What Is Man?

By Old Hillbilly

The contents of this work deals with life questions that I dwelt with in my journey back to God, questions posed by others as I struggled with my own faith, and yes, demons-I had fallen into several addictions.

The contents of the book are the subject of one year's worth of Sunday school teaching of the adult class of the Independent Methodist church of Elkland, Missouri.

A man once asked me, "Where have you ministered?" referring to me denominational background.

I replied, "I've pastored community churches. Pentecostal churches and Baptist churches."

I will never forget his astonished look as he responded, "How did you make that work?"

Simple. By sticking to the Word.

The most important goal in this book is to stick to the Word. The apostle Paul sets out a mandate for receiving instructions from the ministers of God in Acts17:11. If we adhere to the mandate, we will not be too far off from the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638448044

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What Is Man?

Old Hillbilly

Copyright © 2021 by Old Hillbilly

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

What Is Man?

Why Am I Here?

Developing a Battle Plan

Our Prototype: Christ

The Basics

The New Man

Walking in Righteousness

Walking in Glory

The Road Home

Of Angels and Saints

Chapter 1

What Is Man?

Man has struggled with the perception, the question, of what man is. Did man come from a lesser being, a Neanderthal, a progression in intellect and structure? Or is he a created being, or maybe he was planted here as seed from a distant solar system beyond our galaxy and our understanding. We struggle to know; the scientific mind has struggled with this question for thousands of years. Scientists from all over the world have debated this issue without an affirmative answer. As humans, we struggle to understand where our beginning originated. To understand our beginning, our past, is to understand our future.

In my studies, I have found there to be four basic primal questions that in life, all men, rather one of those scientific elite or an aborigine on the backside of a desert, undisturbed by civilization and time, locked in his own society, unchanging over the course of time: The first question is simply, where did I come from? My humanity that is. Am I an insignificant speck in the vastness of the universe or even in the masses of humanity that have walked on this earth for thousands of years? And this is the question posed in the opening paragraph: What is man?

The second is, why am I here? Is there a purpose, a reason?

The third is, who am I?

The fourth is, where am I going when I die? Will I simply turn to dust or maybe become something innate like a drop of rain? Maybe I will be reincarnated into another life form or be a ghost lost between time and space?

Man, in his attempt to move away from the concept of God, has conceived a wide variance of conceptions and ideas, all of which are unverifiable. The strongest of which is the concept of evolution accredited to Charles Darwin, who himself stated there is absolutely no cross-genus evidence nor link of man to any known species, either past or present—without which, evolution is inconceivable. No cross genos, without which, evolution is impossible.

The concept of a panspermia, a concept devised in the past number of years, is another attempt to dispute creation in favor of evolution. The basis of which is the arrival of life on earth via cosmic dust.

Another viable option the scientists feel would be for humans to have been transplanted from another galaxy. Interestingly enough, man came from, not from an alien but from the God of all creation.

These attempts to distort man’s origin are not new. The apostle Paul found the foundation of man’s desire to deny God present in the Church of Rome. In the book of Romans chapter 1 verse 20, Paul states clearly that the evidence of God is in his creation being clearly seen by that which he created.

Albert Einstein, possibly the world’s greatest scientists, when asked of the source of his understanding, was reported to have said from the Torah. That would be the first five books of the Bible.

The question posed in the book of Psalms then again in the book of Hebrews, what is man has enfolded in it what man is. The answer to the question where man originated or where man came from. The apostle Paul, standing on Mars hill, observed the Grecians of Athens Greece who, not wanting to offend any god, had built altars to all known by them and had included one to the unknown god. In presenting to them the unknown god, he validates to them and all men who worship a god that mankind, regardless of their beliefs, are the offspring of God, even the atheist. God created man to be his sons and daughters, but that is the choice of the individual. God created man his offspring, but he mandated the choice to be a son or daughter is that of man.

Doctor Luke¹ in his Gospel also validates the presentation of Paul on Mars Hill in chapter 3 with the genealogy of man to the nation of Israel through Abraham, Jacob, and David to the Messiah, the one who is to redeem God’s creation through man to show that man originated from God, the Creator of the universe and the earth as we know it.² All things were created by God through Christ Jesus. Without whom, nothing was created. ³

The genealogy of Luke’s presentation brings us back to the Genesis account, to the beginning, the origin of man and the intent of God. ⁴ Here, we find four basic truth concerning God and man. The first of which relates to God himself. The word God throughout chapter 1 is the Hebrew word Elohim. This word is always plural, never singular: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity, three in one, totally, fully, and completely unified in thought plan and purpose.

In the creation account of Genesis 1, God simply said Let there be to bring into view or existent of that which he chose to be. But man, God’s crowning creation, was much different. Man’s creation began with a full council of Elohim, the fullness of the wisdom of the entirety of the triune God. He created man not only to be but to rule and to be his sons and daughters. To love that which God loves, he created man to abhor that which God abhors to live in the fellowship and in the love of the triune God as sons and daughters.

Let us make man in our image.⁵ We were created to be like God by God. The Hebrew word for image is TeSlem, a phantom. You see the image you see the figure, the type a representative figure of the original, and after our likeness the word, ‘DeMuth’, a resemblance, a model, a die, shape, fashion, manner, in His similitude and anthesis. So then what is man? The beloved apostle in his first epistle gives us this clue:

Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God, therefore the world knows us not because it knew him not.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.⁶

This brings us to the question: What is God?

God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. ⁷

God is transcendent, He transcends time, he will be after all creation is complete and after all creation is made perfect by Ben Adam, the Son of Man who is the image of the invisible God. God is eternal.

In the departing blessing of Moses to the nation of Israel and through Christ to all men who love and serve Jehovah, Moses reminds us that the eternal God is your refuge. ⁸

God is love. The first epistle of John gives us the following words:

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves, are born of God, and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God, for God is love. ⁹

Let us put it together: Man is first a spirit. God, being a spirit, created man as a spirit in his image and his likeness. Ecclesiastes, the preacher, in his book in the summation chapter, which ends with the full duty of man and God’s expectation of man, speaking of man’s departure from this vessel of clay, which we call a body, writes:

Then shall the dust returned to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.¹⁰

All men will return to God. The scriptures state that every knee will bow, and every tongue shall confess. Those who love God will have eternal existence with the eternal Father as sons and daughters, kings and priest.¹¹ Those who love not God will have eternal separation from the only source of light and life eternal.

What is man? Man is a spirit who lives in a body of flesh made from the dust of the earth. Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 reads:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.¹²

The Hebrew word for breath in most places is the same word used for spirit: it is the word ruach. This is not that word; another word for breath is naphash, meaning simply to breathe. The word in Genesis 2:7 is the word NeShamah, which incorporates the breath with the vital force, soul, and spirit. In the simplest form to understand, God imparted into the clay, of which he formed the body in Genesis 2:7, the spirit he had created in Genesis 1:27 with oxygen laden-air as breath and man became a living soul. Man, as God created him, is a spirit housed in a body which possesses a soul.

The young man counseling Job in the book of Job chapter 34 verse 14 used the phrase, If he [God] gathered unto himself his spirit, and his breath. This statement distinguishes between the spirit and the breath of man; it is not the same as the inner man which is made up of soul and spirit.

Our Lord’s teaching in Matthew lets us know that both our body and soul can be destroyed,¹³ but the spirit of