What Is Man?
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Introduction
Introduction
This is a basic philosophic existential question. What is man? What is man in the totality of things? Depending on your focus you could answer that question differently. Following the theory put forth by Darwin man is essentially insignificant. If you focus only on the natural world or “everything under the sun” you must look at everything without a creator. The evolutionary process relegates man to be being nothing more than a product of accidental chance and just another animal species on the earth.
If you look to the “accomplishments” of man a tendency to worship men and think they are great - worthy of worship comes bubbling up. Ability to make great wonders of the world. Tower of Babel, Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, Empire after empire. Each at its time significant and an achievement - but none have stood the test of time. Each has crumbled and gone away.
Ecclesiastes 1 - the Philosophy of Solomon is futile - when viewed in the perspective of under the sun.
Psalm 8 is written by David and it is for the choir director on the Gittith. A gittith perhaps referring to Gath - a tune from there or an instrument, perhaps a song sung over Goliath? While we are not entirely clear on the meaning we have some convincing opinions.
Tracing the Hebrew to its roots, conceive it to mean a song for the winepress, a joyful song for the treader of grapes. Another belief is while it means winepress it could indicate an instrument shaped like a winepress. The Greeks took the word and the instrument which it represented and called it a kithara and from that comes the Spanish guitarria and our English word guitar.
The term gittith is applied to two other Psalms (81 and 84) both of which being of a joyous character. It is safe to assume that where we gittith we look for a joyful Psalm.
Another possible title to the Psalm is the song of the astronomer. God is indescribably great, and man in contrast is puny and insignificant. Yet there is a conferred glory and honor from God upon man. This Psalm demonstrates an eloquent grasp of the wonder of this fact from David - that helps us to answer the philosophical question of what is man -balanced understanding gained by looking at the night time sky.
“There is much in the scenery of a nocturnal sky, to lift the soul to pious contemplation.” Spurgeon.
1 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty. 2 From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, 4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? 5 You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 7 all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, 8 the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!
God’s Magnificent Majesty
God’s Magnificent Majesty
1 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty. 2 From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger.
The answer to the question begins by looking to the creator and not to the created to determine its use, worth or significance. David didnt and I am not going to either; defend the fact of a Creator I am taking it as an agreed upon belief and a fact knowable by all.
19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
David looks to the creator - God and says LORD our Lord. If you look closely in your Bible LORD is all caps and the second Lord only capitalizes the L and this is by design and not typo or grammatical error. LORD all caps is used when the name of God - the tetragrammaton YHWH is used - which we usually ascribe either Jehova or Yahweh. This is the name of God given to Moses at the burning bush.
13 Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” 14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”
I AM WHO I AM is also all caps - again this is the Tetragrammaton. I AM WHO I AM is the name of God. Now the second Lord - single letter capitalized is the word Adonai - Lord and or Master. The first LORD is the name of God and the second is the title or position of Yahweh to His people.
The name of God is a covenant name - I AM WHO I AM - is because God in many way s reveals Himself and His love and His character through the names He gives.
Jehovah or Yahweh Jireh - the Lord who provides
Jehovah or Yahweh Rophe - the Lord who heals
Yahweh Nissi - the Lord is your banner
Yahweh-M’Keddesh - the Lord makes you holy
El Roi - the Lord who sees me and cares
El the mighty God the strong one
El Elohim - Plural of Majesty
Yahweh Elohim - the Lord God the Lord God Almighty
David recognizes the covenant name of God LORD and His title Lord. The Lord has as many titles as He does names and each one tells of His strength, power, majesty, knowledge, His character, His promises. Truly how magnificent is His name throughout all the earth! Magnificent speaks of the majestic, awe inspiring, and reverence calling character of the name of God. A name was more than what you called someone a name is what defined someone.
Ecclesiastes 7:1 (CSB)
1 A good name is better than fine perfume
You have covered the heavens - the abode of God and the angels with Your majesty. Majesty evident throughout creation. God’s glory is higher than the heavens. If only person has eyes to see and look around the world is teeming with the fingerprints and the wisdom and power of God our creator.
God’s sovereignty is encompassed as we think of His majesty as well. The words Magnificent and Majestic always direct my mind to royalty and those who sit on thrones. The power of God displayed through the weakness and frailty of mankind. From the mouths of nursing babies and infants the Lord has established (assigned a duty or responsibility) a stronghold (strength - whether physically or mentally strong) on account of your adversaries. The NIV translates the word instead of stronghold but praises. The idea that the sovereign authority of God is that the weak shall confound the strong.
27 Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
The weakness of mankind represents the strength of God throughout the heavens and the earth. There is glory of God in heaven seen in creation but nothing compared to what is shown through redemption.
14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant
16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?”
The praises of the people of God have a strength and a power which nothing can withstand.
3 But you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
God inhabits the praises of His people - where the people praise Him God is there.
Man’s Seeming Insignificance
Man’s Seeming Insignificance
3 When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, 4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?
David on this thought takes the two points together - Gods creation and mans redemption to ask the question what is a human being -what is man? David says I observe and I perceive Your heavens - the moon and the stars and your work in them. Staring at the night sky - perhaps still a shepherd David sees the moon and the stars and how they are placed in their very spots by the Lord wonders in light of all you are who are we as man - more importantly who am I?
No branch of science proclaims God’s greatness and man’s insignificance more powerfully than astronomy. Measuring distance your new ruler is a light year - the distance light travels in a year. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second and there are 31.5 million seconds in a year - if my math is still good that equates to roughly 6 trillion miles in a single year. Some stars that we are seeing are billions of light-years away. The size of the universe is such that if we could travel at the speed of light it would take 40 billion years.
When you look at up at night and consider the heavens we are once again confronted with greatness of God and our own seeming insignificance
An explorer by the name of William Beebe was a good friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. Sometimes when he visited the President at Sagamore Hill, the two men would go outdoors at night to see who could first locate the Andromeda galaxy. Then, as they gazed at the tiny smudge of distant starlight, one of them would recite,
“That is the spiral galaxy of Andromeda. It’s as large as our Milky Way. It is one of 100 million galaxies. It is 750,000 light years away. It consists of 100 billion suns, each larger than our sun.”
Then Roosevelt would grin and say, “Now I think we are small enough! Let’s go to bed.”
6 The heavens were made by the word of the Lord, and all the stars, by the breath of his mouth.
Planet earth is a speck of dust in the universe and if this is so what is a single man perched upon this planet?
17 What is a mere human, that you think so highly of him and pay so much attention to him? 18 You inspect him every morning, and put him to the test every moment.
3 Lord, what is a human that you care for him, a son of man that you think of him?
One of my favorite groups is Casting Crowns and they have a song called Who Am I and it is a look how insignificant we as people are yet God cares to know us
Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the bright and morning star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart?
David acknowledges that despite the seeming insignificance of man God still remembers man and looks after - cares for Him. God is interested in every individual and has personal intimate concern for every human being. David does not doubt that God is mindful just wonders why. As we share in David’s question let us also share in His confidence that God is mindful of us. It is amazing to consider that as insignificant as man is; that God - Lord of the Universe even thinks about man at all let alone that He cares for Him immensely.
God’s Divine Purpose for Man
God’s Divine Purpose for Man
5 You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
7 all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, 8 the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas.
The answer to the question “What is man” is that man is what God has created Him to be. God has created man to be His representative on earth. David picks this up amazed that God has exalted weak finite man to such a place where he was crowned with glory and honor. Instead of humans being a little higher than animals as evolutionists would postulate, we are actually a little lower than God. Man as co-regents of creation with God!
God made man in His own image and after His own likeness. Though lower than God man shares some qualities not shared by any other order of creation. Everything created was pronounced good by God and when man was created His pronouncement was that it was very good.
5 For he has not subjected to angels the world to come that we are talking about. 6 But someone somewhere has testified: What is man that you remember him, or the son of man that you care for him? 7 You made him lower than the angels for a short time; you crowned him with glory and honor
8 and subjected everything under his feet. For in subjecting everything to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him. 9 But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone—crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death.
The author of Hebrews notes man’s low estate relates only to this world - because of sin man never had the dominion he was given in creation. Hebrews quotes Psalm 8 to contrast man with the Jesus Christ the Son of Man and the last Adam. Jesus really did add a genuinely human nature to His divine nature also becoming a little lower than the angels.
45 So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
All things will be subjected to Christ as He has regained the dominion for us and will one day share it with us when He reigns in His kingdom.
Conclusion
Conclusion
9 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!
As David again considered these things and the dominion God had given to man - it led to more praise of God. This humble creature - insignificant and humble in light of the majesty of the universe, in light of it position being lower than the angels yet given such a place of authority and dominion - losing it God instead of forgetting man - redeems man and promises to restore place of honor and glory and dominion - this demonstrates the excellence and the goodness of God.
The chorus of the Casting Crowns song is this
Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are
This has a marvelous truth for us what is man comes from the glory of God and not from anything we have done or could ever do.
These verses are made up of holy wonder at the Lord’s greatness in creation, and at his condescension towards man. Poole, in his annotation, has well said, “It is a great question among interpreters, whether this Psalm speaks of man in general, and of the honour which God puts upon him in his creation; or only of the man Christ Jesus. Possibly both may be reconciled and put together, and the controversy, if rightly stated, may be ended, for the scope and business of this Psalm seems plainly to be this: to display and celebrate the great love and kindness of God to mankind, not only in his creation, but especially in his redemption by Jesus Christ, whom, as he was man, he advanced to the honour and dominion here mentioned, that he might carry on his great and glorious work. So Christ is the principal subject of this Psalm, and it is interpreted of him, both by our Lord himself (Matt. 21:16), and by his holy apostle (1 Cor. 15:27) Spurgeon in his works the Treasury of David
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.