III. how to think about man - Chambers, Oswald

What is man, that thou are mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? Psalm 8:4

The christian faith declares the spiritual nature and dignity of man, that his creation is in the divine image and his destination is to bear the likeness of god in a perfected relation of son ship. . . To be conformed to the image of his son (Romans 8:29). In reading the history of the race our thought must fit itself into one of two fundamental categories: either we are wonderful beings in the making, or we are wonderful ruins of what we once were. The latter is the view of the bible. In john 3 we find our lord recognised the unmaking of man so keenly that he told nicodemus not to marvel when he was told he must be born again. A man never grows out of a natural into a spiritual man without being re-created. The apostle Paul bases his reasoning entirely on this fundamental revelation; he argues, wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17 RV mg). According to the bible, we do not evolve into better manifestations of god, or even into nearness to god; but only by a violent readjustment to god through regeneration are we re-made to bear the family likeness to god which we were at first designed to have. It is much easier to live a holy life than to think on Jesus Christs lines. Are we traitors intellectually to Jesus Christ while professing to be his disciples?

1. Mans creation

So god created man in his own image. (genesis 1:27; see colossians 1:1617)

The modern view is that man is continually evolving and developing, each phase being better than the last and the last gives us the best revelation of god; from this standpoint Jesus Christ is looked upon as the manifestation of all the best in the evolutionary processes of man. The evolutionary conception starts from something un-getatable, incalculable, with a power within itself to evolve endlessly. The great word we bow down and worship to-day is progress; we are progressing and developing, and the consequence is we are blind to the facts of history and blind to moral facts. The bible revelation about man is that man as he is, is not as god made him.

Immediately we get the idea that we are part of god, and the universe is his thought about himself, we are unable to accept the idea that god created us. It is far more natural for us to suppose ourselves emanations from the being of god, time-manifestations of god, as Jesus was, all of the same kindred. Such conceptions have a wonderful element of truth in them when applied to regenerated humanity, but the bible reveals the presence in unregenerated humanity of a positive anarchy against god (see Romans 8:7). It is possible to be so full of love and sympathy for unre- generate man as to be red-handed anarchists against god. This is exactly what the new testament states, especially in the reasonings of st. Paul regarding the old man, the disposition of self-interest that entered into human nature and unmade gods creation so that mans likeness to god in disposition was blot- ted out. The new testament reveals that this disposition cannot be educated, it cannot be disciplined or Altered, it must be removed and a new mainspring to human nature put in its place. The marvel of the atonement is that any man or woman who will make the moral decision that the old man ought to be crucified, and will accept the gift of the holy spirit which was manifested in Jesus Christ, will receive the new disposition which introduces him into the kingdom of god, and raises him to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, which surely means a present experience, not a future one. It is always fascinating to follow an intellectual process that more or less blinds one to facts, because whatever hinders that intellectual process must either be absorbed or removed. In practical experience when the deep within us calls to the deep without, there is tumult and upset, and we find a tremendous force that works away from god and will never work in harmony with him. When in the experience of individuals or of nations the up burst of this disintegrating power occurs, we turn with wistful glance to the book that has been discarded; and to the one being who has the key to all the problems of life and death, first things and last things, the beginning and ending of things, viz. , the lord Jesus Christ.

2. Mans calling

The bible reveals that mans calling is to stand before god and develop by obedience from the lowest point of conscious innocence to the highest reach of conscious holiness, with no intermediaries. This is mans calling as god created him, and that is why god will never leave us alone until the blaze and pain of his fire has burned us as pure as he is himself (cf. Mat- thew 3:11). It is the moment of unique crisis when a man realises for the first time the hiatus between himself and god, when the cry goes out from the depths of his nature, oh, that i knew where i might find him! Or, my god, what must i do to be saved? This is not the cry of a man crumpled up by moral irregularities, it is the cry wrung from the depths of human nature. In this crisis, which is the immortal moment of a mans conscious life, the meaning of the gospel first comes into play (see Matthew 1:21; 1 john 3:8). Jesus Christ claims that he can do in human nature what human nature cannot do for itself, viz. , destroy the works of the devil, remove the wrong heredity and put in the right one. He can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, he can put the key into our hands which will give the solution to every problem that ever stretched before our minds. He can soothe by his pierced hands the wildest sorrow with which Satan or sin or death ever racked humanity. There is nothing for which Jesus Christ is not amply sufficient and over which he cannot make us more than conquerors. The new testament does not represent Jesus Christ as com- ing to us in the character of a celestial lecturer; he is here to re-create us, to presence us with divinity in such a way that he can re-make us according to gods original plan, eternal lovers of god himself, not absorbed into god, but part of the great spirit- baptised humanity till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of god, unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of christ (Ephesians 4:13 RV).

3. Mans communion

And enoch walked with god. (genesis 5:24; see john 14:23)

The bible reveals mans communion to be consciously with god, not in spasms or ecstasies, but under the figure of a walk in the old testament, and the abiding inmates21 of a home in the new testament; it is not absorption, but communion.

In the bible man is revealed as a created being, intended to be gods lover, not a part of god, but to be brought back into the relationship of conscious, passionate devotion to god even as our lord himself expressed it. Jesus Christ showed us during a life of thirty-three years what a normal man should be; in what he did and said, and in what he was, he showed us how to think about man, viz. , that he is to be the companion and lover of god.

Many to-day are seeking reconciliation between the modern views and the new testament views. It is being attempted ably, but it is a perfectly useless attempt, as useless as trying to make black, white; as trying to make wrong, right; as trying to make the old man the new man by whitewash. It can never be done. There is only one solution, and that solution comes along the line of the personality of truth, not the abstraction of truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life the way in the waylessness of this wild universe; the truth amidst all the contending confusions of mans thought and existence; the life amidst all the living deaths that sap men”s characters and their relationships and connections with the high- est. Only by being re-created and re-adjusted to god through the atonement of our lord Jesus Christ can we understand the marvellous unity between god and man for which god destined man. That they may all be one; even as thou, father, art in me, and i in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me ( john 17:21 RV).