WHAT IS MAN ?

What is man doing on planet earth ?

is earth the only planet in the whole universe that is inhabitable
by man or any other creature ?
who does man think he is ?
Who does God think man is ? what is man supposed to do with
himself?
Why was he created? Why was everything else created for man ?
(psalm 8)
man is the highest thought God ever had...
 Psalms 8:4
" What is man, that you are mindful of him”.
Of what importance is the human race, that you should
notice them?
Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay
attention to them,
 Anthropology:
The study of man.. " Anthropos" is the Greek word for
man
 Genesis 1: 26 - 27
After God created the plants and animals on the earth,
He had one more thing to create, that is the pinnacle of
His creation.
“ Man “
• Man was created by the immediate hand of God, and is generically different from all
other creatures ( Genesis 1:26 Genesis 1:27 ; 2:7 ).
• His complex nature is composed of two elements, two distinct substances, body
and soul ( Genesis 2:7 ; Eccl 12:7; ( 2 Corinthians 5:1-8 ).
• The words translated "spirit" and "soul," in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 , Hebrews 4:12 ,
are habitually used interchangeably ( Matthew 10:28 ; 16:26 ; 1 Peter 1:22 ).
The "spirit" (Greek word. pneuma) is the soul as rational; The "soul" (Greek word.
psuche) is the same, considered as the animating and vital principle of the body.
Man's creation involved two separate components Material.
( Physical ) and ( Spiritual )
While Man’s physical body is temporal
While Man’s spirit is eternal.
(Ecclesiastes 12: 7)
v7, The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who
gave it.
Adam received the “Breath of Life” from God himself.
Then man becomes a living being.
God's breath is what gives the body life.
God’s breath gave us our spirit / soul.
This is the immaterial / spiritual component of man.
 What are the basic Characteristics of soul?
1. Intellect - that aspect of the soul which tells me whether a given issue is right or
wrong. Means, you have the power for reasoning and the ability to understanding and
determine and discern the good and bad.
2. Sensibility - that aspect which tells me what I would like to do about the issue.
Means, the ability to appreciate or respond to complex emotion. Intelligence and
sensitivity.
3. Conscience - that aspect which tells me what I should do about the issue. Means, an
inner feeling, as an acting as a guide of the rightness or wrongness of one's behaviour, tells
you if you are guilty or not guilty.
 Man is a created being.
(Genesis 2:7)
Man is not the result of random chance or evolution.
(Psalms 139: 13-14)
Man’s creation was ordained of God.
(Isaiah 43:7)
God was and is purposefully and personally involved with Man’s creation.
(Genesis 2:7, Psalm 139:13-14)
How God created Adam and Eve?
Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and
the man became a living creature.
Genesis 2: 21- 25 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed
up its place with flesh. (22) And the rib that the Lord God had
taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to
the man. (23) Then the man said, " This at last is bone of my
bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because
she was taken out of Man.”
(24) Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and
hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
(25) And the man and his wife were both naked and were not
ashamed.
 Genesis 1: 27 – 28
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created
him; Male and Female he created them. And God blessed them. And
God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue
it and have dominion over fish of the sea and over the birds of the
heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
 The Bible says that man and woman were created by God and for God and find
meaning for their existence.
• To give Reverence. a feeling of awe or attitude of profound respect, usually reserved for
the sacred or divine; devoted. Psalms 33: 6-9
• To give our Worship. To worship is to show a lot of love and adoration. Psalms 95: 6
• For Service. Service to God and service for men. Psalms 100: 2- 4
• To Love Him. Mark 12: 30
• To give Glory and Honour. 1 Corinthians 10: 31
 Man is created in God's Image. - In the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-31) (Ephesians 4:23-24)
What Is the Image of God?

1. The Image of God Is Not Our Bodies.

• Animals and humans have bodies that show aspects of common design. While unique in their own way,
both humans and animals can have such features as eyes, noses, legs, and arms that point to our
common Creator. It is the unique creation of mankind in the image of God that distinguishes us from all
other creatures.
At an appointed time in history, the Son of God stepped into His creation taking on the form of a man (Philippians 2:7).
He added humanity without losing deity.
Scripture also reveals that God is Spirit (John 4:24). It would appear that taking on a human body is part of what has given
Jesus the ability to relate with human beings rather than it being an attribute of God as a display of His image.
John tells us that Jesus became flesh to show us God’s glory (John 1:14). This is the glory that mankind was meant to reflect
when we were created in God’s image.
God created Adam and Eve with bodies, and their bodies were part of His “very good” creation. In Christ, our bodies are the
temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and we are to use them as instruments of righteousness (Romans 6:12–13).
Adam and Eve were creaturely (creatures of God but not animals), as evidenced in their human body.
They were image - bearers, as evidenced in their very being.
The image of God is primarily a distinctive privilege of inexpressible value that mere animals do not share.
2. The Image of God Is Not Our Experience.
• As previously stated, Genesis 1:26 shows that male and female are gender distinctions within a sub-
category of mankind created in God’s image and likeness. Relational union between men and women
is not a definition of what it means to be made in the image of God but is a result of bearing the
image of God.
• This statement in Genesis 1:26, including the distinctive male/female relationship, is a secondary
element to the fact that man and woman each already bear the image of God and reflect the nature of
God. When God said “Let us make,” the declaration of mankind in God’s image was made before they
were alive to experience relationships as image bearers.
3. The Image of God Is Not Our Function.
• Genesis 1:26–28 seems to read as a series of sequential statements starting with the statement about
God creating mankind (both male and female) in His image and then describing the things that
mankind is to do. God first declared mankind in His image and then in sequence gave them instructions
for living.
• Adam and Eve were already in God’s image and likeness before they were given instructions for
dominion, filling and multiplying.
The Image of God as God’s Righteous Attributes.
• Paul’s discussions of the new man and old man give us great insight into what it means to be created in
the image and likeness of God (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10).
• It is an image that bears the righteousness and holiness of God.
• When Scripture describes all of God’s attributes, it is in the context of God being the perfection of
such attributes.
• For example, God is love, and God’s love is perfect. Humanity shares many of God’s attributes, and we
were originally created to reflect God’s perfect character in righteousness and holiness.
• While God has character traits that He does not share with humanity.
(e.g., God is self-existent, omniscient, omnipotent), we can still see His shared attributes
in humanity today, even though they are distorted by sin.
• Attributes such as love, self-awareness, justice, grace, and mercy are distinct from
attributes associated with animals. They are part of the very being of humanity.
• It is true that as we look at humanity today, we see a great difference between the
holiness of God’s character and human character.
We have distorted the very nature of God’s character in humanity because of our rejection of God’s holiness
and rule in our lives.
Throughout church history there has been much debate about the effect of sin on the image of God in man.
Even so, There are three unifying truths.
First, the Bible teaches that even after sin, mankind is still created in God’s image (Genesis 9:6; James 3:8–9).
Second, sin has devastatingly affected the image of God in man (Romans 3:23; Isaiah 59:1–4).
And third, it is only through Jesus Christ’s substitutionary atonement and Resurrection that mankind can be
forgiven, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28–30; Ephesians 4:24;
Colossians 3:5–10; 2
In what ways is man in the image of God?
1. Meant to be in relationship with Him (no image makes sense unless one understands the original).
Jesus who is God said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's." (Luke 20:25 / Mark
12:17 / Matthew 22:21)
2. Capacity for moral agency / choice / free agency.
3. Capacity for Creativity
4. Capacity for relationships and love
5. Rationality. The capacity to reason out, the quality of being able to think sensibly or Logically
6. To do His work (building up His kingdom, extending His kingdom, accomplishing His will)
 Man is more than flesh and blood. Man is a spiritual being born to have
communion with the eternal God of the universe. God creates every individual for a
purpose—to have fellowship with him. This is the ultimate meaning of the image of
God.
It is not that man as he is in himself bears God's likeness, but rather that man is
designated for and called to a particular relation with God. This concept of the image
of God assures us that we, unlike our animal ancestry and the many inanimate objects
of the universe, are privileged to have fellowship with the divine.
Indeed, there are many things that we humans can do to reflect what God is like.
We can show:
• love
• compassion
• forgiveness
• generosity.
We can have an awareness of the spiritual. This is the kind of thing I think it means when it says
we are in the image of God.
 (Psalms 139: 14)
We are made in the image of God
(We are wonderfully made)
In the Image of God
• When God created man in His own image, He purposed that mankind (both man and woman)
would resemble God in certain ways and share certain of the divine prerogatives.
• Concerning this we note:
1. It was not a physical likeness, but... Spirit and soul
• Although God is spirit (John 4:24) and does not have a body like a man, when He appeared visibly to men according to
the Old Testament record, He did so in the form of a human body (e.g. Genesis 18:1-2; )
• There is something about the human body therefore, which is uniquely appropriate to God’s manifestation of Himself,
and (since God knows all His works from the beginning of the world—Acts 15:18), He must have designed man’s body
with this in mind. Accordingly He designed it, not like the animals, but with an erect posture, with an upward gazing
countenance, capable of facial expressions corresponding with emotional feelings, and with a brain and tongue,
capable of articulate, symbolic speech.
• Furthermore, the human body was the form in which God the Son would be incarnated or ‘made in the likeness of
men’ (Philippians 2:7)
• As a result God made man in that bodily form which He Himself would one day assume—the form in which He wished
to reveal Himself.
2. It was a mental likeness.
• God endowed man with intellectual ability which was and is far superior to that of any animal.
As a result man was given a mind,
1. Capable of hearing and understanding God’s communication with him,
2. Emotions, capable of responding to God in love and devotion, and a will which enabled him
to choose whether or not to obey God.
• Man was thus equipped, not only to ‘love God and obey Him for ever’, but also to do God’s work on
earth—to be His regent and govern the creation in co-operation with his Creator.
3. It was a moral likeness.
• Man only, of all God’s creatures, has a spirit or God-consciousness, that is, a capacity for knowing
God and holding spiritual communion with Him through prayer, praise, and worship.
• Since the Fall (Genesis chapter 3), man has had inborn moral awareness of good and evil, or conscience,
which he perceives in his spirit v13.
• Man was made not only negatively innocent (that is, without sin), but positively holy, otherwise Adam
could not have had communion with God, who cannot look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13).
• This is further confirmed by Genesis 1:31, when God affirms that everything He had made (including man)
was ‘very good’, which would not have been true if man had been morally imperfect.
 Man’s intellectual gifts are further seen in his ability,
to design things and then make them, to appreciate beauty, to compose
glorious music, to paint pictures, to write, to count to large numbers and
do mathematics, to control and use energy for his own benefit (e.g. fire,
electricity, nuclear power), to organize, to reason, to make decisions, to be
self-conscious, to laugh at himself, and to think abstractly.
All this behaviour is non-instinctive, as distinct from animal behaviour, and as such it
is of unlimited variety.
4. It was a social likeness.
• God’s social nature and intrinsic love is seen in the doctrine of the Trinity. God—who is love—created man
with a social nature and a need for love.
• The statement in Genesis 3:8 that ‘they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool
of the day’ suggests that Adam and Eve enjoyed fellowship and communion with God, perhaps on a daily basis.
• God also provided for human fellowship and love in a very special and intimate way.
• Before He created Eve He said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone;
• I will make him a help meet for him’ (Genesis 2:18). He then made Eve out of a bone taken from Adam
(Genesis 2:21-24), a fact which Jesus used in His debate with the Pharisees to uphold the sanctity of marriage
and the intimacy of love within the marriage relationship (Matthew 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-8).
 Language, creativity, love, holiness, immortality and freedom
All these attributes, and many more man possesses or may possess because he is human,
made in the image of God.
These separate him from the animal kingdom.
They can be summed up in the phrase:
Man, like his Maker, has a mind
 What man were created for? 0r Why God created Man
?

1. Man is created for God's Glory.

• Glory is a very hard thing to define; It is like the word beauty." The glory of God is the beauty and
excellence of his manifold perfection. To glorify God (Himself) and to demonstrate the greatness
of His Character by functioning according to His design and will in all aspects of life.
• (Isaiah 43: 7) Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have
formed, yes, whom I have made
Because we were created for God's glory, our ultimate goal in life should be to live for his glory

• Before the throne of God in heaven, you and I will join the hosts of heaven and do what God created us to do: worship.
• Scripture reveals to us the kind of worship you and I will offer to God:
• Giving God glory will give our lives purpose and meaning
• It will give us the joy in our life that we all long for.
• To give God glory means to give him great honour and praise.
• Giving God glory is part of the life Jesus spoke of when he said, " I came that they may have life and have it abundantly...
( John 10: 10 )
• As David says, " In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" ( Psalms 16: 11 )
• The fullness of joy is found in knowing God and delighting in him. Psalm 139:13-14)
• Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they
existed and were created. (Rev. 4:11)
2. Man is created to know God.
• We could mention a lot of passages to make this point, but I will offer only one, my favourite, which
is John 17:3. And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent.
• This passage is not immediately obvious. In John 17:3, Jesus prays to God the Father revealing his mission
to restore people to their proper relationship to God. Jesus tells us that he came to reconcile a broken
relationship.
• He came to bring eternal life to us who were under a sentence of death. Jesus said, “This is eternal life
that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”
3. Man is created to love God.
• When God saved his people Israel out of Egyptian into slavery, he gave them a law. At the end of that
law, God reveals that the main point of the law is love.

• God desires for you and me to love him: “You shall love the LORD your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And
these words that I command you today shall be on your heart”
(Deut. 6:5–6).
4. Man is created to enjoy God.
• God is not opposed to our joy, happiness, pleasure, or desire. God wants these things for us more than we will ever
know. Our problem is that we often desire less than we should.
• We are satisfied with petty, insignificant, fleeting joy when God offers eternal joy.
• King David, the psalmist, expresses this well when he says, The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the LORD who gives me
counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I
shall not be shaken. (Psalms. 16:5–11)
• God offers a life of meaning and purpose to you. Christ lived, died, rose from the grave, and ascended to the right hand of the
Father for the sins of the world to reconcile a broken relationship, to inaugurate his kingdom of peace, and to establish a
good rule in the beginning of a new creation. When you accept Christ as saviour, you receive all that God offers: eternal life.
5. Man is created to fill the earth.
God gave obedient humankind 4 responsibilities in the first 2 chapters of Genesis.
1. First Responsibility: Be Fruitful and Multiply
• “Be fruitful, and multiply; and replenish the earth”. Gen 1:28. In the future this may be translated “fill the
universe!” Note: God also blessed creatures in the sea and in the air and said, “Be fruitful and increase in
number…” Gen 1:22. Man and woman created “In the Image of God” Gen 1:26-27.
• God allows us to continue creating. Two reproductive cells combine to form one, then "explode"
(multiply rapidly) Is it any more of a mystery that everything in existence is developing according to a plan
as "God said" in the Bible
2. Second Responsibility: Subdue the earth (universe) 1:28
• Subdue means to overcome or to bring under control by persuasion or training.Which involves research,
study and experimentation. Then the wisdom to apply the knowledge in a practical, loving manner.

3.Third Responsibility: Rule—Have dominion…

• After God created human kind he said “…let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds
of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeping upon
the earth. " Gen 1:26. Then, after God created human kind, he said to them “...have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moving upon the earth." Gen 1:28.
4. Fourth Responsibility: Work in and Take Care of God’s Creation.
• “And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”
(Genesis 2:15)
• Although the Bible doesn’t say so, there is a good possibility that God sat down with Adam and Eve and
recited the first and second chapters of Genesis over and over again so they knew it by heart—just like a
child requests a parent to retell a bedtime story over and over again, until the child can recite it word for
word. Later these same children recited it to their children, grand children, etc. for
generations. Eventually the oral tradition was written down and passed on to us in printed form.
Conclusion:
What is man:?
Psalms 8:4
" What is man, that you are mindful of him...."
Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them? Of what importance is
mankind, that you should pay attention to them,
After God created the heaven and earth, plants and animals on the earth, He had one
more thing to create, the pinnacle of His creation.. is MAN
 Man is made for the stars, created for eternity, born for the everlasting.
Man is a child of the almighty God, born for his everlasting fellowship.
“What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visited him? For thou hast
crowned him with glory and honour.You made him to have dominion over the works of thou hands; thou
hast put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field. The fowl of the air, and
the fish of sea, and whatsoever pass through the paths of the sea.”
This is man's kingly prerogative. Who this afternoon will rise out of the dark and dreary valleys of sin and
evil, realizing that man's proper home is in the high mountain of truth, beauty and goodness; yea even where
God the eternal dwells forever.