01.22. Chapter 20 Creation of Man Pt 1
CHAPTER XX.
CREATION OF MAN.
I. THE SCRIPTURE ACCOUNT. THE Scripture account of the creation of man is given in four places in Genesis. The first, in Genesis 1:26-28, is of both male and female. The second is of Adam only, in Genesis 2:7. The third is of the creation of the woman, whom Adam at that time called Isha (woman), because she was taken out of man (Ish). Genesis 2:18-23. Subsequently, Genesis 3:20, he called her Eve because she was "the mother of all living." The fourth is found in Genesis 5:1-2, and states that God called them Adam. There are allusions to the statements thus made in two other places in this book, namely, Genesis 3:19, Genesis 3:23 and Genesis 9:6-7. The other Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, endorse the correctness of all the facts stated in Genesis by frequent allusions to one or another of them as undoubted truths. See Psalms 100:3; Psalms 103:14; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Ecclesiastes 12:7 ; Isaiah 64:8; Malachi 2:10; Malachi 2:15; Matthew 19:4-5; Mark 10:6-7; Acts 17:25-29; Romans 9:20; 1 Corinthians 11:7-9; 1 Corinthians 15:45-47; Colossians 3:10. The Scripture doctrine thus revealed is that man was created by God, being formed, as to his body, from earthy material, and as to his soul, by direct creation; that he was made male and female, one Adam, in the image after the likeness of God. The Adam thus made, the Scriptures also teach, was the progenitor of all the present race of men. Indeed they appear to allude to him as the embodiment of that race. Adam is not given as a proper name, as are Cain, and Abel, and Noah, but is used to express the creature God proposed to male, (Genesis 1:26), as both male and female. Genesis 5:2. "In all the other instances in the second and third chapters of Genesis, which are nineteen, it is put with the article, the man or the Adam. It is also to be observed that though it occurs very frequently in the Old Testament, and though there is no grammatical difficulty in the way of its being declined by the dual and plural terminations and the pronominal suffixes (as its derivative dam blood is), yet it never undergoes those changes; it is used abundantly to denote man in the general and collective sense, mankind, the human race, but it is never found in the plural number. When the sacred writers design to express men distributively, they use either the compound term sons of men (benei adam), or the plural of enosh, or ish." [Kitto’s Cyc., Art. Adam, par. 3.] The importance of this fact will hereafter be seen. It is confirmed by the title of "the second Adam" given to Christ.
II. THE UNITY OF THE RACE. The expression above, "the present race of men," was not intended to intimate a belief that there have been more races of men than one. This, however, has been contended for; but, while the possibility of other races before Adam or contemporaneous with him may he admitted, the unity of the present race and its common descent from Adam must be maintained. The idea of a Praeadamite race "was first raised to notice by Isaac Peyrere, who in 1655 published his book styled ’Praeadamitae.’ He pretended to find his Praeadamites in Romans 5:1-21. The heathen, according to him, are the Praeadamites, being, as he supposed, created on the same day with the beasts, and those whose creation is mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis. Adam, the father of the Jews, was not created until a century later, and is the one who is mentioned in the second chapter. Since the time of Peyrere, this hypothesis has been exhibited more connectedly; and has been asserted independently of the authority of Moses; or in other words it has been asserted that the human race is older than Moses represents it." [Knapp’s Chris. Theol., p. 185.] So far as this hypothesis is confined to the past existence of other races of men who had passed away when Adam was created, or who were at least destroyed before or at the flood, it may be admitted as a possibility. There is no direct statement of Scripture to the contrary. Any proof which would make it certain, or even probable, may be admitted. But while this is possibly, it is not probably true. Nothing in Scripture, not even with great violence, can be wrested to its support. The account of creation and the manner in which the Adam there created is spoken of is contrary to any idea that the creations in the first and second chapters of Genesis are of any but the one race. The scientific evidence as to the method of God’s creations concurs with the biblical in furnishing no proof that God has ever created the same animals at different periods, or from any other than one original source of each species. While these facts, therefore, are not conclusive against the possibility of more than one creation of human beings, they render it highly improbable. But so far as this is intended to deny the unity of the present race, and to declare that any portion of it is not of Adamic origin, it is directly contrary to the Word of God.
1. Because the Scriptures trace the race of men now existing back to Noah, and through him to Adam.
2. Because they teach also that all others, except the eight saved in the Ark, were destroyed by the flood. If any other races of men existed before that time, which is not probable, they must then have been destroyed with the others of the Adamic race.
3. They not only speak of all mankind in general as though of this one race, but declare expressly that God "made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation." Acts 17:26. The King James version has "Made of one blood." This is especially emphatic because spoken to the Athenians, who claimed a special, separate origin from others.
4. The Scriptures account for the universal sinful condition of men, by not only a representative, but natural relation to Adam.
5. Salvation from sin is offered through Christ as the second Adam, whose fitness for his work was secured, not only by his representative relation, but also by his assumption of the same nature with man. Therefore his genealogy in Luke is traced back to Adam. It was also to "the whole creation," Mark 16:15, that Christ commanded his gospel to be preached, and "of all the nations," Matthew 28:19, that he ordered disciples to be made.
Science accords with Revelation in teaching the unity of the race.
1. It shows that among all men are the same essential characteristics which make a man. This is denied by none. There is the same outward form and inward structure, and also like mental and moral characteristics.
2. While variations in each of these respects unquestionably exist, they are all within the limits of a single species. The science of Comparative Zoology shows:
(1.) That species are capable of great variations.
(2.) That the variations may become permanent.
(3.) That under favourable circumstances, with the lapse of time, this permanence becomes more and more fixed, and incapable of return to the original type.
(4.) That, however, there is after all a tendency to return, which develops itself under similar conditions with those of the original state.
(5.) That while offspring from parents of different species is possible, that offspring is itself either altogether unfruitful, or, as Dr. Cabell says, "the fertility is partial and temporary, rarely, if ever, extending through more than two generations." [Unity of Mankind, p.77.] (6.) That the variations in man are at least equalled by those in other species.
Dr. Bachman asserts that "every vertebrated animal, from the horse down to the canary bird and gold-fish, is subject, in a state of domestication, to very great and striking varieties, and that in the majority of species these varieties are much greater than are exhibited in any of the numerous varieties of the human race." [Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race, p. 181, quoted by Dr. Cabell in Unity of Mankind, p.34.] "Blumenbach," says Cabell, p. 33, "long ago pointed out the great difference between the cranium of the domestic swine and that of the primitive wild boar, and remarked that this difference is quite equal to that which has been observed between the skull of the Negro and the European."
(7.) That the various races of men, when they intermarry, produce offspring which is itself continuously fruitful.
(8.) That while the Negro type of man, the most distinct, and the one showing the greatest variety from the Caucasian or white race, may be traced far back in the monumental history of Egypt, then is no delineation of it in the earliest records for nearly fifteen hundred years. This is admitted by Nott and Gliddon in their Types of Mankind, p. 259, though these writers speak of the Negro "as contemporary with the earliest Egyptians." [See Cabell, p. 91-92.]
3. The science of Comparative Philology also supports the doctrine of the unity of the human race. This science is as yet in its infancy, but has grown vigorously daring the short period of its existence. Already the languages of men have been reduced by some to four, by others to three, and yet by others to two different forms, and the tendency is to connect all language with some one common source. Whether this can be done or not is uncertain. The position is at least conceded that variety in language does not militate against the unity of mankind. It may be impossible to establish absolute unity of speech. The confusion at Babel renders this not improbable. But the investigations of this science show that the idea of several separate physical origins of the race is not true, because the grouping of men, as to physical race, does not correspond with the grouping rendered necessary by their different languages.
Prof. Whitney, who believes that the science of philology cannot now, or ever, decide either for or against this unity, says "it does not seem practicable to lay down any system of physical races which shall agree with any possible scheme of linguistic races. Indo-European, Semitic, Scythian and Caucasian tongues are spoken by men whom the naturalist would not separate from one another as of widely diverse stock; and on the other hand, Scythian dialects of close and indubitable relationship, are in the mouths of people who differ as widely in form and feature, as Hungarians and Lapps, while not less discordance of physical type is to be found among the speakers of various dialects belonging to more than one of the other great linguistic families." [Language and the Study of Language, p. 370.] The fact of this intermingling of dialects and races shows a common origin beyond the time of physical and linguistic changes. Thus do the two sciences, which were once so antagonistic to the doctrine of the unity of mankind, combine with each other to establish its truth.
III. THE NATURE OF MAN. The nature of man is composite. It is usually considered as a union of body and soul. The body is material, and is the highest form in this world of material existence.
Matter is presented in creation in different forms. It is impossible to say whether it exists, or has ever existed, without special form and substance. Science only knows it as found in different materials, which are called primary, because we cannot reduce them to any more simple form common to more than one. Of these materials, all things that we know are composed. Matter is called inorganic in these simple forms, and yet there is a kind of organism even here. Some of this so-called inorganic matter attains to living organism in plants, which have what is called vegetable life. It exists in a still higher form in conscious, sentient being, known as animal life. The highest organism is in man as an animal. He partakes with other animals of bodily firm, appetites, desires and passions. His bony structure is analogous to theirs, which approaches it closely, and yet with marked distinctions which manifest his yet higher life, with nobler capabilities. So, also, is it with his muscular covering or flesh, and his nervous system especially culminating in a brain of superior size and weight. Through the latter, man has capacity for superior intellectual powers over other animals, for the exercise of which his bodily shape is peculiarly fitted. In their mere animal life, the instincts of the lower animals are much stronger than in man, and more reliable. In man instinct is feeble because its place is more than supplied by his higher intellectual nature. It is only when his moral nature is involved, that instincts appear which approach in strength and unerring guidance those of the brute creation. The personality of man, by which is meant his individual conscious existence, is distinctly associated with his higher nature, the intellectual and the moral. The brute evidently lives in itself and is what it is solely because of its animal life. It cannot go beyond it. There is no outward development in it of itself and even the utmost training by man can carry it no farther than to the development of memory, and obedience through fear, which belong to this animal existence. Even in these only such faint resemblances to man’s higher faculties can be reached as man himself attains through self-training in the realm of animal instinct.
It is evident, therefore, that the higher nature of man, so far from being a part of his animal life, either accompanies it or takes its place, and dwells in the body, using it as a means of contact with the external world, in which man, as a spiritual being, is thus enabled to live, and exercise the faculties of his higher nature.
We have already learned the existence of spiritual beings, which, if they have, or can have, form and body at all, have only those of a spiritual nature. Man alone is possessed of both spirit and body. He is, therefore, the link which binds together the world of spirit and that of matter. His existence is not one only, but twofold. Nor is it made so by such a composition as confounds the two elements by mingling them into a third substance differing from each of these two. It is such as makes a union in one personality of both the natures, so that a man is as truly animal as though he were not spirit, and as truly spiritual as though he were not animal. Each nature retains in a mysterious union its own attributes, and properties, absolutely, so that one is merely animal, and the other purely spiritual, and the one personal conscious being is personal and conscious in each, in different or in the same moments, and is also conscious of being at the same time Man, or all that is involved in the united possession of both natures. The consequence of this also is a peculiar possession by Man of all the results of a communication of the properties of one nature to the other without any actual communication. Thus matter, which in itself is without self-motion, or feeling, and only becomes so in animal life, and in that life is without capacity for self-training and skilful manipulation through self-imposed habits, and which especially is not capable of sinful, or holy acts or habits, attains to each of these through the union with a spiritual person; and in a peculiar way, otherwise not possible, becomes receptive of punishment or reward for right or wrong doing. So also a personal spirit, which cannot through his spiritual nature be affected by matter, and cannot act upon it or use it, is through this union operative in it, and by means of the bodily powers is brought into contact with the world of material forces, and becomes a voluntary force in connection with the mechanical laws and forces of the universe. Thus is it, that through this union, man, probably alone, with the exception of God, introduces and accomplishes direct results of conscious purpose in the material universe. Good or evil angels, if they would there operate, must do it through the influences they can exert upon man. The union of both body and soul is necessary to constitute man. Of necessity, his conscious individuality is inseparably associated with his spiritual nature, for in him there is no separate animal life in the body from that of the spirit which is united with it. Without that spirit, therefore, the body is but a form of clay. But the spirit alone is but a spirit. It has not all of human nature. It is not a man. To make man, the body is necessary, not necessarily the same body always, neither of the same size, nor with all its parts perfect, nor of the same ever continuing materials, nor without change, but such a body as belongs to human nature, and is fitted for the contact of the conscious personal spirit with the world of matter. If, at any time, therefore, the spirit and body shall be separated, the spirit will not properly be called man until a subsequent reunion. Until then it would be known and spoken of as the spirit of the man, or the soul of the man, but not as the man himself. Accordingly the Scriptures speak thus of all men during the period intervening between death and the resurrection of the judgement day. See Revelation 6:9; Revelation 20:4; Hebrews 12:23, and, according to the interpretation which supposes Christ preached to departed spirits, 1 Peter 3:19. It is thus also that the resurrection of the body, and its reunion with the soul become necessary to carry out the purposes of God, both as to the rewards and the punishments of the eternal future. A question here naturally arises as to the nature of the contact between the personal spirit and the body. This we have no means of answering. It is a mystery which, as a fact, is both known and revealed, but of the manner of which we have no revelation, and no knowledge. All must be conjecture. Dr. J. Pye Smith gives in his "First Lines," p. 342, three theories: "(1.) That it is through physical influence materially of mental volitions, and cerebral and nervous action producing muscular motion; (2.) that it is due to occasional cause by which God’s omnipotent and universal agency produces all the motions of the body to correspond with the volitions of the mind; and (3.) that it results from pre-established harmony by which it is arranged that they take place at the same time and space, without any influence upon each other." But these are all objectionable. The last makes the body and soul entirely without connection with each other. The second makes God, and not man, operate the body, and that too without the soul’s agency in any respect, for that operation of God over the body only accompanies the action of the soul with which it has no connection except that of co-existence. The first is no explanation, for it accepts the physical connection, but does not state how it arises.
Both body and soul are by nature pure in their original condition, sin being found essentially neither in the one, nor in the other. There is nothing in matter that is corrupting, and nothing in the lower nature which of itself begets sin in an innocent soul. On the contrary, while temptation may present itself through the body, the actual sin is committed by the soul either separately or in union with the body. The sinlessness of the soul in its primeval state has been universally admitted.
Each of these constituents of man is a unit. The body is one, though composed of several members, and is affected through one sense only, namely, contact, though that one sense because of its different forms, is usually and conveniently divided into five. The soul also is one, and itself brings the man into contact with the world of mind and spirit. Its powers, likewise, though many, are not separate and independent faculties, but it is the soul that thinks, that feels, that purposes and that loves. For convenience these powers are in Intellectual Philosophy divided into and discussed under the three heads of the Understanding, the Will and the Affections. These are exercised about all mental and moral truths. Even the knowledge of what is right and wrong is not attained by a different power from that by which we learn what is wise and great. What is called conscience, or the moral faculty, is concerned only with impressing upon us our duty to do the right, and not to do the wrong. But even this is simply the soul recognizing the nature of obligation to God.
Some have supposed that man has more than the twofold elements of body and soul. "Pythagoras, and after him, Plato, and subsequently the mass of Greek and Roman philosophers, maintained that man consists of three constituent elements, the rational spirit (nous or pneuma, mens), the animal soul (psuche, anima), and the body (soma, corpus). Hence this usage of words became stamped upon the Greek popular speech. And consequently the apostle uses all three when intending to express exhaustively in popular language the totality of man and his belongings. "May your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame." 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Corinthians 15:44. Hence some theologians conclude that it is a doctrine given by divine inspiration that human nature is constituted of three distinct elements. The use made of these terms by the apostles proves nothing more than that they used words in their current popular sense to express divine ideas. The word pneuma designates the one soul emphasizing its quality as rational. The word psuche designates the same soul emphasizing its quality as the vital and animating principle of the body. The two are used together to express popularly the entire man.
"That the pneuma and psuche distinct entities cannot be the doctrine of the New Testament, because they are habitually used interchangeably and often indifferently. Thus psuche, as well as pneuma, is used to designate the soul as the seat of the higher intellectual faculties. Matthew 16:26; 1 Peter 1:22; Matthew 10:28. Thus also pneuma, as well as psuche, is used to designate the soul as the animating principle of the body. James 2:26. Deceased persons are indifferently called psuche, Acts 2:27; Acts 2:31; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 20:4; and pneuma, Luke 24:37; Luke 24:39; Hebrews 12:23." [Hodge’s Outlines, pp. 299, 300.]
Other passages, not mentioned above, upon which light is supposed to be thrown by this distinction, are 1 Corinthians 2:14-15; James 3:15; and Jude 1:19.
Others, which show a promiscuous use of these words, and thus that the distinction is incorrect, are Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46; John 19:30; Acts 7:59. This apparent teaching of the New Testament is also that of the Old. The account of man’s coming into a living condition is given in Genesis 2:7; "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." The word nephesh here translated "living soul" means ordinarily mere animal life. It is the same word that occurs in Genesis 1:20, translated "creature that hath life," in Genesis 1:24 "living creature," in Genesis 1:30 "life," in Genesis 2:19 " living creature," in Genesis 9:12, Genesis 9:15-16 "living creature." Genesis 2:7, therefore teaches that man attained his animal life by the inbreathing of God. But Deuteronomy 4:29 uses this same word for the rational spiritual part of man. So also does Deuteronomy 30:10. See also Job 16:4 and 1 Samuel 1:15. Gesenius Lexicon, Sec. 3, says: "To it are ascribed love, Isaiah 42:1; Song of Solomon 1:7; Song of Solomon 3:1-4; Genesis 34:3; joy, Psalms 86:4; fear, Isaiah 15:5; Psalms 6:4; piety towards God, Psalms 86:4; Psalms 104:1; Psalms 143:8, and confidence, Psalms 57:1. * * * The soul is said to weep, Psalms 119:28; to be poured out in tears, Job 30:16; to cry for vengeance, Job 24:12; and also to invoke blessings, Genesis 27:4; Genesis 27:25. More rarely things are attributed to the soul, mind, nephesh which belong, (a) to the mode of feeling and acting, as pride, Proverbs 28:25; patience and impatience, Job 6:11; (b) to the will or purpose, Genesis 23:8; 2 Kings 9:15; 1 Chronicles 28:9; (c) to the understanding or faculty of thinking, Psalms 139:14; Proverbs 19:2; 1 Samuel 20:4; Deuteronomy 4:9; Lamentations 3:20." Also, Sec. 5, he says: "with suffixes it is put very frequently for: I myself, thou thyself, &c." In Sec. 2, par. 3, he had already said as to the relation between this word and ruwach, that "they are sometimes opposed, so that nephesh is ascribed to brutes, and ruwach to men, Job 12:10; but ruwach is also ascribed to beasts in Ecclesiastes 3:21." This word ruwach is that which is especially used of the spirit of God; but it is also "spoken both of man and beasts. Ecclesiastes 3:19; Ecclesiastes 3:21; Ecclesiastes 8:8; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Job 12:10 * * * *." Once the human spirit is called the ruwach of God, Job 27:3, as being breathed into man from God, and again returning to God. Genesis 2:7; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Psalms 104:29. [Gesen. Lex. under ruwach See. 2.]
It is manifest from these facts that the two words are both used in the Old Testament to express both animal life and the higher spiritual nature, and, therefore, that no radical distinction exists between them. The same word which expresses the animal life of beasts is applied to man as a rational and moral being, as well as to his animal life. And the same which usually expresses the higher spiritual nature is also used even of brutes. It is also plain that the same act by which the spiritual nature was conferred upon man brought his animal life into being. In man, therefore, it would seem that the spirit becomes the actual living animating principle, and needs not to have superadded to it the mere animal life, but embraces it within the life which is that of the spirit. The doctrine of the Old Testament on this subject therefore corresponds with that of the New. The constituent parts of man are simply body and soul. When the animal life is the predominant idea, nephesh and psuche are most apt to be used, because the spiritual man is regarded especially in that aspect. When the idea of the higher nature is the main feature, ruwach and pneuma are used, because reference to that peculiarity of it is most prominent. But the use of all of the words for either aspect shows that it is, after all, the one principle in man simply differently contemplated. The powers of both soul and body are unlimited within their respective spheres; the word unlimited being taken not in the sense of infinite, but in the greatly more restricted one of indefinite. What man can physically accomplish, either as an individual over his own person or over others, or by combination with others over the world of matter, is so great that no one can ever say the limit has been reached. This is even more true of the soul in its intellectual and moral nature, in the exercise of thought and reason, and in the perception of moral truths and the attainment of holy perfection. The soul of man, as a true spirit, possesses all the qualifications which belong to spirit. It has individual personality, consciousness, intellectual powers, free agency, capacity of moral action, is subject to law, is capable of voluntary sin, arid is accountable to God for its actions, and for any self-caused spiritual condition of sin. It has natural ordained immortality, by which is meant not that God could not have deprived it of life had he chosen so to have ordained,--for no created nature can have of itself any power, much less any right of continued immortality; but that God has conferred immortality upon the nature of spirits, and that they are thus immortal through his ordination.