Chapter 5 of Biblical Doctrine covers Man and Sin, also known as Anthropology and Harmartiology.

This study and next I want to cover the discussion on Man and Lord-willing in the Spring we will cover on the topic of Sin.

It was King David who looked up at the night sky in Psalm 8:3-4 –

3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
4 What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

Here David uses a Hebrew term that describes man’s weakness and frailty. What is frail, weak, and mortal man that You take thought of him?

You would be in awe of God’s greatness too if were to look up at a starry sky and see the vast enormity of God’s creation. How little we are!

So why study Man? Why take the time to study anthropology?

1. Anthropology helps us answer the great personal questions of life: “Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose in life?
Where am I headed?”
2. Anthropology helps us understand our role in creation.
3. Anthropology helps us understand our relationship to God.
4. Anthropology helps us address the social issues of our day such as abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, transgenderism, and environmentalism.
5. Anthropology helps us refute the wrong “speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).

Q: What then is our source? Where do we go to answer that profound question from the psalmist, “what is man?”
A: Scripture, God’s Holy Word.

Open your Bible, if you will, to Genesis 1. The Bible tells us plainly in Genesis 1:27 –

27 God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.

All of creation up to this point has been a prelude to what would happen at the end of day six. Everything was created for man. It was to prepare a perfect home for man. Louis Berkhoff notes,

“Man is not only the crown of creation
but also the object of God’s special care.”

Consider for a moment, all of creation will go out of existence but man will remain. “The heavens will pass” 2 Peter 3:10 tells us, but a vast multitude of the redeemed human race will dwell in the presence of the Lord forever. Then in Rev. 21:3 we read, “He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” Wow!

Turn back to Gen. 1:26 for a moment. Personal pronouns appear for the first time in creation –

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image…

You don’t see this anywhere else. It establishes a personal relationship between God and man. It doesn’t exist with light, with water, sun, moon, or stars. Only with the creation of man. Wow!

Going back to v. 27: “God created man.” This is called in “an immediate act of God” or “sudden creationism.” This was not a long process. It was immediate/sudden.

Jesus tells the Pharisees in Mark 10:6 just how immediate it was –

6 “But from the beginning of creation,
God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.

“Beginning of creation,” and right into “God made them.” No long periods. Man was a part of the creation. Human species did not evolve from lower life forms. It was by the divine order of the will of God.

Gen. 2:7 tells us more details concerning the creation of Adam and Eve –

7 Then the LORD God formed [the term indicates that the act of creation was by careful design ] man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being.

The testimony of Scripture is summed up by the psalmist in Ps. 100:3 –

3 Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

As to man’s body, man was formed/made/fashioned of the dust of the ground. Ps. 103:14 reminds us –

14 For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.

But of the part of you that is not visible, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being [nephesh].”

The British OT scholar Derek Kidner (1913-2008) describes the intimacy here in breathing into his nostrils –

Breathed is warmly personal, with the face-to-face intimacy of a kiss and the significance that this was an act of giving as well as making; and self-giving at that

God breathed life into him, making him unlike any other created being.

So let me stop here and ask you a question:
How the world view man? Is it a high view or low view of man?

Consider that at week 5, a baby’s heart begins to beat. The baby is only the size of a sesame seed. Yet evolutionists will argue for similarities of a baby in the womb to an earthworm! Earthworms have no heart!

By week 7, when your baby has grown to the size of a blueberry, the map of a baby’s entire skeleton has been laid out. By week 10, the bones that had started as bendable tissue begin to become hardened through a process called ossification. By week 16, they start moving around in a coordinated way. An ultrasound can pick up their acrobatic techniques!

CONTENT

For the remainder of our time I want to address two important facets of man:

1. Man is Created in God’s Image
2. The Constitution of Man

The first one deals with man being made in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen. 1-26f). The second one deals with the components or elements man possesses. The five common terms are body, soul, spirit, heart, and conscience.