What is the Biblical view of man? What does the Bible say about the nature and origin of man? Let us go back to the early chapters of the book of Genesis and examine what it says about the origin and nature of man in order to begin our investigation and try to answer these questions and to understand the Biblical view of man.
The basic Biblical assertion about man is that he is created by God (Gen. 1:26-27).
"26 Then God said,Man is a creature. He is not God. He is not divine. He does not have a "spark of the divine" in him. He is a created being, and as such is under the sovereignty and dominion of God by creation. But even though man is a creation of God, he is different from the rest of creation. Genesis 1:26-27 tells us that God created man in His own image. This makes man different from the other creations of God.
'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 air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
What is the image of God?
The image of God is a person, the Son of God. The Apostle Paul says,
"13 For He [God] delivered us from the domain of darkness,God's Beloved Son is the plan and pattern according to which God created man. As such He is the first-born of all creation. Not that He is the first created being, but that He is the pattern by which all men will be born. God created man with the anticipation that His Son would become man, a human being. Thus He is the first-born of all creation.
and translated us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins;
15 And He is the image of the invisible God,
the first-born of all creation."
(Col. 1:13-15 NAS; compare II Cor. 4:4; Rom. 8:29);
"26 Then God said,In this passage of Scripture, we find that there are two aspects to man being created in the image of God. The first aspect is found in the words
'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 air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
But there is also a second aspect to man being created in the image of God. In these verses of Genesis one, we see this second aspect in the words:
"So God created man in his own image,This does not mean that God is male and female but that He is more than one person existing in an unique personal relationship or fellowship. As God has created man, he cannot live alone. In Genesis 2:18, "The Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'" Of all the creatures God had created "there was not found a helper fit for him" (Gen. 2:20). So God created, out of man, woman. Man, in the very way in which he was created had a social need -- a need for fellowship. This need could only be satisfied through an equal fellow creature. None of the animals could satisfy this need for fellowship. So God made an equal being, a woman. Man as a social being is able to enjoy a reciprocal personal relationship or fellowship with an equal being. In this respect man is also like God. In God there is an equality and fellowship between the three persons of the Godhead.
in the image of God he created him:
male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:26).
Man's dominion over creation and his fellowship with an equal being -- woman -- are two aspects of man being created in the image of God. Both of these presuppose freedom -- freedom of choice and freedom of action. This freedom is the presupposition and the possibility of being in the image of God. Since God created man with this freedom, dominion over creation and fellowship with equal beings become possible. With freedom of choice and action man can exercise his dominion over creation. And since love is the essence of fellowship, with his freedom of choice and action, man can love an equal being and thus enter into fellowship with her. This freedom of choice and not his reason, neither self-consciousness, nor self-transcendence, is that which make possible man's dominion over creation and fellowship with an equal being. This is what distinguishes man from the rest of creation. This freedom of decision is what gives to man his existence as a person or self and to his reason that human and personal character. Man is a personal being in a created physical world and as such is a union of spirit (person or self) and body (physiological organism).
"Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground,When God breathed into the nostrils of the body of man the breath of life, He created man's spirit and man became a living soul. The soul of man is the union of this created spirit and the body formed from the dust of the ground. Thus man is dipartite being having two parts, spirit and body; the soul is not a part of man but is the union of man's created spirit and his body.
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul (nepesh)" (Gen. 2:7 KJV).
As Christianity spread thoughout the Roman world, the
Hebrew-Christian view of reality
came into conflict with the
Greek-Roman view of reality.
The difference between these two views of reality is most clearly seen
in their views of man. Attempts were made to resolve this conflict
and the difference in their views of man by trying to synthesize these
two views of reality.
There were two major attempts at this synthesis:
(a) the
Augustinian synthesis
made by Aurelius Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in the 5th century and
(b) the
Thomistic synthesis
made by Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274) in the 12th century.
| Hebrew-Christian | Medieval Synthesis | Greek-Roman | |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Creator | Supernatural - Grace | The rational |
| World | Created | Natural - Nature | The non-rational |
| Man | spirit (person) & body |
spirit (moral) & soul (rational) & body (animal) |
mind (rational) & body (non-rational) |
All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. Worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be obscured and misunderstood. And this is what happened in the early church as it sought to explain the relation of the divine and human in the God-man Jesus Christ. They misunderstood the rational soul of man as the third part of man, the spirit and body being the other two parts. But the rational soul of man is not the third part of man, but is the expression of man's spirit or person in and through his body (see Gen. 2:7). Thus the Biblical view of man is that man is a dipartite being having a body and a spirit (or person) with the soul as the union of his spirit and his body. Hence, man is neither the Greek view of man as a dipartite being having two parts of a body and a rational soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor the view of the Christian synthesis of man as a tripartite being having three parts of a body, a soul, and a spirit, where the soul is considered the animal soul and the spirit was considered to be the mind, the rational soul of the Greek view. The Biblical view of man is that his soul is not a third part of man but that his soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the expression of his spirit or person in and through his body, and thus the union of his spirit and his body.
But man did not stay in this original state -- in the way God created him in His image. He fell away from the image of God. How did this happen? The second and third chapters of Genesis tell us how this happened. After God created man and placed him in a garden (Gen. 2:8, 15), God gave to him a command:
"From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;And after the woman was created, she was tempted by the serpent (Gen. 3:1) who is also called Satan (the adversary) and devil (the slanderer, Rev. 12:9).
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die"
(Gen. 2:16-17, NAS).
The serpent's temptation contained two lies:
(a) "Indeed, has God said,
'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" (Gen. 3:1, NAS) and
(b) "You surely shall not die!" (Gen. 3:4, NAS).
The first lie attacks God's goodness
indirectly by implying that God makes unreasonable demands.
The serpent misstates God's command. And the woman corrects
the serpent's misstatement but accepts his insinuation that
God makes unreasonable demands. This is the reason she
changes God's command by adding "neither shall you touch
it" (Gen. 3:3). This leads to the serpent's second lie. For
if it is unreasonable to forbid touching the fruit, then it
is unreasonable to think that she would die if she touched
it. This second lie attacks God's goodness directly by
implying that He is untruthful. This second lie is
supported by the implication of the statement in verse five
that God is withholding something good from them: "For God
knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
These lies are attacks on God's goodness and love. This is the first element of this satanic temptation: Satan begins with an attack on God's character. God's goodness is attacked indirectly and then directly. The second element of this satanic temptation is the offering of a substitute for the true God -- a false god, an idol (compare Matt. 4:8-10). Having undermined her faith and confidence in the goodness of God, the serpent offers Eve the knowledge of good and evil as a substitute for God. The third element in this temptation is the presenting of a method to obtain the substitute god. Satan implied that this knowledge of good and evil could be obtained only through the process of eating. This was part of Satan's strategy. He had to obscure the basic fact that knowledge, moral as well as scientific, is obtained by decision, a choice, an acceptance or rejection. Adam and Eve could have known good and evil by their acceptance of the good (obeying God's command) and their rejection of the evil (Satan's temptation to disobey God's command). Evil may be equally known in its rejection as in its acceptance. Rejection is a far better way to know evil, for one does not have receive the painful consequences of the choice of evil. The knowledge of good and evil was not something God was trying to keep from them, contrary to Satan's lie. God was trying to give to them in the only way possible, by decision, by a choice between good and evil. Of course it was necessary for Satan to obscure this fact that knowledge comes by decision. Otherwise there would be no necessity for eating of the fruit of the tree and thus disobeying God.
At the serpent's suggestion Eve ate of the tree and gave to her husband, Adam, who also ate (Gen. 3:6). Thus did man first sin. What was the nature of Adam's sin? Was it disobedince, unbelief, rebellion, or a transgression? It was all of these, but also something more. It was not merely something negative but something positive. It was idolatry. In Genesis 3:6 the Biblical explanation of Adam's sin is given:
"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,The woman saw it was good for food -- she had probably observed this many times before; we have no record that the serpent told her that. She saw that it was a delight to the eyes. She had surely noticed this before also. Neither of these appeals had previously made this fruit a temptation to her. It was the third element that made it a temptation: It was a tree to be desired to make one wise. As was seen above, the serpent added this element (Gen. 3:5). This was not a temptation to pride as some have affirmed; it was a temptation to put wisdom and knowledge in the place of God. Adam's sin was basically misplaced ultimate allegiance. It was not just unbelief but wrong faith: trust in that which is not God. The technical Biblical term for it is idolatry.
and that it was a delight to the eyes,
and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate;
and she also gave some to her husband and he ate."