
What you believe matters. It shapes the nature of your internal experiences, the trajectory of your life, and all of your interactions with other people.
•Consider the beliefs of secular or
// Friedrich Nietzsche >> Man is the cruelest animal
// Daniel Dennett >> We are machines made of machines
// Sigmund Freud >> I have found little that is “good” about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all.
// Richard Dawkins >> humans are just one of many cosmic mistakes
// Margaret Sanger >> humans are the product of their genetic stock
// Charles Darwin >> humans are the product of natural selection
•Contrast them with the
// Roman Catholic theologian George Weigel >> We are not congealed stardust, an accidental byproduct of cosmic chemistry. We are not just something, we are someone.
// C.S. Lewis >> There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
// Genesis 1:26-27 | hen God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
// Psalm 8:3-9 | When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
• The difference between these two anthropological beliefs is vast and consequential:
// If humans are nothing
, then they do not deserve any special considerations or protections. Any actions against them are not viewed as having any kind of moral implications. If they are just biological material, then death is just the redistribution of that material.
// If humans areabove all other creatures, then the opposite is true. They are worthy of dignity and honor. They are responsible for their actions and actions done to them by others have moral implications. While they possess physical bodies, they are also made in God’s image and have a special place in His plan.
// Civilization was built upon the latter beliefs. Those who cast these beliefs to the side are naive, ignorant, or inconsistent at best.
The Baptist Faith and Message, Article 3: Man
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love. Genesis 1:26-30; 2:5,7,18-22; 3; 9:6; Psalms 1; 8:3-6; 32:1-5; 51:5; Isaiah 6:5; Jeremiah 17:5; Matthew 16:26; Acts 17:26-31; Romans 1:19-32; 3:10-18,23; 5:6,12,19; 6:6; 7:14-25; 8:14-18,29; 1 Corinthians 1:21-31; 15:19,21-22; Ephesians 2:1-22; Colossians 1:21-22; 3:9-11.
• This article covers the place of humans in God’s plan, gender, the fall, original sin, inherited corruption, the age of accountability, and the dignity and respect bestowed upon each human made in the image of God.
• For the purposes of time, we will consider three words that summarize this article and our beliefs about humans: Dignity, Depravity, and Deliverance.
• Also known as the “imago dei,” the image of God, according to theologian Wayne Grudem, means that humans are “like God and represent God.”
• Theologians have noted that being made in the image of God means that humans have rationality and intellect, are
• These distinctives are not possessed by any other created being. Therefore, humans are the crown of God’s creation.
• The image of God was
• Romans 5:12 | Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
• Albert Einstein >> The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one…The true problem lies in the hearts & thoughts of men. It is not a physical but an ethical one…What terrifies us is not the explosive force of the atomic bomb but the power of the wickedness of the human heart.
• Charles Spurgeon >> I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that there dwelleth in my flesh no good thing.
• Age of
• As an ultimate testimony to the dignity of humans and in response to their depravity, God sent Jesus as a human to live a perfect life to provide deliverance.
• Jesus died for the
• 1 John 2:2 | He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
• Revelation 7:9-10 | After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”