Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:14-16

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides them, I do not know whether I baptized any other.
1 Corinthians 1:14-16, Modern English Version (MEV)

The Apostle Paul recognized a problem that plagues us even today, the issue of making our spiritual leaders into stars. It can be a particularly vexing problem for those leaders who, although they themselves keep Jesus in front of them, their admirers view them much too highly. While some leaders are themselves divisive, it often isn't until that leader is gone that their followers use, or twist, their teachings to become divisive. This becomes particularly acute with our modern communications technology which can reach around the world.

Reflections on Genesis 1:26-27 – Part 7

Proofs of the Divine in man

To this day no fact in natural history remains more conspicuous than the strong contrast betwixt man and every other animal, in their relations to nature--particularly in their power to master and utilize the forces of nature. Once man appears upon the globe, no matter how he came there, he reacts upon his environment in a way that is possible to no other organism. In popular language, he is not the mere “creature of circumstances” in the same sense in which that may be affirmed of other creatures. To a large and growing degree, he makes his own world--modifying, conquering, counteracting, utilizing the forces of nature, with its living productions, to his own ends. This process, which the venerable book before us calls “subduing” the earth, and which it regards as a special task assigned to our human family, is due to two faculties peculiar to man. The first is the power to store up his observations upon nature and compare them, until by degrees the laws according to which her forces operate come to be understood: the result of this power is science. Next, is the power to recombine matter in fresh combinations so as to utilize the forces of nature for new ends of his own: the results of this we term the Mechanical Arts. Neither of these two faculties exists in any other animal, save in the most rudimentary form. These two in combination have given birth to human civilization. Man enlarges his power from day to day, while the very ball on which he is a pigmy resident seems to contract itself in his grasp. Space and time are nearly annihilated: seas almost cease to divide; the engineer alters even the face of the land; matter becomes less and less our enemy, more and more our minister. By science and by art, we are entering upon a veritable “dominion” over this globe which God has given us to possess, and a crown is set upon man’s head of “glory and honour.” I do not pause to insist upon the strange foresight exhibited in these ancient words, or how strangely the destiny of our race which was thus foreshadowed in the dim dawn of history has come to be fulfilled in our time. Let me rather ask you to notice how revelation at its outset is not content to recognize this mastery of man over the rest of nature as his preeminent function--it undertakes already to explain it. It assigns a reason for it. It finds that reason in the constitution of human nature itself, viz., in man’s dual nature, and especially in his resemblance on one side of his two-fold being to his Creator. “God made man in His own likeness.” Now, to do justice to this theory, accounting for man’s supremacy and power over nature, we must bear in mind that when it assigns to man a dual origin it is in order to correspond with the dual constitution which he possesses. In the picturesque and poetic style of primitive thinkers, man came in part from the “dust of the ground,” and in part from “the breath of God.” In other words, he is on one side of his being a mundane product, fashioned, or, more probably evolved, out of material nature, under the operation of the same biological laws which account for the origin of other species on the globe; but on another side he is something more than that, a spiritual being possessed of a different order of life from that which we find in other species, a life which natural evolution fails to account for. The truth of that statement depends on facts which lie outside the sphere of biology as one of the physical sciences--lie in the region of metaphysics and of religion. They must justify themselves to other observation than that of the five senses. Nay, we may go further and say: So long as there remains a class of facts in human consciousness, of whose origin biology can give no account--facts, for example, like the sense of duty, the instinct of worship, the feeling of responsibility, the desire to pray, or the yearning after immortality--so long is it only scientific to postulate like Scripture a second origin for man’s nature. The dual constitution of this exceptional creature, so long as it cannot be resolved into unity, calls for a dual cause to account for it. If the breath of the beast, and of the animal life in man too, goeth downward, “returning to the earth as it was,” shall not the spirit of man go upward, “returning to God who gave it”? So much as man possesses in common with the brutes, comes from “the dust of the ground”--that physical science will explain to us. So much as separates man from the brutes and makes him a scientific, inventive, responsible, and religious animal--this demands another explanation. Can we find a better than the old one--“God breathed into man the breath of life,” or “God created man in His own image”? I do not claim this scriptural theory of man’s spiritual origin as a result of the modern science of anthropology. On the contrary, I believe it to be a revelation. At the same time, the facts seem to call for some such extra-physical cause; and so far, nothing equally good even as a working hypothesis has been discovered. The spiritual nature of man is a fact, as I have said, both of metaphysics and of religion: and neither metaphysics nor religion has yet been swallowed up (like the magicians’ rods) by physical science. It was not along the road of metaphysical speculation, however, that the Hebrews reached the great fact that man is a spiritual being akin to his Creator. That road was travelled by the Greek mind. St. Paul found in Greek poetry traces of the same truth; and Greek poetry had learned it from Greek philosophy. That “we are the offspring of Zeus” was the result of observing human nature on its intellectual and ethical side rather than on its religious. But the Hebrews were not a speculative, they were preeminently a religious, people: and when they said, man is akin to Jehovah and wears His likeness, they meant that they were profoundly conscious through their own religious experience of having much in common with a personal God. It was by their devotional instincts, first and chiefly, and by the spiritual fellowship they were conscious of enjoying with the Living Object of their worship, that the great Hebrews, like Moses, David, Isaiah, or Paul, realized man’s kinship with the Eternal, in spite of those obvious ties which link him as an organism to brute life upon the globe. Unquestionably this is, if one can attain it, the surest demonstration of all. The religious man who, in his worship and in the inward crises of his experience, finds that he can fling himself forth upon the unseen, and, in the darkness, where sense avails no longer, can touch One who is a real person like himself--can exchange with that awful invisible One personal confidences and affections, can ask and receive, can love and be loved, can lean and be upheld; he knows with certainty that he is born of God and akin to God. To be conscious from day to day of an interior life, utterly apart from that of sensation, to which life God forms the ever-present conditioning environment, just as nature surrounds and conditions my animal life--this is to be as sure that God is, and that my spirit is kindred with His, as I am sure that nature is, and that my organism corresponds to it. No one who actually leads this super sensuous life of personal intercourse with God will ask or care for any lower proof that man’s spirit wears God’s likeness. But although the religious experience of mankind be the leading proof that we are made in a Divine likeness, it is far from being the only one. From man religious I fall back on man scientific, and inquire if even his achievements do not imply that he is akin to his Maker. Could man be the student and master of nature that he is, were he not in some real sense intellectually akin to nature’s Maker? Does not the dominion which he is come to wield through science over physical forces argue in favour of that anthropology of Genesis which says, God’s own breath is in him. The great masters of science tell us that they experience a very keen intellectual delight in tracing out the hidden unity of forces and of the laws of force by which this vast complex world is reduced to simplicity. It is not from the observation of isolated facts that this intellectual pleasure springs. It arises when the observer becomes aware of something more than a crowd of isolated facts. Of what more? Of some relationship binding facts together--binding together whole classes of facts; as, for example, of an identical force at work in widely sundered departments of being, or of correlated forces; of a type-form running through large families of organisms, underlying their diversities; of universal laws creating cosmical order amid such a multiplicity of details. The studious mind becomes aware of an ordering, designing Mind. The thought with which God began to work leaps up anew for the first time after all these intervening cycles of dead material change, leaps up in a kindred mind. The dead world knew not what its Maker meant, as change succeeded change, and race was evolved out of race, and cycle followed cycle; but I know. Across it all, we two understand each other--He, and I His child. Is not science a witness to the likeness of God in the mind of man? But I cannot dwell on this, for I should like to suggest in a word how the Divine image in man further reveals itself when, from being a student of nature, he goes on to be its imitator. The arts are, one and all of them, so many imitations of nature, that is, of the Divine working upon matter. For example, we discover the dynamical laws of matter, and at once set about imitating their natural applications in our mechanics. We discover the laws of chemical affinity and combination; and we set about bringing into existence such combinations as we require, or resolving compounds into their elements, at our pleasure. We discover the laws of electrical force, and straightway we proceed to utilize it as a motor or a light. In short, we have no sooner learnt His method from the Author of nature (which is the task of science) than we try to copy it and become ourselves workers, makers, builders, designers, modellers, just like Himself, only on our own reduced and petty scale. Thus our artificial products, like our science, bears witness to the ancient word: “There is a Spirit in man; and the breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” Here, therefore, I return to the point item which I set out. Along this two-fold road, of science, which traces out the thoughts of God; and of art, which imitates His working in obedience to known laws, man fulfils his destined function according to the ancient oracle of Genesis. He “subdues the earth” and wins dominion over it. He is the solitary creature on earth who even attempts such a function. He is fitted for it by his exceptional nearness to, and likeness to, the Creator. He can be the student and the copyist of God’s works, because he was made in the image of God. Just in proportion as he realizes this godlike lordship over the globe, with its dead and living contents--a lordship based on his deciphering and sharing the Creator’s thoughts--in that proportion does he approach the lofty position which Scripture assigns to him, and in which Scripture recognizes his crown of glory and honour. But “we see not yet all things put under him.” During the long ages past it has been merely a faint shadow of royalty man has enjoyed. In the main, natural forces have mastered him. So they do still over a great portion of the earth. Science and art in this late age of man certainly seem to sweep rapidly to their goal, winning and recording year by year victories such as were never seen before. Notwithstanding, men are still far from satisfied, and complain that the physical ills of life and of society are far from overcome--all things far from being put under man’s feet. What is to be the future condition of humanity, its final condition, in relation to nature? Is its lordship to grow much more perfect than we see it? Shall nature ever yield up all her secrets, or stoop to serve our welfare with all her forces? I know nothing that pretends to answer such inquiries save Christianity. And her answer is: We see Jesus, sole and perfect type of man’s likeness to God, Representative and Forerunner of humanity redeemed; and Him we see already exalted to an ideal height of mastery over nature, crowned with the ancient royalty promised to our race, Head over all, with the world beneath His feet. (J. O.Dykes, D. D.)

Care for the body

If one should send me from abroad a richly carved and precious statue, and the careless drayman who tipped it upon the sidewalk before my door should give it such a blow that one of the boards of the box should be wrenched off, I should be frightened lest the hurt had penetrated further, and wounded it within. But if, taking off the remaining hoards and the swathing-bands of straw or cotton, the statue should come out fair and unharmed, I should not mind the box, but should cast it carelessly into the street. Now, every man has committed to him a statue, moulded by the oldest Master, of the image of God; and he who is only solicitous for outward things, who is striving to protect merely the body from injuries and reverses, is letting the statue go rolling away into the gutter, while he is picking up the fragments, and lamenting the ruin of the box. (H. W. Beecher.)

Man made in the image of God

1. It is the only basis of revelation.
2. It is a rational basis of the Incarnation.
3. A rational basis for the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
4. The foundation of those glorious hopes that are set before us in the New Testament. (M. Gibson, D. D.)

The defaced image

But as the image of a sovereign is effaced from old coins; or as the original expression is lost from the old figure-head on the exposed building; or as “decay’s effacing fingers” soon destroy all beauty from the dead body; so sin speedily and effectually spoiled, or obliterated, the moral image of God from the soul of man. At Bournemouth I lately noticed some stunted, misshapen shrubs, which were neither useful nor ornamental, and which were a degenerate growth of the fine trees abounding in that neighbourhood, or of the yet finer forests of fir in Norway. So what a contrast there is between the lowest and the highest trees of men around us; and between the highest types now and what man was at first. (H. R. Burton.)

Man in God’s kingdom

The king of Prussia, while visiting a village in his land, was welcomed by the school children of the place. After their speaker had made a speech for them he thanked them. Then taking an orange from a plate, he asked: “To what kingdom does this belong?” “The vegetable kingdom, sire,” replied a little girl. The king took a gold coin from his pocket and, holding it up, asked: “And to what kingdom does this belong?” “To the mineral kingdom,” said the girl. “And to what kingdom do I belong, then?” asked the king. The little girl coloured deeply, for she did not like to say, “the animal kingdom,” as she thought she would, lest his majesty should be offended. Just then it flashed into her mind that “God made man in His own image,” and looking up with a brightening eye, she said, “To God’s kingdom, sire.” The king was deeply moved. A tear stood in his eye. He placed his hand on the child’s head and said, most devoutly, “God grant that I may be accounted worthy of that kingdom!”

The Biblical Illustrator edited by Joseph S. Exell M.A.

*********************

Reflections on Genesis 1:26-27 – Part 6

Man created in God’s image

1. Whatever may be the difficulties this text of ours presents to expositors and divines, the main fact it embodies and sets forth is so clearly expressed as to exclude the possibility of a difference of opinion respecting it. And this fact is none other than that our first parents were created by God, and this in His image and likeness. This plain statement of Holy Writ, that man has been created, is nevertheless considered by many scientists of our days as being utterly erroneous and untenable.
2. It must have been a most solemn moment in the history of creation when, at the close of it, God undertook to create man, who was to complete and crown His marvellous six days’ work. What this world would have been without man we can easily picture to ourselves when we read the descriptions by explorers and travellers of those parts of our globe never inhabited or cultivated by man. We know that without man’s care and attention many things in nature would have gradually disappeared, others again would not have developed to such a state of perfection as they have attained to. Besides this, nature without man, who combines in himself the material and spiritual, the natural and supernatural, and thus forms a reasonable and necessary link between nature and its Creator, would have lacked a high and noble aim worthy of the great Creator.
3. God created man in His image, after His likeness. (A. Furst, D. D.)

Love in the creation of man

In man animal organization is carried to its highest. That which in the quadruped is a comparatively insignificant member becomes in man the hand, so wonderful in its powers, so infinitely versatile in its applications. That tongue, which the rest of animal creation possess, but which the highest among them use only for inarticulate signals, becomes in him the organ of articulate speech, so marvellous in its construction, and its uses. And of the same rich bestowal of the best of God’s gifts of life and life’s benefits on man, many other examples might be, and have been given. But it is not in man as the highest form of organized animal life that we are to seek for exemplification of the declaration in my text. His erect form, his expressive eye, his much-working hand--his majesty in the one sex, and beauty in the other--these may excite our admiration, and lead us to praise Him who made us; but in none of these do we find the image of God. God is without body, parts, or passions. He is above and independent of all organized matter: it sprung from the counsel of His will, it is an instrument to show forth His love and praise, but it is not, and cannot be, in His image. But let us advance higher. God bestowed on man, as on the tribes beneath him, a conscious animal soul. And here let me remind you that I follow, as I always wish to do, that Scriptural account and division of man, according to which the soul, the ψυχὴ of the New Testament, is that thinking and feeling and prompting part of him, which he possesses in common with the brutes that perish; and which I will call for clearness, his animal soul. Now here again, though he possesses it in common with them, God has given it, in him, a wonderfully higher degree of capability and power. The merely sentient capacities of the animal soul in the most degraded of men are immeasurably above those of the animal soul in the most exalted of brutes,--however he may be surpassed by them in the acuteness Of the bodilysenses. And again, in speaking of man, we cannot stop with these animal faculties. To the brute, they are all. It is obvious, then, that we must not look for God’s image in man in this his animal soul, because this is confessedly not his highest part; because it is informed and ennobled by something above it: moreover, because it is naturally bound to the organization of his material body. And this point is an important one to be borne in remembrance. It is not in our mental capacities, nor in any part of our sentient being, that we can trace our likeness to God; whenever we speak of any or of all of these in the treatment of this subject, we must look beyond them, and beyond the aggregate of them, for that of which we are in search. What, then, is that part of man at which we have been pointing in these last sentences? that soul of his soul, that ennobler of his faculties, that whose acknowledged dignity raises him far above the animal tribes, with whom he shares the other parts of his being? Let us examine his position, as matter of fact. By what is he distinguished from all other animals, in our common speech and everyday thought? Shall we not all say that it is by this--that whereas we regard each animal as merely a portion of animatedmatter, ready to drop back again into inanimate matter, the moment its organization is broken down--we do not thus regard ourselves or our fellow men, but designate every one of them as a person, a term which cannot be used of any mere animal? And is it not also true, that to this personality we attach the idea of continuous responsibility--of abiding praise or blame? To what is this personality owing? Not to the body, however perfect its organization; not to the animal soul, however wonderful its faculties; but to the highest part of man--his spirit. And here it is that we must look for man’s relation to God. God is a Spirit; and He has breathed into man a spirit, in nature and attributes related to Himself: which spirit rules and informs, and takes up into itself, and ennobles, as we have seen, his animal soul. This spirit is wonderfully bound up with the soul and the body. The three make up the man in his present corporeal state--but the spirit alone carries the personality and responsibility of the man. The body, with its organization and sentient faculties, is only a tent wherein the spirit dwells; itself is independent of its habitation, and capable of existing without it. The spirit of man makes the essential distinction between him and the lower animals. His spirit, his divine part, that Whereby he can rise to and lay hold of God, was made in the image of God. And this leads us to the second division of our inquiry, How was man’s spirit created in the image of God? What ideas must we attach to these words, “the image of God”? To this question but one answer can be given, and that in simple and well-known words. God is love: this is all we know of His essential character. He Who is Love, made man, man’s spirit, after His own image. That is, He made man’s spirit, love--even as He is love. In this consisted the perfection of man as he camefrom the hands of His Creator--that his whole spirit was filled with love. Now what did this imply? clearly, a conscious spirit; for love is the state of a knowing, feeling, conscious being. What more? as clearly a spirit conscious of God; knowing Him who loved it, and loving Him in return. Faith is the organ by which the spirit reaches forth to God. We never can repeat or remember too often, that faith is “appropriating belief”; not belief in the existence of God as a bare fact, distant and inoperative, but belief in Him as our God--the God who loves us--the God who seeks our good--the God to whom we owe ourselves--the God who is our portion andour exceeding great reward. And it is essential to faith, that we should not, speaking strictly, know all this--not have hold of every particular detail of it--not master the subject, as men say; this would not be faith, but knowledge. We are masters of that which we know; but we are servants of that which we believe. And therefore man, created in the image of God, loving God, dependent on God, tending upwards to God, is created in a state of faith. By this faith his love was generated--by believing God as his God--by unlimited trust of His love, and uninterrupted return of that love. And O what does not this description imply, that is holy, and tending to elevate and bless man? “Love,” says the apostle, “is the bond of perfectness”; and the same command of our Lord, which we read in one place of the Gospel, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect”; in another runs, “Be ye merciful,” i.e. loving, “even as your Father is merciful.” One remark more. On this image of God depends the immortality of man’s spirit; not on its own nature, as some have dreamed. As it had a beginning, so it might have an end. It can only be immortal by being united to Him who liveth forever. God’s love called into being those who were in its own image, kindred to itself, bound to itself by love; how can we conceive that love annihilating again such kindred objects of its own good pleasure? And this immortality is not removed by sin: for it lies at the root of the race--is its essential attribute, not an accident of its being. (Dean Alford.)

The state of innocence

The name of Adam suggests to us at once the estate from which the human race has fallen, the cause of that fall, the vast forfeit that one man made to God; and naturally awakens in our own minds questions as to our lost inheritance. Would Adam have died if he had never fallen? If he had lived, would he have continued in paradise, or been translated into heaven? What was his condition in paradise? Was it one of probation and of interior sufferings dependent on such a state, or was it one of entire freedom from all such trial? And lastly (and this is most important in such probation), was Adam indued with a supernatural power, or did he simply depend on the gifts of his original creation? To these four questions I will append one brief inquiry in addition. Had our first parents a claim to eternal happiness by the right of their original creation, or in virtue of some covenant made with them by God?

1. With regard then to the first of the above questions, a very slight examination of Holy Scripture will assure us that Adam would not have died in an unfallen state. As is always the case in the direct intercourse of God with His creature, a covenant was made between the two, the terms of which were clearly defined. “Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”; and the woman, in stating the terms of the covenant, says, “God hath saith, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” Now these propositions clearly involve the power of inversion, and imply that, in the event of their not eating the forbidden fruit, they shall live and not die; that is, their death was simply and only dependent on breach of the covenant. The same point is clearly ascertained by a comparison of 1Co_15:1-58 and Rom_5:1-21, both with the separate parts of each and one with another.

2. I will now approach the second branch of the subject, namely, the question, whether Adam would have remained, had he not fallen, an inhabitant of paradise; or been translated into the immediate presence of God in heaven. There seem to be four especial reasons, amongst many others, for concluding that the latter would have been the case; for, in the first place, it is apparent that in the case of all covenants, such as those which God made with man, there is a punishment annexed to the breach of the terms of such covenant, and a reward annexed to their fulfilment; and inasmuch as this punishment would involve a worse condition for the fallen party than the one which he occupied at the period of the ratification of the covenant; so, on the other hand, a superior condition is the reward of the fulfilment of those terms. Now the fall of Adam at once brought upon him the loss of paradise, that is, the inferior condition; and, by parity of reasoning, had he not fallen but endured his probation, it would have secured to him translation to heaven itself, or a superior condition. But I pass on to the second reason on which I base my belief that Adam would have been eventually translated to heaven. He was clearly possessed of the perfect power of self-will; he had vast and manifold opportunities of exercising it; he was placed in the immediate presence of a piercing temptation; be daily passed the tree of knowledge on his visit to the tree of life. So acute was that temptation, that in spite of the continual presence of
Jehovah, of the purity of the nature hitherto innocent, of the innate image of God, be exercised that power of free will, and he fell. For what could all of the powers have been given him? and why should he have been placed in such a position, unless some great attainment beyond what he at that moment enjoyed was to be placed within his grasp? To imagine otherwise would be inconsistent with the whole analogy of God’s providence. But, thirdly, I spoke above of the external support which was continually necessary from the Divine Being for the preservation of Adam’s natural life; a state of continued exertion is unnatural to the Deity; a state of repose is His true condition; consequently we cannot imagine but that the first Adam was eventually to have been placed in a position in which continued life was natural to him. Even the daily visit of the Almighty to the garden of Eden implied a transitory, and not a permanent condition. But, fourthly, though the fact of sinning involved death to the natural body, it by no means follows that the absence of sin leaves that natural body in the same condition, but rather we should expect it would tend to elevate it, as much as the fall into sin depressed it.

3. I will now pass on to the third head, the moral condition of our first parents in Eden. There is a popular impression, not unfrequently given children and ignorant persons, that our first parents were in a state of entire freedom from any kind of suffering. Now the presence of an object highly desirable to the eye and the mind, while the moral agent is fully possessed of the power of free will and yet under a strong bias towards a different direction from that desire, in itself implies a condition of very considerable mental suffering, and in this condition clearly our first parents were placed, for we are distinctly told that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in the first place highly desirable to the eye; and secondly, to the mind, inasmuch as it imparted the keenest knowledge of right and wrong; consequently no misapprehension could be greater than that our first parents were without probation, and all its attending trials; nay more, we are bound to consider how intense must have been the desire after knowledge, a thing in itself so innocent and elevated, in so sublime a creature as Adam was, fresh from the hands of the Creator, and having as yet no bias in favour of wickedness; besides which, some exquisite external beauty seems to have arrayed the tree of knowledge, which made it the more fascinating to Adam and Eve, as we gather from the terms that it was desirable to the eye. From all this it is clear Adam was in a state of very keen probation.

4. With what power did Adam approach the scene of his temptation? Was it with the original power of his creation or some supernatural gift of the Spirit? Surely with the latter. (E. Monro, M. A.)

Reflections on Genesis 1:26-27 – Part 5

The image of God

I. GOD’S DECREE. God consults with Himself. Complex nature of Deity.

II. MAN’S DIGNITY. Nearer to God’s own nature than other animals. A moral being.

III. MAN’S DOMINION. Lessons:

1. Our position of dignity should strengthen our sense of duty.
2. Our relationship to God should encourage us to noble aims.
3. In Jesus Christ man is restored to the image of God and to the hope of a high and blessed destiny. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)

The vastness of man

“Let Us make man in Our image.” Such is man’s height, and depth, and breadth, and mystery. He has not come from one principle or distinction of the Divine nature, but out of all principles. Man is the image of the whole Deity. There is in him a sanctuary for the Father, for the Son, and for the Holy Ghost. (J. Pulsford.)
The making of man

There is surely no bolder sentence in all human speech. It takes an infinite liberty with God! It is blasphemy if it is not truth. We have been accustomed to look at the statement so much from the human point that we have forgotten how deeply the Divine character itself is implicated. To tell us that all the signboards in Italy were painted by Raphael is simply to dishonour and bitterly humiliate the great artist. We should resent the suggestion that Beethoven or Handel is the author of all the noise that passes under the name of music. Yet we say, God made man. Here is the distinct assurance that God created man in His own image and likeness; in the image of God created He him. This is enough to ruin any Bible. This is enough to dethrone God. Within narrow limits any man would be justified in saying, If man is made in the image of God, I will not worship God who bears such an image. There would be some logic in this curt reasoning, supposing the whole case to be on the surface and to be within measurable points. So God exists to our imagination under the inexpressible disadvantage of being represented by ourselves. When we wonder about Him we revert to our own constitution. When we pray to Him we feel as if engaged in some mysterious process of self-consultation. When we reason about Him the foot of the ladder of our reasoning stands squarely on the base of our own nature. Yet, so to say, how otherwise could we get at God? Without some sort of incarnation we could have no starting point. We should be hopelessly aiming to seize the horizon or to hear messages from worlds where our language is not known. So we are driven back upon ourselves--not ourselves as outwardly seen and publicly interpreted, but our inner selves, the very secret and mystery of our soul’s reality. Ay; we are now nearing the point. We have not been talking about the right “man” at all. The “man” is within the man; the “man” is not any one man; the “man” is Humanity. God is no more the man we know than the man himself is the body we see. Now we come where words are of little use, and where the literal mind will stumble as in the dark. Truly we are now passing the gates of a sanctuary, and the silence is most eloquent. We have never seen man; he has been seen only by his Maker! As to spirit and temper and action, we are bankrupts and criminals. But the sinner is greater than the sin. We cannot see him; but God sees him; yes, and God loves him in all the shame and ruin. This is the mystery of grace. This is the pity out of which came blood, redemption, forgiveness, and all the power and glory of the gospel. We cannot think of God having made man without also thinking of the responsibility which is created by that solemn act. God accepts the responsibility of His own administration. Righteousness at the heart of things, and righteousness which will yet vindicate itself, is a conviction which we cannot surrender. It is indeed a solemn fact that we were no parties to our own creation. We are not responsible for our own existence. Let us carefully and steadily fasten the mind upon this astounding fact. God made us, yet we disobey Him; God made us, yet we grieve Him; God made us, yet we are not godly. How is that? There is no answer to the question in mere argument. For my part I simply wait, I begin to feel that, without the power of sinning, I could not be a man. As for the rest, I hide myself in Christ. Strange, too, as it may appear, I enjoy the weird charm of life’s great mystery, as a traveller might enjoy a road full of sudden turnings and possible surprises, preferring such a road to the weary, straight line, miles long, and white with hot dust. I have room enough to pray in. I have room enough to suffer in. By-and-by I shall have large space, and day without night to work in. We have yet to die; that we have never done. We have to cross the river--the cold, black, sullen river. Wait for that, and let us talk on the other side. Keep many a question standing over for heaven’s eternal sunshine. If we would see God’s conception of man, we must look upon the face of His Son--Him of whom He said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That is man; that is the ideal humanity. It is useless to look in any other direction for God’s purpose and thought. (J. Parker, D. D.)

God makes man near to Himself

Earthly sovereigns perpetuate and multiply distinctions between themselves and their subjects. In Great Britain the monarch is removed from the rank of the people by princes of the blood royal, dukes, marquises, earls, barons, viscounts, baronets, knights, esquires; and outward appearances, especially on public occasions, are so regulated, as to impress the people with their own distance; while an audience with the sovereign, or any correspondence or intercourse is, except to the favoured few, a thing impossible. All this may be necessary and even useful, where the ruling power is but earthly and human. In bold contrast with this political policy is the conduct of the supreme Sovereign--God. The King of kings formed His first earthly subjects with affinitiesbetween them and Himself most near and intimate. (S. Martin.)

Fellowship with God

The possession of the image of God led to fellowship with God. It was a means of knowing God, and a power to love God. Looking into themselves they saw God, and looking out of and beyond themselves they saw God. They were drawn to God by cords of love, and enjoyed with God the communion of mind and heart. God was in all their thoughts. God sat enthroned over all their feelings. He was to them the first, and He the last. God spake, they listened, understood, and believed. God wrought, they saw and rejoiced in His works. They spake to God, and knew that God heard and understood. They laboured and knew that God had pleasure in their doings. They walked with God--yea, dwelt in God, and God in them. Separation from their Creator they knew not. Clouds and darkness were never about Him. The light of love was always in His countenance. A filial character was given by likeness to God to the entire religion of our first parents. Their notion of Deity was the idea of a father--their feelings toward God were those of children--and their service to God was that of a son and of a daughter. The inward moulded the outward. Without doubt the very body sympathized with the spirit, Remorse did not turn their moisture into the drought of summer. Jealousy did not mock and feed upon their flesh. Sorrow did not cause their bones to wax old. Grief did not furrow the cheek, or blanch the hair. Shame brought not confusion on the face. There was no inward fire to consume--no worm to gnaw and devour. A glowing conscience, a joyful heart,and a peaceful mind, were marrow to the bones, health to the flesh, and beauty to the countenance. (S. Martin.)

God manifests Himself through man

By reason of His complacency in His own nature, God desires to manifest Himself--to express and to make known His own being--to develope His own character of life. God is also disposed to hold fellowship with His spiritual universe. Had He preferred solitude, He could have dwelt alone in His own eternity, or have created merely these material forms which, like a sea of glass, should have reflected His nature in the cold distance of an unconscious and inanimate likeness. But willing to hold fellowship with His creatures, determining to make Himself visible, and delighting in His own nature with infinite complacency--He made man in His own image. This reflection of Himself was pleasant to God. He rejoiced in this work. He looked upon what He had made, and to Him it seemed good. He ceased to create when He bad made man, and entered on His sabbath satisfied with this masterwork of His hand. His own blessedness was increased because livingly reflected. As the artist rejoices when his metal, or marble, or canvas expresses his ideal--as the poet leaps with pleasure when his metaphor and rhythm breathethe inspiration of his heart--as the father glows with gladness to behold in his firstborn boy his own features--so God delighted in the image of Himself in man. Distance from God! Distance! Where was distance then? As the shadow to the form--as the fruit to the tree bough--as the recent born to the mother--man in God’s image was to God. (S. Martin.)

The Divine image a thought experimentally useful

And of what special importance is this subject to you--Christians? It is profitable for doctrine, and it is profitable for reproof--it rebukes that self-conceit, that vanity, that pride, that self-importance which not a few Christians exhibit. How can men think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, when they remember that their characteristic should be the image of God! It is profitable for correction--it may correct the grovelling of the willingly ignorant, and of the worldly, and of the fleshly, and of the low-minded; it may correct the false ambition of such as make money, and earth’s honour their goal--it may correct the self-complacency of the self-righteous, and the error of those who hold that man has not fallen. And it is profitable for instruction in righteousness; it saith, Make not orthodoxy your goal, neither benevolent activity, but make a nature renewed by the Holy Ghost the mark of the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (S. Martin.)

Man a creation, not an evolution

The theory holds that, in the struggle for existence, the varieties best adapted to their surroundings succeed in maintaining and reproducing themselves, while the rest die out. Thus, by gradual change and improvement of lower into higher forms of life, man has been evolved. We grant that Darwin has disclosed one of the important features of God’s method. We deny that natural selection furnishes a sufficient explanation of the history of life, and that for the following reasons:

1. It gives no account of the origin of substance, nor of the origin of variations. Darwinism simply says that “round stones will roll down hill further than flat ones” (Gray, “Natural Science and Religion”). It accounts for the selection, not for the creation, of forms.
2. Some of the most important forms appear suddenly in the geological record, without connecting links to unite them with the past. The first fishes are the Ganoid, large in size and advanced in type. There are no intermediate gradations between the ape and man.
3. There are certain facts which mere heredity cannot explain, such for example as the origin of the working bee from the queen and the drone, neither of which produces honey. The working bee, moreover, does not transmit the honey making instinct to its posterity; for it is sterile and childless. If man had descended from the conscienceless brute, we should expect him, when degraded, to revert to his primitive type. On the contrary, he does not revert to the brute, but dies out instead.
4. The theory can give no explanation of beauty in the lowest forms of life, such as molluscs and diatoms. Darwin grants that this beauty must be of use to its possessor, in order to be consistent with its origination through natural selection. But no such use has yet been shown; for the creatures which possess the beauty often live in the dark, or have no eyes to see. So, too, the large brain of the savage is beyond his needs, and is inconsistent with the principle of natural selection which teaches that no organ can permanently attain a size as required by its needs and its environment. See Wallace, “Natural Selection,” 838-360.
5. No species is yet known to bare been produced either by artificial or by natural selection. In other words, selection implies intelligence and will, and therefore cannot be exclusively natural.

I. UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

1. The Scriptures teach that the whole human race is descended from a single pair.
2. This truth lies at the foundation of Paul’s doctrine of the organic unity of mankind in the first transgression, and of the provision of salvation for the race in Christ.
3. This descent of humanity from a single pair also constitutes the ground of man’s obligation of natural brotherhood to every member of the race. The Scripture statements are corroborated by considerations drawn from history and science.

Three arguments may be briefly mentioned:

1. The argument from history. So far as the history of nations and tribes in both hemispheres can be traced, the evidence points to a common origin and ancestry in central Asia.
2. The argument from language. Comparative philology points to a common origin of all the more important languages, and furnishes no evidence that the less important are not also so derived.
3. The argument from psychology. The existence, among all families of mankind, of common mental and moral characteristics, as evinced in common maxims, tendencies, and capacities, in the prevalence of similar traditions, and in the universal applicability of one philosophy and religion, is most easily explained upon the theory of a common origin.
4. The argument from physiology.
(1) It is the common judgment of comparative physiologists that man constitutes but a single species. The differences which exist between the various families of mankind are to be regarded as varieties of this species. In proof of these statements we urge--
(a) The numberless intermediate gradations which connect the so-called races with each other.
(b) The essential identity of all races in cranial, osteological, and dental characteristics.
(c) The fertility of unions between individuals of the most diverse types, and the continuous fertility of the offspring of such unions.
(2) Unity of species is presumptive evidence of unity of origin. Oneness of origin furnishes the simplest explanation of specific uniformity, if indeed the very conception of species does not imply the repetition and reproduction of a primordial type-idea expressed at its creation upon an individual empowered to transmit this type-idea to its successors. (A. H. Strong, D. D.)

The creation of man

I. MAN WAS THE LAST OF GOD’S WORKS.

1. He was not made to be in anywise a helper to God in creation. There is nothing that we see around us, or behold above us, or that we trample on with our feet, that was created by us. The most insignificant insect that crawls, the meanest among herbs, had their first origin from the Almighty.
2. But, again, as the order of the universe shows clearly to us that we had no share either in the formation or design of anything that we see, so does it lead us to grateful reflections upon God’s goodness and wisdom in our creation. He did not place our first parents in a void, empty, and unfurnished dwelling, but He garnished the heavens with light, and clothed the earth with beauty, ere He introduced into it that creature who should dress and keep it, and be allowed to have dominion over every living thing.

II. THE PECULIAR DELIBERATION WITH WHICH GOD APPLIED HIMSELF TO THIS HIS NOBLER WORK. “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” Whence this altered form of expression? What other view can we take of it, than that it is a token of man’s greater dignity and higher worth? Should it not excite us to soar above our fallen state--to rise superior to the ruin in which we find ourselves involved--to recollect the glory of our first creation, and the honour which was put upon us in this deliberate purpose and counsel of the several persons of the blessed Trinity in our creation.

III. MAN WAS CHEATED IN GOD’S IMAGE, AFTER HIS LIKENESS. Let us, in concluding the subject, consider what practical improvement may be derived from it. Is God our Maker, and shall we not worship and adore Him? Again, ought not the image of God in man to be prized above all beside? The body decays and moulders into dust: the spirit is indestructible. Whence is it that this dying body exercises our chief care and thought, while the immortal spirit is neglected and forgotten? Shall the tongue be allowed to utter lies, seeing that it is given us by the God of truth? Shall we curse man, that is made after the image and likeness of God? Again, are we distinguished from the beasts that perish by the noble gift of reason, and understanding, and conscience, and shall we allow the members of the body to “usurp a wretched dominion over us? (H. J. Hastings, M. A.)