CONSIDERING MAN – PSALM 8:4

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

Psalm 8:4

⁴ What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?

There seems to be three questions that demand an answer when the question of man arises:

1.      What is man’s origin?

2.      What makes him unique in his environment?

3.      What makes him common with his environment?

It is helpful to take these questions in the order in which they are presented above.

First, what is man’s origin?  There are two answers to this.  One is the answer of natural science.  Then there is the answer from Scripture.

The origin of man derives from God.  He is a creature.  God is the creator of all things and therefore the creator of man.  As much as this may appeal to reason, it is by the commitment by faith to the Scripture, an act of faith.

The Scriptures give an account of man’s origin.  This account tells us of God’s creative act.  The Christian believes the Scripture so he believes man is created by God.

Man’s uniqueness is part and parcel of his creation.  There are three facts in his creation that contribute to the separation of man from all the other created forms of life.

First is that his creation is a result of the counsel of God.  Genesis 1:26 gives the distinct sense that there is in the Triune God consideration and the result of that consideration to “make man”.  This personal attention is not found in any other part of creation.  ²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Secondly this consideration results in man being made “in the image of God”.  It does not matter how the debate rages on what is the “image of God”.   It is stated of man as it is not of any other created life.  As man comes forth from the creative hand of the Triune God he is an image bearer of the Trinitarian Divine Being.

Thirdly man’s life is directly from the Divine Being.  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 being.  The life that animates man, by which he has his intelligence and eternal soul is a result of the breath of life he received directly from God.

After this has been said, and as Christians there is general agreement, we are confronted with undeniable similarities of man with other creatures.  The differences are those listed above.  From whence comes the similarities?

All of God’s animal creation had been brought forth from the earth.  Genesis 1:24 “Let the earth bring forth” is the repeated formula for God’s created order.  So when in Genesis 2:7 man is formed of “the dust of the ground,” his affinity to his environment is guaranteed.  There is this element which works out to the similarities in the creatures, but it does not rise to the high order of Adam being in the image of God and having the divine breath as his soul.

So it is with wonder the Psalmist exclaims, “What is man?”  The writer of Hebrews considers this Psalm.  And in 2:9 gives us the only sensible conclusion, “But we see Jesus.”  To consider man separately from Jesus is futile and fruitless.