Biblical Anthropology is the branch of Christian systematic theology that focuses on humanity from a biblical perspective, as pertains to humanity's origin, nature, culture, purpose and destiny. Biblical Anthropology is not the same as Secular Anthropology or Humanistic Anthropology which base their ideas entirely on scientific reasoning and the evolutionary origin of humans, and teach that humans are intrinsically good instead of intrinsically evil. Biblical Anthropology seeks to answer the following questions:
What are humans?
How did humans come into existence?
What is some of the ethnic and cultural diversity?
What are the problems faced by humanity?
How can humanity's greatest problems be solved?
The theme verse of Biblical Anthropology is Psalm 139:14, which says "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Humans are the only creatures on earth that were created in the image of God (Genesis 5:1, 2), and because of this, humans are the highest tangible life forms that exist on earth. Humans did not come into existence by chance; they did not evolve from random mutations in apes or monkeys. The first human being, Adam, was created by God on the sixth day of the creation week (Genesis 1:26-31) from constituents in the dust of the ground, and he became a living soul after God breathed the breath of life into him (Genesis 2:7). As with all the other sexual creatures, God created both male and female human beings. The male human is called man, and the female human is called woman. The first woman, Eve, was created from a rib God removed from Adam's side. The first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were created perfect, sinless and without blemish; every aspect of their being was perfect. They were in perfect fellowship with God their Creator. God created the Garden of Eden as their original home, where they enjoyed perfect fellowship with God and with each other. However, everything changed when Satan entered the picture and deceived Eve into disobeying God's command, then Adam joined Eve in disobeying God. This act of disobedience was a sin that caused humanity to fall from perfection and loose their perfect relationship with God their Creator. Adam and Eve were sentenced to death by God and were expelled from the Garden of Eden to live out their lives in harsh conditions laboring for survival until they grew old and died. All of Adam and Eve's children were born after Adam and Eve fell from perfection, so all of their children inherited sin and imperfection from them. This phenomenon is called original sin, and it passed on to all of Adam's descendants generation after generation. As a result of this, every human being that has ever lived has received the mark of original sin and is guilty of all manner of sin against God. Human beings have no hope of remedying their problems with sin, suffering and death. It is only through God's redemption in Jesus Christ that man is saved from bondage to sin and restored to perfect fellowship with God.
According to Genesis 1:28-31, Psalm 8:3-8 and Psalm 115:16, God gave humans authority over the earth and everything that exists on the earth. However, this ownership was disrupted when Adam sinned and allowed Satan the Devil to seize spiritual dominion over the earth. Death and decay infiltrated all of creation as a result. Humanity's untarnished position of dominion over creation will be restored after Jesus Christ solves all of humanity's problems with sin (Acts 3:20, 21). At the restoration of all things, human beings who are redeemed in Christ will be glorified and exalted to a rank that is greater than or equal to the angels (Luke 20:35, 36; 1 Corinthians 6:2, 3).
Most Christians hold to the doctrine of dichotomism; that is, they believe each human being is a dichotomy of body and soul, with the body functioning as the material part of the person, and the soul functioning as the animating life force as well as the conscious, intellectual and emotional aspects of the person. According to this view, the soul and spirit are either interchangeable or synonymous. Those who hold to the doctrine of trichotomism, which believes that each human being is a trichotomy of body, soul and spirit. According to this view, the body is the material part of the person, the soul is the conscious intellectual and emotional aspects, while the spirit is the life force that animates the body and binds soul and body together. Both dichotomism and trichotomism teach that the human soul is immortal and survives the death of the body. There are others who believe in the doctrine known as mortalism, which teaches that the human being consists of a body that is sustained by an impersonal life force, and that the whole person ceases to exist when the body dies; thus there is no immaterial soul that survives the death of the body. The body and the soul are both human, but the soul is regarded as superior because it bears more of the image of God. When sin infiltrated the human race, both the human body and the human soul became unstable, resulting in humans being subject to weakness, imperfection and physical death. This is in addition to humanity's spiritual death or separation from God due to sin.
There are two biblically plausible views on the origin of the human soul: traducianism and creationism. Traducianism is the belief that human souls are formed at the moment of conception through the natural procreation between the parents, with half of the soul coming from the father and the other half from the mother. Christians who accept the doctrine of original sin generally accept traducianism. On the other hand, creationism is the belief that God specially creates a new soul "ex nihilo" when a human being is conceived. This belief is held by the Catholic Church, liberal Christians, and by people of non-Christian religions. However, some Christian theologians taught that the only human souls that originated through creationism were Adam, Eve and Jesus Christ; while all other souls originated through traducianism, which helps to explain original sin.
Relatively few passages of scripture in the Bible speak highly of humanity; people and their works are seldom praised in the Bible. Instead, most of the Bible presents a picture in which humans are frail, imperfect and sinful creatures that are in total need of dependence on God (Proverbs 3:5-7; Jeremiah 10:23, 24; Mark 9:24). Most of the Bible shows God criticizing, and sometimes severely punishing, people for their sin whenever they are proud, self-reliant and unrepentant (Isaiah 13:11; Jeremiah 17:7, 8; Luke 16:15; Romans 2:5-11; 1 Corinthians 3:18-20; Ephesians 5:5, 6). The Bible also shows God continually reaching His hand out to bond with humanity, having intentions of love, salvation, mercy and forgiveness (Psalm 86:5; Ezekiel 33:11; Micah 6:8; 7:18, 19; John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9). God shows mercy and grace to all those who humble themselves and choose to love Him and trust Him for their existence and well-being (Psalm 55:22; Isaiah 40:31; James 4:6-10). God demands that all people worship Him alone and give all glory to Him (Exodus 20:3, 4; Jeremiah 9:23, 24).
The Bible does not explicitly give us the origin of the different "races" or skin colors of humanity. In actuality, there is only one race; that is, the human race (Acts 17:26). Within the human race, there is a broad diversity of skin color and other physical characteristics. One explanation is that Adam and Eve were polygenic in their genetic makeup; that is, they possessed multiple genes that produced offspring with white, yellow, red, brown, and black skin tones. Since God obviously desired humanity to be diverse in appearance, it makes sense that God would have given Adam and Eve the ability to produce children of different skin tones. Apparently Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth each had their own peculiar skin color. Genes for giantism may have entered the human race as a result of the angelic "sons of God" and "Nephilim" before the Great Flood (Genesis 6:1-4). Genesis chapters 5 and 11 show that the human lifespan was much longer during the early eras of history than the human lifespans of later eras of history. The shorter lifespans may have resulted from the negative effects of original sin on the biological constituents of the human race. Another explanation would be that environmental conditions on earth before the Great Flood were different from what they were after the Great Flood.
After the flood of Noah's Day, the human race gradually repopulated the earth, with Shem's descendants settling in most of Asia, Ham's descendants settling in Africa and western Asia, and Japheth's descendants settling in Europe, Siberia and the Caucasus (Genesis 10:1-32). A mighty Hamitic hunter named Nimrod settled in Mesopotamia and devised new forms of religion and human government (Genesis 10:8-12). These Nimrodian forms of religion and government spread all over the world when God confused languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). The majority of our modern religions and governments have features that can be traced back to the time of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel.
Just because humans were created in the image of God, and are the offspring of God from a creation standpoint (Acts 17:28, 29), that does not means humans are of the same substance or nature as God. Humans are clearly distinguished from God in the scriptures, plus humans are not intrinsically gods or deities (Numbers 23:19; Ezekiel 28:1, 2; Hosea 11:9; 1 Timothy 2:5). The human soul did not emanate directly from the substance or nature of God for two reasons. First, emanation implies that the substance of God can become disturbed or changed, and this is unworthy of the character of God. The infinite God cannot become less than Himself. Second, God's substance is God's very nature which constitutes all of His unique attributes. If humans were able to partake of God’s essential substance they would possess the very attributes of God, such as omniscience, infinity, omnipotence, and so on. That is not possible, because the finite cannot become the infinite, nor can the infinite become finite. God will not give His intrinsic glory, nor His ascribed glory, to someone else (Isaiah 42:8; 48:11). Humans are made in the image of God in the sense that humans merely reflect God's spiritual, intellectual, emotional, communicative, relational, creative, moral and purpose-oriented qualities. Humans reflect Almighty God the Creator in the following ways:
SPIRITUAL – Unlike plants and animals, humans have a spirit essence; that is, a soul that is immaterial, energetic, conscious and immortal. It resides inside the physical body to form the complete human being and it consciously survives the death of the physical body.
INTELLECTUAL – Like God, humans have thinking ability, as well as knowledge and the ability to reason over information perceived through various experiences to form conclusions, views or opinions.
EMOTIONAL – Like God, humans have emotions and feelings that reflect their views about different people, things and experiences. Humans are capable of expressing love and hate, happiness and sadness, as well as excitement, anger, serenity, humor, etc.
COMMUNICATIVE – Like God, humans are capable of using verbal and nonverbal language to communicate with other humans or with God.
RELATIONSHIP ORIENTED – Like God, humans the ability to form relationships with others. Humans are the most advanced of all social creatures because they were created to have a relationship with God the Grand Creator. All humans innately have a desire for importance and attention from other social entities, and God satisfies that innate desire perfectly.
CREATIVE – Like God, humans have the ability to use their intellect and skills to design and create things. They are capable of being organized and having a sense of beauty and elegance for their gifts and talents, such as writing, singing, acting, painting, decorating, sculpting, building, engineering, etc.
MORAL AGENCY – Like God, humans are free moral agents that have a sense of right and wrong, good and evil. God's law is written on the human heart. Acquisition of the sin nature has severely perverted humanity's sense of right and wrong to where humans naturally choose their own morality over God's. The primary reason why humans are accountable to God is because they were created in the image of God for the purpose of reflecting God's moral standards and other divine qualities.
PURPOSE-ORIENTED – Like God, humans have a free will and volition to choose what words to speak and what actions to perform according to whatever good or bad morality. They have the ability to plan and to set goals, then to seek to fulfill such plans and goals. Humans are also capable of have a sense of purpose and conforming to a purpose given to them.
God created human beings as majestic creatures that were to rule over His creation (Genesis 1:26-31; Psalm 8:1-9). However, everything changed when sin infiltrated the human race. In our fallen, sinful state, we are profoundly disfigured, a perversion of the majesty that God our Creator originally intended (Romans 3:23). Even though the original intimate relationship between God and humanity was severed by the fall of Adam (Genesis 3:1-24; Romans 5:1-21), God has relentlessly pursued His beloved human creatures from the beginning of time, sending His Son, Jesus Christ, so that we might be reconciled to Him and become His spiritual sons and daughters, His heirs alongside Jesus Christ (Romans 8:14-29). It is Jesus who restores those who put their faith in Him. Through Christ, God's image is brought back into perfect focus so that God's glory shines brilliantly from the reflection (Ephesians 3:16-20; 4:20-24; Colossians 3:9, 10; 2 Peter 1:3, 4).
No comments:
Post a Comment