Theme: Purpose of Human Life
Text: Genesis 1:26-31
Introduction:
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I greet you all in the name of our Lord saviour Jesus Christ. The Lord is good, and his love endures forever. Today, we are meditating under the theme: Purpose of Human Life, based on Genesis 1:26-31.
Let us meditate under the following three sub-titles: God created humanity
- as an Honourable creation,
- as a Purposeful creation,
- as an Eternal creation
1. Humanity as an Honourable Creation(Genesis 1:26-27).
We live in a time of death news. The news all around the corner is of cries, panic, fast spread of a virus through social and web media. We hear so much on shortages of vaccines, supply of oxygen, beds, and queue in cremation and burial grounds in the Indian Sub-continent. But today, I would like to share the hope of life.
Where is God? Then we keep thinking and asking: What is happening with the world? What is the Purpose of Humanity? Why God created Human beings? Does he lose control over his creation? From time immemorial many tried to find an answer to questions, which came to their minds. Who am I? where do have I come? Where do am I heading?
They searched for answers through their ancestors, gurus, leaders and religious books. The incomplete and unsatisfactory answers made some become hermits, some as philosophers, some as self-declared gods and goddess, and some as atheists. Theists also became polytheists and confused within themselves. Children growing, raise many questions to their parent grandparents and their teachers about the purpose of humanity. These days young people, children make efforts to get answers. The ultimate aim of anyone is to know the purpose of human life on earth.
The passage which we heard reading describes that God has created all of us. The first parents Adam, and Eve had come from God. The Gospel of Luke says that Adam was the son of God (Luke 3:37). God created Adam after his image and likeness. God has invested His Holy attributes in man. His holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, grace, love, truth, so on. had reflected through him. Though, we are descendants of Adam. Yet, each one of us is unique (Psalm 139:13-16). He continues on his creation episode day and night, in the womb of the many mothers on the earth.
Adam was created lesser than angels in power but higher than angels in relating to him. God never came to die for the Angels but the sons of men. God gave man an extra sense and wisdom than all other created beings on the earth (Genesis 2:19-20). So, I do not want to believe that I have evolved from a monkey. I do not want to believe that God created human beings from his several parts of the body to establish castes and divisions.
God created nations and languages to fulfil one of his purposes of the human race. But the castes, classes are human-made to subdue one another. God has ordered the man to rule over animals, birds, the living things on earth, and the sea. But, man has rule one another and created an imbalance in the economy, treating one another and valuing one another higher. Does God create human for this purpose? NO. God created them so that they would worship him and enjoy the relationship with him.
Maturity comes through choosing the good and refusing the evil (Hebrews 5:8,14). Each victory over temptation would have helped Adam grow from a state of childlike innocence into one of adult maturity. His fellowship with God would have deepened, and his understanding of God’s purposes increased (ref:studylight.org/Bridgeway Commentary). The church is the corporate “new man,” Head and Body, Bridegroom and Bride, created in God’s image to have dominion over Satan (Eph. 1:22-23; 2:15-16; 4:24; 5:32; 6:10-20; Col. 3:10).
2. Humanity a Purposeful Creation (Genesis 1:28-30):
God created humanity as a purposeful creation. The man was created to Glorify God through exercising his personality—mind, heart, and will. With his mind, man has to know God; with his heart, he has to love God, and with his will, he has to obey God. (ref: bible.org). God has created man to worship God and to have dominion over the creations. God has created the world with an ulterior motive of bringing glory to him alone (Psalm 100:2-3- Enter his gates with thanksgiving and worship him and bow down before him. John 17:3-4, Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 -fear God and keep his commandments). The sole purpose is to love the Lord (Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 10:27). He has created Adam and Eve to have a faithful and devoted generation (Malachi 2:15).
Be fruitful, Increase in Number, Fill the earth and subdue it, and Rule over the Creature on the ground was additional responsibilities entrusted to humanity (Genesis 1:28, 9:1-3). God has given him all the authority over the entire creation on earth. He cannot think of ruling over the Sky, Ocean and Atmosphere. His limitations are within the world. Job 34:13 says God has appointed man over the earth. God’s purpose is to have a man on earth reflecting His image and having dominion over the earth and bring under His sovereignty.
We must understand the gap theory between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Satan was in the Garden of Eden and had perfection. (The only biblical hints of Satan’s fall are in Isa. 14:12-15 & Ezek. 28:12-16.) It is possible that Satan, before his fall, ruled earlier earth under God. When he rebelled and led several angelic forces with him, God brought a judgment on that original creation, resulting in the chaos, emptiness, and darkness of Genesis 1:2 (the “gap theory”).
But, the man quickly deviated from the primary purpose of Obedience and worship of only God by encountering the fallen angel Satan, called Lucifer. The man easily believed the lie and learned tricks of Satan. He desired to become like God to know good and evil. The man who was in the image and likeness of God forgot to realize his inborn and inherited qualities of God. Therefore, he yielded to lies and embraced the death of his soul. He lost the relationship with God. He separated himself from God due to his disobedience to God and not keeping the honour. The disobedience and wickedness became the lifestyle of the people on the earth till the flood destroyed the created world (Genesis 6:5-7).
God found very few obedient and honest men in the pre-historical period. We can number them Seth, Enoch, and Noah. Finally, God found Noah the only worthy person to spare among the multitudes and numerous on those days. God decided to utterly wipe out the world with a flood. But he saved Noah and his wife, sons and daughters-in-law (Genesis 6:1-8). Noah worshipped God and pleased him with the Aroma (Genesis 8:21). God has revealed His purpose in creating man. He will not destroy the earth again with the flood (Genesis 8:22).
3. Humanity as an Eternal Creation (Genesis 2:7)
“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”. Man is a compound being, having a body and soul distinctly and separately created. The body out of the dust of the earth, and the soul breathed from God himself (Adam Clark). In the beginning, God created out of nothing (ba'ra) but here God formed the first human being (yi'ser) out of something like an artist, a sculptor, or a potter(ref: bibleref.com). The word used in Genesis 2:7, ‘formed or made’ but the word used in Genesis 1:1, 1:27, 1:26 is “created”.
Josephus (Jewish Historian) says, red earth or clay macerated with water ( Job 33:6 ), "formed" like a potter who forms his clay into whatever shape he pleases ( Isaiah 64:8 ). It serves to humble the pride of man and to consider that he is of the earth, dust, and ashes and to he must return to it. A living man performs all the functions of the animals of eating, drinking, and walking, and above all thinking, reasoning, and discoursing as a rational creature (ref: biblestudytools.com, John Gill).
God formed the man out of dust not out of rock, not from the ores of metals. He is feeble. His life is a gift from the Lord and not evolved from any animal. A man was merely a lump of well-formed dirt. Science has proved that the substance of his flesh, sinews, and bones, consists of the very same elements as the soil which forms the crust of the earth and the limestone that lies embedded in its bowels.
Man is made up of mortal and immortal components. One is of the dust and another is of the eternal God. One goes down to earth to decay and another to eternal as imperishable. The beauty of humanity is eternal creation. His soul never dies. It either will be in heaven or hell forever according to the duties it has performed on the body. The "breath of life" (Heb. nesama) was God’s breath that gave Adam life, spiritual understanding (Job 32:8), and a functioning conscience (Proverbs 20:27). Adam’s life came from God’s breath. His uniqueness consisted in his having been made in God’s image. God’s breath may be a synonym for His word (Psalms 33:6).
The man by his body as he is allied to earth and by his soul to heaven, so by the vital union of two, he is associated with the whole animal kingdom, of which he is the constituted sovereign. He is suited to dwell and rule on this earth. The height of his glory is yet to come out in his relation to the future and God (ref: studylight.org/ Albert Barnes).
At death, the breath (rua?) leaves the body; first, the mystery of life had been imparted to man by the breath (rua?) of God Himself. Through life, man became “a living soul” (nephesh) and shared his life with the animals. It is this breathing (n’shâmâh) of life. Hebrews believe: (1) At death the flesh of man turns again to dust, (2) God takes back His breath (rua?) unto himself, and (3) the nephesh, or soul, departed into the Sheol, the region of the dead (Job 34:14-15). (ref:biblehub.com/ Cambridge). The new man receives the breadth of God through Jesus Christ (John 20:22). The first operation of the man brought Eve. God is moral and eternal, so man too.
Job recognized that man has a spirit (Job 32:8), which Paul shows in I Corinthians 2:11 endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records our experiences, character, and personality, which God stores until the resurrection of the dead. Paul affirms that eternal life is a gift of God in Christ (Romans 6:23). Paul tells saints, "This corruptible must put on incorruptible, and this mortal must put on immortality" (I Corinthians 15:53). At the first resurrection, God will give "eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour, and immortality"(Romans 2:7) (Ref:bibletools. org). Read: Revelation 20:12-15 to know the end of the soul.
