What is man?

Egypt-sculpture_1963019i“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4 ESV).

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me— nor woman neither” (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2).

This year we’ve seen several Middle Eastern dictators fall. Just this week Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was killed by rebels. Earlier this year, Egyptians overthrew their leader, Hosni Mubarak. These men have been accused of horrible atrocities. Some would call them evil. But isn’t that potential for evil in all of us?

Just type in “Gaddafi” on YouTube (Or don’t. It’s pretty graphic.) and you’ll see the mob beat and kill him. He deserved justice, but was this justice or mob rule? Were those who killed him any  better than him?

Hard questions. I suppose the truth is that man is capable of both great love and terrible hatred, wonderous beauty and hideous evil. Both are in a man.

The Bible teaches that man was made in God’s image, but man’s sin has affected that image. This is the paradox we see in humanity. Made in the image of God, yet burning with the desire and temptations of hell. Sin did not erase the image of God, but it has defaced it.

Days after Mubarak’s overthrow his statue in Cairo was defaced. They left Sadat’s image and the two Egyptian Nobel Prize winner’s images relatively untouched, but they ruined Mubarak’s image. Yet, you can still make out who it was meant to portray.

I suppose that’s the way the image of God has been defaced by our sin. It’s pretty ugly, yet there are occasionally glimpses in us that remind us of Him.

The materialist says that man is only dust. When we die, that’s it. Back to dust. The humanist says that man is divine. That God is in all of us. Both struggle with man’s defaced image. But both are wrong. They chose the wrong “D” words. Man is more than dust and less than divine. The truth is that man is dying. In fact, he is already dead unless God intervenes.

I’m glad that the Bible says that God isn’t finished with man. When man’s sin defaced the image, God sent His One and Only Son, who is the very image of God to offer restoration and life to us. As the apostle Paul said, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49 ESV).

When we place our trust in Christ, God conforms us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29) and brings us back from death unto life.

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