Hymns 972
Scripture Reading:
Gen. 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.
Gen. 2:7 Jehovah God formed man with the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
Now let us come to see the second great mystery in the Bible, which is the mystery of man. Actually, the mystery of man is the mystery of you. All the abstract, invisible, spiritual, living things are surely mysterious, but our human body is also mysterious. Our eyes are more complex than the most advanced cameras today. Even the hairs of our body are mysteries. All the hairs in our body grow downward; only the hairs in our trachea grow upward. Some up and some down: what a mystery! This mystery is very logical. If the hairs on our body were to grow upward, it would be inconvenient for us to take a bath or shower. But if the hairs in our trachea were to grow downward, we would be in trouble, because all the dirty things would go down and accumulate in the lungs; we would not even be able to cough out phlegm. Is this not marvelous?
MAN BEING ACCORDING TO GOD’S KIND
Genesis 1:26 says, “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” The Us here refers to the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit wanted to create man in Their image and after Their likeness. But when we reach verse 27, it says, “And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” The pronoun Us in verse 26 becomes a singular pronoun He. It is clearly Us in one verse, yet the next verse says He. Why is this? If you continue to read the Bible, you will find the answer when you reach the New Testament. Actually, Jesus Christ is the image of God (Col. 1:15); He is the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of God’s substance (Heb. 1:3). Hence, God’s creation of man in the beginning was according to Christ.
GOD USING DUST AND THE BREATH OF LIFE TO CREATE MAN
In Genesis 2 we are told what kinds of material God used to create man and how He created man. First, God used the dust of the ground to create man’s body. It is unmistakable that man’s body is of the ground. Genesis 3:19 says that man was taken out of the ground and that man is dust and will return to dust. However, God breathed the breath of life into man’s nostrils, into his body, and man became a living soul with a spirit (Gen. 2:7). There were two kinds of material used: one was dust, which is concrete and visible; the other was breath, which is abstract and invisible. The dust was used to form man’s body, and the breath was breathed into man to become man’s spirit.
Here we see two kinds of material: dust and breath. The dust formed man’s body, and the breath became man’s spirit. The combination of the two produces the soul. This is why the Bible says that man is a living soul. In the Bible the soul is the unit for counting people. Seventy people of Jacob’s household went down into Egypt, but the Bible says seventy souls went down into Egypt (Gen. 46:27, KJV).
In the Hebrew language, the word for breath in “the breath of life” in Genesis 2:7 is the same word for spirit in “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah” in Proverbs 20:27. This proves that the breath of life that God breathed into man entered into man to become his spirit. Proverbs 20:27 says that the spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah. This means that man’s spirit is the lamp to contain Jehovah as the oil for the lamp to shine. Therefore, if the spirit within man does not have God, it becomes a useless lamp. The spirit within us is a lamp, and it needs God to come into it as oil for us to be lit and to shine forth.
TAKING CARE OF OUR SPIRIT
Today, our spirit is the most important part of our entire being. The human spirit is the organ for receiving God as life. We are just like a radio. A radio has a receiver within it. When the receiver malfunctions, it cannot receive the radio waves. Man is like a radio, and the human spirit within him is like a receiver. However, due to man’s fall, very few people take care of the spirit within. Man cares only for the outward body and the soul. When we repented and were saved, our spirit was activated. In other words, our conscience was activated.
LIVING IN SPIRIT TO BE A VESSEL OF GOD
Zechariah 12:1 says, “Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him.” In God’s eyes, man is of equal importance with heaven and earth. Moreover, heaven and earth are for man; so man is the center. Without the earth, man could not live. Without heaven, the earth would be without rain and sunlight and thus would not be able to sustain all the living things. The animals could not live; the plants could not live; and even more, man could not live. The vast heaven is for the earth, and the earth is for man. Although heaven is great, it is for the earth; although the earth is big, it is for the small man; and although man is small, he is for God. God is Spirit, and the man who is for God must also have a spirit so that the two spirits can become one spirit. It is no wonder that the Chinese sages said that man is the “spirit of all things.” The heaven is for the earth, and the earth is for man and for the spirit within man, so that man could live in his spirit to be God’s vessel to receive, contain, express, and manifest God for God’s satisfaction.
Today, we should not use our mind to worship God; rather, we need to use our spirit to worship. Only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Only the Spirit can beget the spirit; only the spirit can worship the Spirit. I hope that these words could unravel the mystery of man. Man is a mystery because he has a spirit in him that enables him to let God come in to be his life and meaning. Thus, God becomes the mystery of man. Thank and praise the Lord! God is not only the mystery and meaning of the universe; even more He is the mystery and meaning of man. (Five Great Mysteries in the Bible, ch, 2)
Further Reading: Five Great Mysteries in the Bible, ch, 2; The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 110; CWWL, 1963, vol. 4, “The Relationship of God with Man in God’s New Creation,” ch. 2
