Hebrews 2:6 But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man that you visit him? The question of all antiquity, and perhaps the question around which for years to come the greatest theological and scientific strife will take place, is this: What is man? The answer that the Christian Church will give will not of course accord in all points with the answer of the scientist who denies the revelation which comes from God. Yet, strange to say, though by different paths, and for every different purposes, we come in one sense to the same conclusion as the scientist: that there are possibilities in man which, if only they be evolved, will raise him to an infinite height, and bestow upon him a power that is possessed by no other creature in the universe. We hold that man is intended by God to be elevated step by step by the power of the gospel, until he becomes a partaker of the very glory of God. The scientist holds — if he denies revelation, I mean — that man is gradually, by a process of evolution, and by the development of the species, to be so elevated that at last all that is called God shall be found in him, and that man thus becomes a God to himself and to creation. But there is little question that the answer will be that "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof"; that man is but the deputy or vicegerent of his God; and that if man can be elevated to the position to which Almighty God intended him to attain, he shall be one with God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; he shall be elevated, step by step, by the gospel power, until he shall attain to the highest glory of God: "The glory that Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one." I know no motive power that can touch man's nature when it be elevated above the self-consciousness of self-seeking, so much as the inquiry what God meant man to be, what God made man for originally, what He considers him to be now, and what are the possibilities God has put before man in and through the glorious Saviour Jesus Christ our Lord. My purpose, therefore, is to inquire whether, if God's revelation be the power by which mankind can be elevated to its highest possible destiny, we are prepared to carry out that purpose, and to glorify God as our Saviour in all things, by giving up ourselves to His service, to live the devoted live that the Church should live. and to rise above the selfishness of mere personal salvation; remembering that there is a still more glorious aim than merely to be saved, and to enter personally into the glory of God, and it is this — that in her corporate, capacity, the Church should see that the individual life and personality is in one sense to be lost, and that when the individual soul forgets even its own personal salvation and its aspirations to everlasting happiness, then, and then only, does it really attain to the highest possible dignity of man; and that when the Church as a whole becomes, as she should be, greatly thoughtful on behalf of the individuals or units that one by one make up the perfection of the body of Christ which is His Church, then only will she fulfil her high destiny upon earth. Now let us proceed to the inquiry, taking our answer from God's own Word. What is man? Can anything more magnificent be conceived than the dignity wherewith God originally endowed him? Whole step by step God evolved the glories and beauties of creation, one and one only purpose was in the Master-Maker, and that was to prepare the wonderful sphere in which man as the top stone of all should be happy and blessed, and should glorify his Maker. And when that wonderful series of preparations was completed, we find that even the Almighty Maker, the great Creator, has to pause as it were, in order that He may give greater dignity and greater glory to the creation of the creature which is to be possessor of all! — and instead of that mere fiat, "Let there be" and "there was," we hear the Triune God saying, "Let Us make man in Our own image and after Our own likeness." And then "God made man," as the apostle Paul says, "the image and glory of God"! Surely from that moment we should expect the sphere of man to be great. But suddenly all the glory is swept away, and the creature for whom God had worked so long ceases to enjoy his original position; for by one act of folly he has severed himself from God, and, sin entering into the world, and death by sin, all the greatness of man would seem to be lost for ever. Nor. from that time forward, as far as physical manifestation goes, has there ever been a recovery of the creature's lost dignity; and if now (however much modern science rejects the doctrine of the fall) the inquiry rings through the vault of heaven " What is man? " the answer would appear to be that man has become a thing of naught. Yea, "ye, fly every man at his best state is altogether vanity." Man is even "like a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Yet, though this his fallen condition urges one to think with pain of the creature, let me invite you to pause before you condemn humanity after that modern fashion which is at the opposite extreme to that which speaks of man rising upwards and becoming God. Let me ask you to look at the fallen creature and see how, even after the fall, there are magnificent proofs in him of the original power of God, and that he is by no means to be condemned as a hopeless cripple. We gaze upon the ruins of a city and, from these ruins we gather is former magnificence and greatness; and it is by the style of these ruins that we judge of the city. So let me ask you to look at man for a moment, and as you see in this fallen creature powers that never were found in any other, you shall be compelled to give him your admiration, and honour him for the possibilities that lie buried beneath the surface, and which may elevate him into something almost Divine if only he can be delivered from the dominion of sin. Look, for instance, at the power or revenge as inherited in the vilest and worst of men. We find no other creature in the world who, for the mere sake of obtain-ink vengeance on its own behalf, will determine to sacrifice its own life. Look at the power of covetousness — that ambition and yearning after money and place, which the apostle describes as idolatry; and observe the wondrous powers there are in the creature who, for the mere sake of advancing himself, will slave and toil in order that he may be elevated above his fellows. Look again on that awful power of remorse, which comes over those who have fallen and sunk into despair. Can anything prove more clearly than the workings of remorse the very magnificence of the creature who is capable of such conditions and emotions? It would seem, if we watch a man in the activities of remorse, as if we were able to stand on a height within himself and so contemplate the utter misery of his own ruined, fallen slate. Surely there is no other creature in the world such as this. Therefore, as we look at man in his fall, again we are compelled to say, What is man? and to answer back, Man is not merely the wreck of his former self-though that we believe most solemnly — but a wonderful creature, a marvellous being, fitted, if only liberated from his fallen condition, to stand once more in the presence of God. At length, after four thousand years, during which God had from time to time been essaying to reveal Himself unto men, the oracle would seem to have become altogether dumb, when an angel appears to a virgin in Nazareth, and tells that a "holy thing shall be born of her which shall be called the Son of God"; and there bursts from the inspired lips of Zacharias the cry that "God hath visited and redeemed His people," and that "the Dayspring from on high hath visited us"; and the Lord Jesus, as the true "Word made flesh," appears among men. And now, what see we as the result of Jehovah deigning to appear in the flesh? First, the manifestation of what mall should be and could be if only the purpose of God was fulfilled; secondly, the manifestation of what God still determined to accomplish in man, because in Christ Jesus He would purchase humanity to Himself; and, thirdly, the manifestation of what may be done by those brought into personal contact and union with Him, being made one with the Son of God, by the faith which He requires us to exercise. We also see that in place of limitation, which had appeared to be working for so many centuries, expansion commenced, and has been wondrously proceeding from the day that the Lord Jesus returned to His Father in heaven. For when about to pass back to the glory of God, arid to be hidden from men's eyes for a little while, we hear from His lips the blessed truth that " Ye shall receive power" and " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me," and in ten days from that time a third great series of manifestations commences. No longer ,in men see the form of the Son of God, but the power of the Holy Ghost in the sons of God. Jehovah-Elohim had appeared unto man; Jehovah Jesus had appeared for man; and now, in the Church of God, and in the fulness of His power, the Jehovah Spirit would appear in man. From that day forward the work of expansion commences, and for eighteen hundred years the great power of the Lord, the Holy Ghost, has been exhibit d in this world working out the complete man (Ephesians 4:13, and Ephesians 5:25, &e.). The Second Man, who is the Lord from heaven, will not be complete until His Bride be brought unto Him, His glorious Church, wit; out spot or wrinkle or any such thing; and so each sinner that is joined to Jesus Christ by His Spirit is made a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and we live in Him, we live by Him, and we may now live for Him, in order that hereafter we may live with Him in the manifested glory that awaits God's Son. And now when we see "the Man Christ Jesus" made perfect through suffering, and then lifted up to the throne of God that by His Spirit He may draw men into absolute unity with Himself, say, oh say, "What is man?" What is man, as we see him in the person of God's Son? What is man, as we see him in the purpose of God, which is to be carried out in soul after soul of those that are redeemed and united vitally unto the Lord Jesus Christ? And " what is man" when we consider the triumphs of this gospel? What but this truth, as the truth is in Jesus, has made man such as he has occasionally been seen? What but this could have made a Paul, a Peter, or a John? What but this could have given us an , a Wycliffe, a Huss, a Savonarola, a Luther? What but this in these latter days could give us those blessed missionaries who have stood before the world as witnesses for the power of Christ? What but this, the purpose of God, to glorify man, the purpose of God that man should have dominion in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that all may bee-me workers together with Him, if only they he vitally united to the Man? (H. W. Webb Peploe, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? |
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