05. Man-His Creation-His Defeat-His Victory
CHAPTER FIVE
MAN-HIS CREATION-HIS DEFEAT-HIS VICTORY
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him: male and female created He them" (Genesis 1:27).
Man was created by God in innocency, and in God’s own image; and he was placed on earth by God in a perfect environment. God gave man great power and authority on earth, and had fellowship with him. The whole history of mankind is written in man’s relationship to His Creator. God wants man to love and to obey Him, and to be spirit-filled. On the other hand Satan, who is the author of sin, and who has caused the defeat of man through sin, wants man to follow him and worship him and to have nothing to do with God, with His Son, Jesus Christ, or with the Holy Spirit. Of great importance to man is a knowledge of the Bible truths about his own creation and about his own relationship to God, and to the Devil.
Man is pictured on the Art Chart (www.BibleSupport.com/a/gppc.png) in the age of innocence in the form of an equilateral triangle. His created nature is much different from that of the animal. Even after the fall of man, there is still an enormous “gulf” between the makeup of the lowest human being and of the highest beast. The highest beast has no trace of a religious nature. Science has discovered nothing, and has done nothing, to bridge that “gulf.”
Man was marvelously created with a threefold nature-a spirit, a soul, and a body. In whatever part of the earth man is born, or from whatever race or color man develops, there is a universal sameness in his bodily structure, and in his response to like instruction and like environment.
The spirit part of man’s nature is that which knows (1 Corinthians 2:11). Because man is a spirit, he is capable of God-consciousness, and of communion and fellowship with God. He lives a spiritual life according as he is filled with the spirit of God. He can appreciate God’s people, and has a desire to assemble with them. He feels at home with them (John 3:2-8; Psalms 18:28).
Because man is created with a spiritual nature, God can lift the man who is bound in sin, even earth’s saddest failures, by the way of the cross, to heaven’s purity and heaven’s glory.
The soul part of man’s nature is the seat of man’s affections, of his emotions, of his desires, of his love, and of his active will. Because man is a soul, he has a self-conscious life, as distinguished from plant life (Psalms 42:1-6). Man can choose this day what course he desires to take. He can determine to jump on defeat, and to go forward and upward to a life of victory, a life in which he can have fellowship with God.
The body part of man’s nature is his physical structure. There are five senses in his body: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. These five senses give man his world-consciousness, for he can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. Man can keep his body under subjection, and thereby, through the proper use of his senses, obtain great perfection in his relationship to God.
God has given to man the seed from which is created and developed a separate and a new body. God said to man, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). God endowed man, at the very start, with the ability to know when and how to get food, and to know how to nourish the body to keep it alive. The Bible specifies plainly certain rules for the care of the body and certain laws of conduct, which keep the body fit for service and for fellowship with God.
What a marvelous development is man, as God causes him to grow, to protect himself from sin and Satan, and to prosper. God pleads with man to put evil out of his soul, and to get right with Him before it is too late.
Paul divides man into three classifications, according to his development toward the perfection of the spiritual man. These divisions are the natural man, the carnal man, and the spiritual man.
The natural man is the Adamic man, unrenewed through the new birth. See 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:44. Satan has him to prey upon and to play upon. The natural man may be learned, eloquent, and fascinating, but the spiritual content of the Scripture is absolutely hidden from him, because his eyes have not been opened by the new birth, and he does not have the Holy Spirit.
The carnal man is the “fleshly” man. Paul uses the word “carnal” for the believer who lives under the power of the Adamic nature and who walks after the flesh (Romans 8:9). He is known as a babe in Christ, not walking by the Holy Spirit. He is able to comprehend the truth of the Scriptures only in its simplest form. Paul says that it was necessary to feed these carnal Christians only with “milk,” as babes in Christ, for he could not feed them with meat, as he would feed spiritual, spirit-filled men.
The spiritual man is the one who has been born again. He has so surrendered himself to God, since his soul was cleansed from sin by the blood of the Lamb, that he is spirit-filled, and is walking in the spirit, in full communion with God (Ephesians 5:18-20).
Man’s faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.
Many people want to direct God, instead of resigning themselves to be directed by Him. They want to show Him the way, instead of passively following where He leads.
Jeremiah prayed, “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" (Jeremiah 10:23).
The Psalmist said, “Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path" (Psalms 27:11).
New life comes to a person when he realizes the fact of God’s power within a spiritual life, as described by Paul in First Corinthians, chapters two and three; when he realizes that the worldly soul who tries to pester the life out of him is but nothing when compared with the power he has when he walks and talks with God.
Our success depends upon the working of the hidden spiritual forces within a quiet spirit. God says to man, “Be still and know that I am God" He says also, “Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:10).