WHAT IS MAN?
WHAT IS MAN?
Job 15: 14 - 16; Psalm 144: 3, 4; Job 7: 17, 18; Psalm 8: 4 - 9; Hebrews 2: 5 - 10
One of the most important considerations in Scripture is the thought of what man is. It would not be too much to say that our knowledge of what God is is dependent on our knowing what man is. Our knowledge of God is largely dependent on our realising what man is as a fallen being, because his fall has brought out the character, nature and actings of God. So one of the greatest and most comprehensive questions in Scripture is, “What is man?”
[p. 278] There are two ways in which we may look at this. We may take up the thought of what man is in a merely orthodox way — that is how Eliphaz the Temanite took it up. He says what is incontrovertible, but he does not bring out anything to touch one’s heart in connection with the knowledge of God.
It is possible to take account of the state of man as a fallen sinner apart from the thoughts of God in regard to him, but this does not carry us beyond the range of the natural man. It is the goodness of God that leads man to repentance. It is possible to state the truth as to fallen man in an indisputable way, but if we leave out what God is for that man we have not gained much. Eliphaz says, “What is man, that he should be pure? and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight: How much less the abominable and corrupt — man, that drinketh unrighteousness like water!” It was very true and orthodox but it gave no impression of what God was in grace for such a man. Hence God had to say to Eliphaz at the end, “Mine anger is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken rightly of me, like my servant Job” (Job 42: 7).
Even men of the world may have a sense of the corruption in man. I believe it was Byron the poet who said, ‘Who knows thee well, will quit thee with disgust, Degraded mass of animated dust’.
But that does not bring God in, and if we do not bring God in we have gained nothing. J.B.S. once said to me of a brother, ‘He can knock the old man to pieces till there is not a bit left the size of a match, but he cannot bring Christ in’.
Men may state what man is as fallen in an orthodox way, as Eliphaz did, but there is no elevating power in that.
The great advantage of realising what a corrupt and fallen being man is, as descended from Adam, is that it provides an introduction to the blessed God which we never could have had in circumstances of innocence or righteousness. In speaking of man’s abominable and filthy condition (verse 16)
[p. 279] Eliphaz was trying to strike a hard blow at Job, but it did not occur to him that this condition in man might be an outlet for what was in the heart of God. Augustine, speaking of the fall, called it a ‘happy fault’ because of what it had brought out in the heart of God. I wonder if each of us has realised that the fact that we are corrupt and abominable has put us in the position where we can learn God in a way that no unfallen being could ever learn Him? No man would seek to hide from himself the truth of his fallen condition if he could but see that that condition is his very opportunity to get to know God. Satan seeks to shut out the thought of God from the minds of men; he fills their minds with business, moneymaking and pleasures to keep God out; but if conscience awakes and moral thoughts do come in, Satan often presses on a man his terrible and sinful state to drive him to despair, and then he will tell him the only thing for him to do is to commit suicide. That is the devil’s gospel.
Psalm 144 brings to us the thoughts of faith. The psalmist sees the condition of man as God’s opportunity; there is faith operative in him. Eliphaz was orthodox and sound as to the fall of man, but he did not bring God in for that man; the psalmist looks at man in vanity as an opportunity for God to take thought of him. In this psalm we get man as the subject of grace; God cares for him. What an impression of God it gives one! Even our badness and vileness have been God’s opportunity, and He has cared for us; God has a creature He can make Himself known to. I like to think I am just the creature to whom God can make Himself known, and if He had not had such a creature He would have remained unknown. It needed me — the filthy, abominable sinner — to bring God into evidence in the truth of His character and nature. Being in that state I know God in a way that angels could not know Him. If angels get to know God it is by observing His ways with men; the saints are the lesson book of the angels, for angels cannot know in themselves the actings of grace.
[p. 280] When angels fell they fell finally and irretrievably; God did not let Himself out to angels, but He does to men. The things we deplore in ourselves are assets if we take them up rightly; they were the opportunity for God to come down. When Adam went out of the garden of Eden clothed with skins he went out morally greater than he was before the fall, because he had learned God in a way that he could never have known Him in innocence; he had learned how a sinful creature could be clothed and set up in suitability to God on the ground of the death of another. He had learned God as acting in righteous grace, and what a gain was this! Creature greatness lies in the knowledge of God. Our true greatness in the moral universe is in what we know of God, and we arrive at it through our sinnership.
We see in Psalm 144 that the result of Jehovah coming down in saving and delivering power is unlimited blessing (see verses 12 - 15). That is the result of God being known as coming down in grace to act for His fallen creature. Man is vanity, nothing, but God is everything for him in grace. God takes thought of His ruined creature whose condition has provided Him with an opportunity to show His grace and favourableness.
In Job 7: 17, 18 we see man as the subject of God’s chastening. I think we should widen out our thoughts of God’s chastening; we limit it sometimes to the people of God, but I think that man is the subject of God’s chastening, and for this wonderful reason: “What is man, that thou makest much of him?” God makes much of man by chastening him; He has set His heart upon him (verse 17). How active God is in His chastening ways with men! (see Job 33). The things which Job suffered are common to men; other people besides Christians have business losses, bereavements, sickness and sufferings. These are the kinds of chastening that come out in Job. Some chastening (as in Hebrews) is for sons; none have the peculiar sufferings of the path of faith but those who are in that faith; we can escape those chastenings if we are minded to do so, but there are many things that we cannot avoid.
[p. 281] Elihu mentions many things which God works with man. Why does God work with man? Because he has set His heart on him. Every bit of sorrow and trial that comes on an unconverted man is the chastening of God, and it is all in view of man’s blessing. We should be able to interpret these things for men, but then we must first have the comfort of it ourselves. If God chastens me He is making much of me; He is taking infinite pains with me. He might leave His creatures to go their own way and not interfere with them, but He cares for them. When anything that is untoward happens we should think, ‘The blessed God is making much of me!’ We are apt to think, ‘He is crushing me!’ Job interprets the chastening ways of God as making much of man! If I get a stroke of chastening it turns my heart to God, and God says, ‘Yes, that is what I want, I want you to think of Me’.
When an unconverted man is laid on a sick-bed God is making much of him. God has for the time put a stop to his money-making, his pleasures, his self-sufficiency; God is saying to him, I want you to think of Me, I have set My heart on you. What an inlet to the heart of God the thought of this gives! We ought to be God’s interpreters, able to put men on the line of understanding God’s chastening ways with them. I do not mean merely saying pious, sentimental things such as are current, but bringing in the true knowledge of God, first for ourselves and then for others. Our ability to do this just depends on how we know God. And if we had a right sense of what man is we should have a wonderful knowledge of what God is. God is all the time saying, ‘I will do anything to get into your heart’. What a God He is!
Now if we understand what man is as the subject of grace and chastening, it prepares us to learn what man is as the subject of counsel, and that brings us to Christ. In Psalm 8 we have the thought of divine complacency in man. God’s grace and chastening show us the outgoings of the heart of God towards sinful man; but when the Son of man is brought in we get the thought of complacency. We come now to what lies behind all the actings of grace and the chastenings of [p. 282] God. All these came in to transfer us in our affections from Adam to Christ.
The Son of man is Christ; God visits Him. He remembers the fallen man; there is a beautiful note to the word in the Darby translation, Hebrews 2: ‘An active recollection because the object is cared for’. But God has brought in the Son of man, One whom He can visit; He visits Him in the pleasure of complacency. God visited Him at His baptism, on the holy mount and in the grave when He raised Him from the dead. God has now a Man in whom He can be complacent, and He is going to give that Man universal supremacy. God is going to give Him all that Adam had in figure — universal supremacy in this creation.
When we think of Christ as the answer to the question, “What is man?” we are lost in wonder. We are outside the state of ruin, vanity, failure, and are in the presence of a Man known from eternity, before the earth was, as the One who would bring about all God’s purposes. It is wonderful to think there is a habitable part of the earth, habitable for God. The greater part of the earth at present is uninhabitable for God, but the habitable part is found in the assembly. There is a place where people can live in true relation with God. How can people live in selfishness, pleasure-seeking and money-getting? But there is a habitable place where the sons of men live who have learnt what it is to derive from Christ.
Hebrews 2 gives us the habitable part of God’s earth; it is an anticipation of the world to come. God has put it under a Man, and we see that Man; the centre is secured. We cannot yet see the circumference, but we can see the centre, and as brethren of Christ we stand in relation to the One who is the Centre of God’s moral universe. In the brethren of Christ is being worked out in men the divine answer to the question, “What is man?” It has been worked out to finality in Christ, but it is being worked out with a view to finality in the saints. There is a worshipping company, a witnessing company, and [p. 283] a waiting company. In that company we see a divine answer to the question, “What is man?” We have to reach up to the greatness of it.
We reach it by way of suffering. It must be so in a condition where sin and death have come in; glory can only be reached through suffering, and God’s end for man is glory. The answer to the question, “What is man?” is found in Christ, where we see Man in the place of sonship, crowned with glory and honour, but He has come into that place through suffering and death. He has reached the place of divine purpose for man through suffering and death, and the many sons have to go the same way. It was as Leader of salvation that the Lord was made perfect. He has come into the place of inferiority to angels that He might die, and now He is Leader of salvation to a company of many sons, and in that company there is a divine answer to the question, “What is man?”
We are already brought to glory in a moral sense; we have not only to wait for a future day. We are brought in our affections to One crowned with glory and honour. Glory is the fruition of every divine thought, and God has reached it in Christ, and He is bringing us to it. We come short of glory in Adam, but through grace and as following the leadership of Christ we are brought to glory. Glory is God’s thought for man; it is there we see the answer to the question, “What is man?” He is a vessel of divine glory. The way to glory is by the road of suffering; we cannot reach it any other way. I feel we know little of it because we have so little followed a suffering Christ.
Glory is the fruition of all the thoughts and purposes of God. If everything is brought to fruition as in the mind and heart of God, the word that describes it is glory. Some one said, ‘Glory is the excellence of a thing in display’. When God gives fruition to all His thoughts and purposes of love it will be His own excellency in display; and man is the being who is the vessel of it.