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What Is
Man?
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Man has always tried to explain himself.
Oddly, he has tried to make that explanation a scientific one rather than
a spiritual one. He refuses to hear what God says, choosing rather to
invent fancy scientific reasons for man’s being here. His is a futile
exercise, doomed to failure. Only God knows man for what he really is.
Man is the most different of all God’s creatures. He is born with faculties for language, his means of communication between himself and God and between himself and his fellows. He is born with a sense that some things are right and some are wrong. He is possessed with a sense of ought, feeling guilty when he does wrong and feeling exonerated when he does what is right. In other words, he has a moral sense. Furthermore, man has an aesthetic nature, recognizing beautiful things with the eye and sensing special feelings for music, art, sculptor, photography and the like. Scientists can’t explain any of these things. Scientists can’t explain life. They don’t know when a man begins to live. They are at a loss to explain procreation, one of the most common occurrences in man’s life. They can’t put life in a test tube, subject it to certain chemicals and examine its components. They can’t look at it under a microscope or find its molecular structures. And what about death? Man can’t explain it. The corpse weighs the same, is the same height, has the same chemicals, is made up of the same things as it was just a few minutes before it died. What man can explain what happened? What went out of the man? It didn’t weigh anything, it had no substance, no chemical reality. What was it? What happened when life left him? What is life anyhow? God explains man. Not in scientific terms, but in spiritual terms. He is the highest of God’s creatures, the most significant thing about His creation. Man was created for the purpose of glorifying God. Not until He had created the heavens and the earth, all the various environs for man, did He create the man. He then placed him in his environment to tend to the earth and subdue it. When Solomon was given a wisdom above all that were before him it made him a fit person to see what life had to offer, to investigate “life under the sun.” He did it with gusto. He did it fully, holding back nothing. “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withold my heart from any pleasure,” he said. He filled his life with wealth, pleasure, beauty, agriculture, politics, travel, acquisitions of all sorts, experiments of all kinds. When he had tried it all—and I mean all—he said, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be bad” (Eccles. 12:13-14). C’est la vie, that’s life. What is man? Man is three things. Man is an agent. He is empowered to act. Man is not an automaton. He has a mind, he can distinguish, think, reason, decide (Josh. 24:10). He is, in a very real sense, autonomous, self governing. He can do what he wants to do. Man is a free agent. Man is not forced to do anything. He can choose. God will not impose His will on man, but He does hold man responsible for his choices, having given him a full revelation of what is right and wrong (2 Tim. 3:16-17). He will “bring every work into judgment.” Man is a moral agent. That is, he is possessed of moral equipment that imposes on him right decisions. First of all, he is fitted to understand what is good and what is evil, what is moral and what is immoral. He can be good or he can be bad (2 Cor. 7:9 -11). He understands that he must do as best as he can what is right and eliminate from his life what is wrong. Man is not just empowered to act, not just free to choose, but he is free to deliberately choose what is right; in doing so, he glorifies God. And, after all, isn’t that his real purpose in life? Anybody can glorify God. Do right and you will. Copyright (C) 2002
Southside Church of Christ |