created in His own image, with inherent value and worth. Man is no mere
accident, the product of a blind, naturalistic process over untold millions of
years. Man was created as an adult, and placed on the earth to subdue it and
rule it. Man is made in the image of God and therefore stands light years above
all of God’s other creations.
We know we got here. But what about who we
are? What does God’s word have to say about human nature and our state of
being?
II. Our Fallen State –
The book of Genesis tells us that in the
beginning, in the Garden of Eden, God created Adam and Eve, two individuals;
one man and one woman. It says that He created them in His image.
What does it mean to be created in the image
of God? Well it means that while we are not exactly like God, when God created
us, He gave us some of His own qualities.
1. First of all we are created to be
persons; that is we each have individual personalities we were created for
intimate relationship, mankind, like God, can know and be known. As we
have studied the Trinity, we know that God is one God who expresses Himself in
three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each can be known and
can know others. So this is one sense in which we have been created in the
image of God.
2. Secondly, we have been created to be
eternal. The Bible tells us that God has put eternity in our hearts. In the New
Testament we read that at the resurrection some will be raised to eternal life
and others to eternal retribution, again, this speaks to the eternal nature of
man. Each person is tripartite, that it, they are made of body, soul and
spirit. The beasts of the field have bodies, they have the spirit of life
within them but they do not have eternal souls. Of all of God’s creations only
man was given an eternal soul. It is this eternal element which imprints us
with the image of God who Himself is eternal.
3. Third, we have been created in God’s
image with certain physical aspects – While God is a Spirit and does not have a
body there are things which God has given us physically which enable us to be
like Him. For instance, our eyes enable us to see. While God sees everything
and we see only some things, nonetheless we are able to see, which makes us
like Him. God hears all things, and our physical ears enable us to hear some
things, again, one of the ways wherein our physical bodies endow us with
certain qualities of the Divine. Our mouths and voices give us the ability to speak,
God speaks, and thus we are, in this way, like Him.
4. We are created in God’s moral image
– As creatures who are morally accountable to God for our actions, we have an
inner sense of right and wrong that sets us apart from animals who merely
respond from fear of punishment or hope of reward. C.S. Lewis calls this a
moral “oughtness,” that is, we know what we ought to do and what we ought not
to do (see Mere Christianity). Of all of God’s creations, man alone was given a
choice by God to obey or disobey the voice of God. The beast of the field, the
fowl of the air and the fish of the sea live by instinct, and do not possess
the ability to reason and rationalize moral, as does man. Cats don’t sit around
and discuss the nature of the person of Christ. Dogs don’t have the ability to
delve into the finer nuances of ethics and morality. Man alone was given that
ability, and in this we bear the image of our creator, who is Himself the
personification of righteousness, justice and moral uprightness. Our likeness
to God is reflected in behavior that is holy and righteous before Him and our
unlikeness to Him is revealed whenever we sin.
5. We bear the image of God in that we
were created to rule. God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over the world. He
gave them the power and the ability to rule over it. Think about it, before the
fall all of nature was under Adam’s rule. The animals obeyed his voice. He was
the king of the earth. But when he rebelled against God, nature rebelled
against him and has been in rebellion ever since.
So, we can say that in the realm of
intellect and reasoning, in the dominion He has give us over creation, in our
spiritual capacity to know God and be in fellowship with Him and in our
physical appearance and ability to walk upright, something which sets us apart
from all animals, we reflect the uniqueness of the image of God.
This truth has a profound impact on the way
that we as Christians view every other human. We oppose abortion because God is
the giver of life and every child, from the moment of conception, is created in
the image of God and has dignity and worth. We oppose homosexuality because God
created male and female. He did not create two males nor did He create two
females, from the very beginning, God designed and defined the roles each
gender was to play in the family. Homosexually runs contrary to God’s design,
not to mention that God specifically condemns it. We oppose euthanasia because
all people, regardless of their age or physical or mental capacity, have
dignity and worth.
Make no mistake about it the theory of
evolution is more than simply a theory about how humanity came to be. It is
rooted and grounded in a philosophy which seeks nothing less than the denial of
God’s existence. That’s why we often call it atheistic evolutionism. The
evolutionist says that man is merely an animal, perhaps more highly evolved
than the rest of the animals, but none the less just an animal. And if that is
so, if we are here by chance and there is nothing more than naturalism and
materialism, and there is no God then man is free to follow his instincts,
after all, he’s just doing what’s natural. You don’t have to be overly
imaginative to see where that would take you. Yes, the godless theory of
evolution has a moral side to it as well, and it’s a dark side. Evolution
champions a theory known as the survival of the fittest, which simply means
that in a world where natural selection is the law of the land, only the
fittest survive, in fact, only the fittest should survive.
In the moral universe of the Darwinists
there is no room for handicapped children, for unwanted pregnancies or for the
feeble and sick seniors. With a cold and efficient determination that would
make Hitler proud, the morality of evolution would not only allow but justify
the extermination of those who are not society’s fittest.
This is why some Christians get so upset
about the evolution lie being taught in our schools and shoved down the throats
of our children. This is why as Christians we need to make sure our voice is
heard and the truth about our great Creator is proclaimed.
We are not animals, we are humans, uniquely
formed by a loving and personal God, formed for His pleasure and each of us is,
by our very existence, of inestimable worth to our Creator. We have been made in
His image not in the image of some primordial pond slime.
But not only are we created in His image,
but as we have seen, in the beginning man was created without sin. In the
Garden of Eden, Adam and Even lived in the perfection of God’s paradise on earth.
They were morally innocent and without sin. Genesis 2:16-17 tells us, “And the
Lord commanded the man, ‘you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but
you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the
day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
Genesis 3 goes on to tell how Satan, in the
form of a serpent, tempted the woman and how Adam and Eve yielded to the
temptation and ate of the forbidden fruit, willfully and knowingly defying
God’s moral law. They had the ability to choose between obeying God or
disobeying Him and of their own free will they chose to disobey Him. Of course
the consequences of their actions were disastrous. Because they rebelled
against God, God not only cast them out of the Garden, but through their sin,
sickness and death came into the world and the entire earth became hostile to
humanity. Once Adam and Eve sinned, all of humanity, that is, all of their
descendents came under the condemnation of sin. That means that you and I and
every other human born is born with a sinful nature. We are not only sinners
because we sin, we sin primarily because we are sinners. As soon as we are
morally able, we sin; not just because we want to but because it is simply our
nature. We are born with a natural inherent bent toward sin. It’s just in our
nature. That’s why the Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the Human heart is deceitful above all
things and is desperately wicked. This is just the truth about human
nature.
There are some like the heretic Pelagius,
who teach that man is born morally innocent and that sin is merely a learned
behavior. But not only does scripture tell us different, mere observation
itself should be enough to convince anyone that we are all sinners. You don’t
have to teach a baby to be selfish or to fight another child for a toy, this
comes natural. You have to teach children to behave, not to misbehave. You have
to teach them to be nice, not to be mean; that comes natural.
The one and only exception to this was
Jesus, who was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary. The Bible calls
Jesus the second Adam, that is, He is the only other man who did not naturally
possess a sinful nature. Someone asked me this week whether or not Jesus could
have sinned. But I told them that’s not the right way to look at it. It’s not
that Jesus did not have the ability to sin, I believe He did, otherwise He
would not have been 100% human and could not have been truly tempted. What set
Jesus apart from us is that He had the ability not to sin and He resisted the
temptation to sin, thus succeeding where our ancestor Adam failed. That’s why
Jesus was an acceptable sacrifice for our sins. He who knew no sin became sin
on account of us. Because He was innocent of sin, He was willing to pay the
penalty for our sins with His blood.
So you see, while we were created in the
image of God, and part of that initially meant that man was without sin, when
Adam sinned against God, his sin not only separated him and his wife from God,
but all of their descendents. But God, in His great love, who created us to be
in fellowship with Him and to live for His glory, desired so much for us to be
restored, that He sent His only Son Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins so that
by placing our trust in Him we could have forgiveness of sins and once again be
in fellowship with God.
So, now that we understand about our origins
and something about our nature and our fallen sinful state, what do we do with
this knowledge? How do we take what we know and translate it into actions? What
action does this knowledge call for?
III. What Are We To Do?
Allow me to suggest four things I believe
this knowledge calls for us to do. Four practical suggestions as to how we can
apply this teaching to our lives.
1. Live in relationship with God –
The greatest truth we will ever understand
about ourselves is that we are sinners in need of God’s grace. On our own,
without God’s grace and His giving of Himself through the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ, there is no way we can ever be in fellowship with Him. But God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life. God loves us and invites each of
us to freely receive His gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life. All we
have to do is accept His free gift. He is offering it to you today. If you have
never come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you’ve never placed
your trust for eternal life in Him, you can do so today. God is inviting you
today to be in fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ the Son. By placing
your trust in the finished work of Jesus you can overcome the curse of sin and
be restored to fellowship with God. And there is no other way to be in fellowship
with God. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through Me.” Only in Jesus will you find a
pathway which leads to fellowship with God.
2. Live in accordance with Gods purpose
-
God did not need man but scripture tells us
in Isaiah 43:7 that He created us for His own glory. This tells us that we are
significant and that we are important to God. Our purpose in life
then, is not to glorify ourselves which is narcissism, or to seek our greatest
pleasure, which is hedonism, but to glorify God, which is part and parcel of
creationism. According to scripture God created mankind in a perfect state with
the desire and intention of being in fellowship with Him. But sin made us
selfish and directed our desires and attention away from God. When we come to
Jesus, when we allow Him to restore us to fellowship with God we can once again
live in accordance with our Creator’s purpose. Since we were created for His
glory, our greatest joy and our greatest fulfillment is to be found in being in
relationship with God and glorifying Him through our lives. That means
everything we do, everything we say, every breath we take should bring Glory to
God. That’ll revolutionize the way you live your life. Everything you do should
be to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Therefore, whether you eat
or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.”
3. Live in accordance with Gods
principles –
Simply put this means allowing God’s truth
to govern your thoughts and actions. For so many Christians there seems to be a
disconnect between what we do at church on Sunday mornings and what we do
throughout the rest of the week in the work-a-day world, but this should never
be the case. If we are Christians than we are called to be ambassadors for
Christ, demonstrating His truth to the world around us in all we say and do.
Through our lives the world should be able to see that Jesus is real and that
our God lives and reigns. You cannot be in right fellowship with God and you
certainly cannot live for His glory if you are not living in accordance with
His word.
4. Live to advance Gods rule and reign
–
This means making the
What about you this morning? Have you ever
come to terms with your own sinful nature and recognized that you need
Jesus to forgive you of your sins? The scripture says that whosoever will; may
come. All you have to do is to come and ask Jesus to forgive you and to give
you His gift of eternal life. He has promised that if we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.[i]