BFM 2000 Series #3: Man

Introduction

What is mankind? Is there anything special about mankind compared to what we see around us each and every day? Is life unique? Why are we here? These are just some of the many questions being asked by humans all around the world on a daily basis. People want to know why we, as humans, are here and what makes us different from other life forms around us. Some humans think that there is nothing different about us than other creatures and they go as far as to say that science holds all the answers and that science tells us that we evolved from a small aquatic animal that existed several billions of years ago. Further, our society tells us that there is no such thing as gender or God-given roles because A) God doesn’t exist, and B) you can be whoever you want to be! You aren’t given anything at birth, you have to live your truth as you discover who you were meant to be. Our world is all sorts of confused at the moment regarding many issues and one of the biggest issues that we struggle with is the idea of who we are as humanity. Some think that we are essentially gods while others think that we aren’t important whatsoever and our lives don’t even matter in the grand scheme of things. Some people have a very high view of man and others have a sadly low view of man. What does the Bible share with us about humanity? Are we our own gods? Does our life even matter?

In the Bible we see, as we’ve been studying in Genesis, that humans are created uniquely by God - the sovereign Creator of all things! We see that He creates humanity in His image and He creates humanity distinct from one another - meaning there are 2 kinds of humans: Male, and female. Because of this, humans are not gods, but humans are extremely important! Every human life is important. Why is this the case? Because every human being, man, woman, tall, short, big, small, black, white, we’re all created in His image and therefore, should be given equal respect accordingly. While our lives do matter - we are also reminded in Genesis that there is a God and we are not Him.

As we continue our BFM study this evening, let’s see what Scripture shares about man, why mankind matters, where our society gets things wrong, and what God’s plan is for mankind.

“Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus 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 posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they 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.”

Genesis 1:26–30 CSB

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” 29 God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, 30 for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Genesis 2:18 CSB

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

Romans 3:10–12 CSB

10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

Romans 5:12 CSB

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.

Romans 5:19 CSB

19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Ephesians 2:1–3 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

1 Corinthians 15:53–57 CSB

53 For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. 54 When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. 55 Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

There are many other Scripture passages we could look at to see what the Bible shares with us about mankind and our nature and responsibilities, but this is a good start for us as we begin to look a little deeper into God’s purpose for mankind. Tonight’s study is important for next week’s study as we’ll look at salvation and tonight’s study will contrast last week’s study as we looked at God. Tonight we’ll look at who we are, what we have done, and where we are going.

Man is Unique

We all like feeling a little bit special. We like being affirmed and feeling as though we are doing a good job. As humans, we value first and last words immensely. I can’t wait to tell Gabriel one day that his first words were “dada” because that made me smile an awful lot several months ago! If you’ve ever been around a loved one whenever they pass, you know that last words have a way of staying with you long after they are gone. We know that Jesus’ last words left a profound effect on the disciples as they were told to be His witnesses and continue to make disciples. Last words stick with us and first words stand out to us. What do we see God initially say about humans?

Genesis 1:26–27 CSB

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

Let us make man in our image. Friends, as human beings, we are unique from all of creation because we are created in the imagio deo - the image of God! What does the image of God look like? One Bible dictionary defines the image of God as a term that distinguishes humanity from the animal and plant kingdoms and elevates humanity over all creation. Further, in the New Testament, it indicates that Christians have a responsibility to imitate Christ. As Gregory of Nazianzus put it, “Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God’s for His sake, since He for ours became man.” We are created in His image - this differentiates us from the rest of creation - and, because we are created in His image, we are supposed to live like Christ who is the image of God

Colossians 1:15 CSB

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Because we are created in His image and called to reflect Him to others in the manner by which we live our lives, we have to ask ourselves, “Is my life reflecting Jesus to others?” We are unique from creation and Christians are to be unique/set apart from non-Christians. This is a task that we cannot take lightly.

Human Life is Sacred

Just as humanity is unique as we, not animals, are created in God’s image, we are reminded throughout Scripture that human life is sacred. Did you know that this is something that sets Christianity against other ancient religions and against modern philosophical thought? Consider this for a moment, why does life matter? Or, does life matter in the first place? If your worldview tells you that humans evolved from apes and apes from other animals, why does a human life matter more than an animal life? We’re essentially glorified monkeys in this worldview. Our lives are cosmic accidents to modern people. There is nothing special and no greater purpose. Therefore, we should live it up in the time we have left. Be happy, do you, live it up because this life is all that there is. Ancient worldviews didn’t really look at human life any better, sadly. They didn’t think that humans evolved from other animals, instead many ancient cultures believed that we were created by the gods to more or less serve them and work to gain their pleasure. If you worked well enough and did enough good things for them, then they might bless you and help you out. Some of these so called gods demanded blood - human blood - in order for them to act on your behalf. Look at the disdain for human life in the Old Testament 2 Kings 3:26-27

2 Kings 3:26–27 CSB

26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took seven hundred swordsmen with him to try to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not do it. 27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to become king in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the city wall. Great wrath was on the Israelites, and they withdrew from him and returned to their land.

We see this being a common thing in other religions/cultures as well - making human sacrifices to appease the gods. This is something that the God of the Bible does not allow or desire as Deuteronomy 12:31 shares with us

Deuteronomy 12:31 CSB

31 You must not do the same to the Lord your God, because they practice every detestable act, which the Lord hates, for their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

Why would God not want human sacrifices? Because He is the creator of human life. He is the giver of life! Life is sacred and a gift! The Baptist Faith and Message shares this, “Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image… Every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.” All of this is because our God values life and gives us life. To people who think that life is meaningless and to be eliminated at the slightest of inconveniences or in duty to ones god, we simply say that every life matters.

How can we back up this statement? Have you heard some people argue that Christians are more anti-abortion than they are pro-life? I’ve heard this more times than I can count. Certainly, because we believe that human life is sacred, we are “pro-life” but this extends beyond the abortion topic. It must include all of life. Every life matters. Every person matters. Therefore, this is why Christians should care so much about adoption agencies, orphanages, homeless shelters, food pantries, blessing boxes, shoebox ministries, and so much more! If we’re going to say that life matters, our actions must back that statement and this is one reason why I’m proud to be a Southern Baptist because we regularly send money to these types of agencies.

Sin is Man’s Greatest Problem

As good as things are in being created in God’s image, we know that Scripture continues from Genesis 1 and 2 to Genesis 3 where we read of the fall of mankind. In Romans 5 we read of the significance of the fall as sin leads to death and death has spread to all mankind because of Adam’s sin. We all inherit this original sinful nature. You don’t have to teach a baby to disobey - I have a 1 year old who is already an expert at disobeying directions from his parents and you know that he knows because he laughs whenever he disobeys!

To a single mother who is struggling to make ends meet, what is her greatest problem? How about for an older man who is struggling with his health? How about a young child who is struggling with finding her identity? To each of these people and to every person on earth, our greatest problem is our sin. We face many real problems and people face problems to varying degrees, but our greatest problem according to the Bible is our sin. The BFM shares this, “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.” Things were good and then they were not. Sin separates us from God. Sin severs our relationship with other humans. Sin stirs up disobedience in our mind. We all have this sinful nature and we will battle against it for our entire lives, sadly. Yet, we see in the New Testament that sin does not get the last word for Christians - instead, we have been set free from the law of sin and death

Romans 8:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

If you are not in Christ Jesus, you are still under condemnation. The Bible shares with us that sin separates us from God and as we looked at in Ephesians 2, we are walking in darkness whenever we are still lost in sin. This is not a good situation to be in! The scary part of sin is that we are powerless to fight it. Sin is in our very being. It’s in our DNA. Left to ourselves, we will lose to sin each and every time as Paul talks about in Romans 7 as he shares that we have an internal struggle between the flesh and the spirit and our flesh wants to disobey God - this doesn’t mean that lost people can’t do good things, but we know that our good deeds will never outweigh our sinfulness. Left to ourselves, we as humans will die as lost sinners. But this isn’t where the story stops, by the grace of God.

Jesus Saves Sinful Humans

Romans 5 and Romans 8 are some of the most encouraging chapters in the New Testament as they remind us of our newfound status as Christians. Apart from Christ, we are lost in sin and bound for hell - but we read in Romans 5 that

Romans 5:8 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is what Jesus came to do! He came to live a perfect life, to die on the cross for sinners, and to raise to defeat sin and death once and for all! This is what has been done. How does this impact humans? We have a sinful nature, we are lost, we are separated, how does the death of Jesus help us? Romans 8 shares this with us

Romans 8:14–15 CSB

14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”

Through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, we are no longer slaves to sin - we are adopted as children of God. We have a new family! We are no longer under condemnation - the BFM shares this, “Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God.” This is what God the Son and God the Spirit do. The Son died so that we could be adopted and the Spirit convicts us of our sin and brings us into fellowship with the family of God.

We’ll look more at adoption next week as we study salvation but spiritual adoption is the greatest and most neglected doctrine in the church as a whole. Without Christ, we’re children of darkness, with Christ, we’re children of the light.

Conclusion

While our world might not agree with us that human life is sacred or anything special, the Bible disagrees. While our world might say that there are dozens of genders, the Bible disagrees. While our world might say that our greatest problem is carbon footprint, the Bible disagrees. While our world might say that the solution to our problem is a theory or idea, the Bible disagrees and shares that the only solution that solves our greatest problem is our Savior who paid it all!

The Bible shares that we are not random. You are not an accident. There is no such thing as an unplanned person to our purposeful, Sovereign, Father. Because He has a purpose for each one of us, we first must understand whose we are. We are His. We must understand what our purpose is. To know Him. We must understand what our responsibility is as His children. To make Jesus known.

Every human being is a work in progress. We’re not perfect - but we’re also not a miserable wreck. We are designed by our Creator. We are known by our Lord. We are being worked on through His Spirit. This is the process of sanctification - the process of being made to be more like Jesus Christ! This isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it. As Paul shares in Ephesians 2, we must remember

Ephesians 2:18–19 CSB

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,

The only appropriate response is to say: Thank you Jesus!