What does it mean to be human?
Few questions cut deeper than this one, and the writers in this collection all answer it the same way: you cannot learn what man is by studying man. The answer comes from the God who made him, and it lands finally on one Man in particular.
Made by Counsel
Every other creature simply appears at God's word. With man, God pauses and takes counsel first — and one writer draws out what that pause signals.
W. W. FeredayMan was distinguished from all other creatures in that he was made the subject of divine counsel before his creation. "And God said, Let us make man, in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion," etc. (Gen. 1:26). There is a solemnity about this which commands attention. It was not a new kind of animal that was about to be brought into existence, but a moral being with marvellous endowments and possibilities.
Image and Likeness
The two words are not repetition. One speaks of the job man was given; the other of the equipment that makes the job possible.
Samuel RidoutThis "image" constitutes man the representative of God upon the earth, and the "likeness" shows, as the apostle says, quoting from the heathen poet: "We are also His offspring" — a likeness of moral and mental faculties which give man the capacity to know God and to enjoy Him.
Representation is the point of the word "image," and it only works if there is a real resemblance underneath it.
J. T. Mawsonman was to be created to be the visible representative of God in the world; for that is what "image" means; and for this he was to be like God in character, for without this there could be no effective representation.
The Breath That Divides
Animals are called living souls too. So what actually separates a person from a beast is not a better body but a different way of receiving life.
F. B. HoleMan is a living soul just as other forms of animate creation are said to be, but man is such by Divine in-breathing of life, which the beasts are not, and herein lies his distinctive glory.
This is why one writer insists the difference is not one of degree but of make-up.
Frederick W. GrantHe is a living soul; not by the completion of his bodily organization, but by the addition of a new constituent of being. He is now not a mere body, nor a body instinct even with the breath of life: he is become a "living soul."
The Crown That Slipped
Scripture says all things were put under man's feet. Look honestly at the world, and that claim does not match what we see.
Samuel RidoutEverything was put under man's hand. He was head of God's creation according to His purpose. But if that were true according to creation, we are again reminded that the fall has come in, and from man's hand has dropped the sceptre which he should have swayed over all creation. Fallen man is not lord and master of all this creation at all.
Commentators differ slightly on how much survived the fall: some hold that neither the image nor the likeness was lost, while others speak of the image being badly disfigured and the likeness lost.
God's Own Answer
The question "What is man?" is asked in the Psalms and picked up again in Hebrews. The answer is not a definition but a Person.
J. N. Darbythe question is put, "What is man?" The answer (the precious answer for us) is, Christ glorified, once dead on account of man's condition. In Him we see the mind of God with regard to man.
So the psalm was never really a description of Adam. It was a portrait waiting for its subject.
Frederick W. GrantIt is Christ in whom the true ideal of man is realized, and of whom the first Adam was but the fleeting image, and in many respects the contrast.
Better Than Eden
God does not restore people to the state Adam lost. What He creates is something Adam never had.
J. N. DarbyThe first man was innocent; he was not righteous but innocent. There was no evil in him. To be righteous and holy you must have the knowledge of good and evil… It is not merely that there is an absence of sin, but I have a positive knowledge of God Himself, and it is what God is that is the character and essence of the new man.
(The ESV renders that phrase in Ephesians "in true righteousness and holiness.")
Summary
- Counsel. Man alone was planned in divine consultation before he existed — not an upgraded animal, but a moral being made on purpose.
- Image. "Image" is the office of representing God on earth; "likeness" is the moral and mental capacity that makes the representing real.
- Breath. The line between man and beast is not anatomy but how life was received: God breathed into man directly, and that is his distinctive glory.
- Fall. The sceptre dropped from man's hand; the crown Scripture describes plainly does not fit the man we actually see.
- Christ. The answer to "What is man?" is a Person — Jesus glorified — and in Him God creates a new man marked not by Adam's innocence but by righteousness and the knowledge of God Himself.