LESSON TWO: MAN

Objectives of the lesson

• Understand who is Man
• Discuss who created man
• Describe why man was created
• Discuss man’s character
• Discuss what led to Man’s fall
• Discuss what are the effects of the fall
• Discuss in a   group the concept of body, soul and spirit

In the English language, “man” simply means man.

According to Genesis 1:27;

• Man is the crown of God’s creation.
• He is the object of God's special care
• He is the pinnacle of God’s creative work
• He occupies a unique place in God’s creation
• He is “in the image of God”.
• He is created male and female
• God established him in his friendship

Who Created Man?

Man is not only the crown of creation but also the object of God's special care.

• Man was given dominion over the animals. Man can know God, worship Him, and love Him. Animals cannot. This means that Man has moral and intellectual abilities similar to God though not as perfect and vast. Man is above the animals in "rational ability, moral awareness, pursuit of beauty, use of language, and spiritual awareness."
• Man was created different from the animals. He had the breath of life breathed into him from God (Gen. 2:7).
• "Man is made of three parts; the body, soul and spirit. Trichotomy is a term which signifies a division into 3 parts: Body, Soul, and Spirit.
• "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," (1 Thess. 5:23).
• "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart," (Heb. 4:12).

Why were we created?

• He created us not because He needed us-Acts 17:24-25
• It’s not because He needed company-Genesis 1:26
• He chose to create us out of His great love-Jeremiah 31:3
• He created us to fulfill His eternal plan
• The part we play in this plan includes;(i)1 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5),(ii) "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22:39),(iii) "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).

Characteristics of man?

• Physical
• We have a body
• According to Genesis 2:7 "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground”
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• Functional
• We can work
• According to Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it”
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• Sexual
• We have inborn instincts to be intimate/physically attracted to the opposite sex
• According to Mark 10:6-9” But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. ‘So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
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• Emotional
• We have feelings.
• According to 2 Timothy 1:7 “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
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• Intellectual
• We have a mind. We can think and make decisions
• According to proverbs 2:6-7 “… LORD grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.”
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• Interpersonal
• We relate and communicate with other people
• According to Luke 6:31 “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

What led to the fall of man?

Man is made of three parts; the body, soul and spirit. Trichotomy is a term which signifies a division into 3 parts: Body, Soul, and Spirit.

Body, soul, spirit: what died in the day Adam and Eve sinned?

• `Genesis 2:16-17

"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die"

The restriction that God imposed on Adam was that he should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The penalty for the case that this restriction was violated was: "In the day [pay attention: that very day] that you eat of it you shall surely die".

Two very significant things have to be noted in that penalty:

• If Adam ate from the tree, death would happen immediately in that very day. This would happen surely. The phrase "you shall SURELY die" has exactly the purpose to put emphasis on the fact that death would happen 100%, surely, in that day.
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• Now from Genesis 3:1-6 we all know how Satan deceived Adam and Eve to violate the only restriction God had imposed on them, and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After eating from that tree and according to what God had told them in Genesis 2:17, they should have died at that moment.
• The problem here is that Genesis 5:5-6 says about Adam: "After he [Adam] begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. So, all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died"
• Therefore, according to the Bible, Adam continued to have life in his body for many years after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the other hand, God had said that if he would eat from that tree he would surely, 100%, die, in that same day. So, what really happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from that tree? Did they die as God said, or they did not die?
• Since God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19) in the day that Adam and Eve ate from that tree they really died. Actually, it was the Devil that said, when he deceived Eve, "you shall not surely die". Thus, if they did not die that day, as God said, then Satan was right and God was wrong, which is simply impossible. However, that's exactly what many teach today when they say "actually when God said that they would surely die He meant that just the “seed of death would be planted".
• The Word of God does not need such kind of defense. Actually it does not need any defense at all for it is truth and truth can stand by itself. Since they continued to have life in their bodies even after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is self-evident that they must have had another form of life, in addition to the life of their bodies, that was lost in the day that they ate and for this reason it was death (absence of a form of life).
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• Genes 2:7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground........"

Which part of man did God form of the dust of the ground? (Let the participants answer)

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• That's why the elements of the human body can be found in the ground-So one part of the first human being was the body.
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• Genesis 2:7

"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 [soul = nephesh in Hebrew]"God formed man's body of the dust of the ground; however, this body did not have life. It was just formed, without life. Then, the Word of God tells us that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul".

Therefore, what is soul?

• Soul is what gives life to the body. The fact that people do not understand the simple truths of the Word of God described at that point has caused no end of confusion. Here the Word of God tells us that soul is what gives life to the body. Without soul the body is dead. Where is the soul, the life of the body, the life of the flesh? The Word of God again is very precise:
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• Leviticus17:11,13-14
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  "For the life [nephesh in Hebrew] of the flesh is in the blood.....Whatever  a man either of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwells among you, hunts or catches any animal or bird to be eaten, he shall pour out its blood, and cover it with dust; For it [i.e. the blood] is the life [nephesh] of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life [nephesh] of it: therefore I said to the children of Israel "You shall not eat the blood of any flesh: for the life [nephesh] of all flesh is its blood"
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• We see in Genesis 2:7 that the soul (nephesh in Hebrew) is what gives life to the body. Here in Leviticus we see that "the life of the flesh is in the blood". In the above passage the word “life” is a translation of the Hebrew word "nephesh" that is translated as “soul” in Genesis 2:7 as well as in 471 out of the 753 of the places where it occurs. So, what is “nephesh” or soul?
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• According to Genesis 2:7 the soul is what gives life to the body. Where is the “nephesh”, the life of the body, the soul? According to Leviticus 17:11-14 it is in the blood: "For the life (nephesh, soul) of the flesh is in the blood". How is this soul life passed from generation to generation? It is through the blood.
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• Acts 17:26 says: “And He has made from ONE BLOOD every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth”. The "one blood" of this passage is the blood of Adam which passes from generation to generation and actually is the blood that all of us have. Actually, soul is not something that only man has. Animals also have the soul which again is in the blood. This is immediately understood from the above passage of Leviticus, where we are told that the life of all flesh is in the blood.
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• Genesis 1:20-21

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature [nephesh, soul] that has life [nephesh, soul] and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature [nephesh, soul] that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

• Genesis 1:29-30

"And God said "Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yield seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul [nephesh in Hebrew] I have given every green herb for meat:" and it was so.

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• "Therefore, not only man but also the animals have "nephesh" i.e. "soul". This is not strange at all, if we understand that soul is what gives life to the body-When you die there is no more life, no more soul. The same happens with the animals.
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• By now, we have seen that the Bible teaches that God formed the body of man of the dust of the ground, and that He gave to that body life i.e. soul. The same is also true for the animals. They also have body and soul. Every man in the world, believer or unbeliever, has body and soul. It can therefore be concluded that since Adam died 930 years old, when he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he obviously lost neither his body nor his soul. Thus, since something had to die for Adam that day, he must originally have had at least one more part, which was lost/died, when he ate the fruit.
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What is the meaning of Body, soul and spirit?

• Genesis 1:26-27

"Then God said "let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.... So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them"

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• According to this passage, God created man "in His own image". Here is a very critical point, a key point, if we want to understand not only what happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but also other passages of the Bible that are affected by what is said here.
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Reading the above passage, the question that has to be asked is what is the image of God? /What does He look like?

• John 4:24 tells us: “God is Spirit” God is not flesh but Spirit. That is His image. Therefore, when the Word of God tells us that God created man according to His image, it means that in addition to body and soul, man also had that which is the image of God i.e. spirit.
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• Genesis 5:1-3
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  "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.”
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• This passage says that Adam begot a son "in his own likeness, after his image". What does it mean? It means that as Adam was, so his son was i.e. as Adam had hands so Seth had hands, As Adam had feet so Seth had feet etc.
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• As Adam had a body and soul so Seth had a body and soul.
• Similarly, when the Word says that God created man "in his image", "in the likeness of God", what it means is that as God is, so Adam was. God is not flesh. He is spirit. So as God is spirit so Adam had a spirit.
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Why did God make Adam with a body and soul, spirit as well? (let the participants try to answer this)

The simple reason is that without spirit Adam could not communicate with God Who is spirit. God being spirit cannot communicate with the body and soul. They are different things. You see, you cannot receive the messages of a radio station unless you have a radio receiver. You may have a washing machine. But the fact that you have a washing machine does not make it possible for you to receive the messages of the radio station. You need a radio receiver.

Similarly, God is spirit and to communicate with Him you must have spirit. Body and soul are enough for things of the five senses. But when it comes to the things of God, what you need is spirit.

• I Corinthians 2:14
• "But the natural [psuchikos in the Greek] man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him: nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
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In this passage, the word translated "natural" is the Greek adjective "psuchikos", which comes from the noun "psuchi" which means soul. So, psuchikos means "a soul man" i.e. a man with body and soul only. According to that passage a man who is only body and soul "does not receive the things of the Spirit of God".

As it was said above to receive "the things of the spirit of God", to communicate with God you need the appropriate receiver i.e. spirit. That's why the passage says: "nor can he (the man of body and soul) know them because they are spiritually discerned". The man of body and soul is impossible to know the things of God for the simple reason that such things have to do with the spirit, "they are spiritually discerned", and since he lacks the spirit, he cannot know them.

Summarizing all the above, Adam had a body, formed from the dust of the ground; he had a soul that gives life to the body and a spirit to communicate with God. He was body, soul and spirit.

Having established that, there is no question about what happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil-Since Adam was body, soul and spirit before he ate and since, as we saw, he continued to have body and soul after he ate the fruit, what was lost in him that day, was the spirit that God gave him. He continued to have a body and a soul but he did not have a spirit-this is what is commonly referred to as the fall of man.

• The spirit departed from him and this was death for him since the spirit, a form of life that he had before he ate, was no more there

Have you ever been operated on by a doctor?

The doctor uses a knife to cut away something that is diseased. Well, God's "operation" is similar. Using the Sword of the Lord instead of a scalpel, the Great Physician (Luke 5:31) severs the direct (but unseen) connection between your soul and your flesh:

"For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb. 4:12 KJV)

"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." (Col. 2:12 KJV)

This "operation" is a spiritual circumcision. Your flesh is cut away from your soul and you are given God's Spirit:

"But he [is] a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision [is that] of the heart, in the spirit, [and] not in the letter; whose praise [is] not of men, but of God." (Romans 2:29 KJV)

After you have accepted the free gift of salvation through faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as you grow and mature in the Lord (your continuing sanctification), you will begin to notice some changes in how you think. You will find that your heart (soul) grows more and more in agreement with God and His law (which is spiritual).

The spiritual death that came upon men when Adam ate the forbidden fruit is restored back at regeneration by the Holy Spirit. That’s why Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We now, after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are no longer just body and soul but body, soul and spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45, 48 “So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit…The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.”

1 Corinthians 15:20-22.“But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.”

What are the effects of the fall man?

Man was created in the image of God. Man was originally made pure - without sin. Adam and Eve were without sin and "endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness after God's own image, with the ability to keep the Law of God. In this state, Man had free and unhindered access to God. This is exemplified in the account in Gen. 3:8 where God was walking in the Garden.

Adam and Eve rebelled against God and sinned by eating the forbidden fruit (Gen 3: 6-11). "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all men, because all sinned." (Rom. 5:12, NIV).

What was their sin?

They listened to Satan and ate of the fruit that was forbidden by God (Gen. 3:1-13).

What are the Effects of the Fall?

• Death (Rom. 6:23) and separation from God's presence (Isaiah 59:2).
• Transmission of the sin nature to their (and our) children (Psalm 51:5).
• Creation also fell (Gen. 3:17, Rom. 8:22).
• How did their sin affect God?
• They became unfit for the presence of God (Isaiah 59:2).
• They became unable to do God's will (Rom. 6:16, 7:14).
• They became subject to the curse of the Law and death (Deut. 27:26, Rom. 6:23).
• Original Sin--The doctrine that we inherit our sin natures from Adam (Rom. 5:12-21):
• Adam was the Federal Head of all humanity, that is, he represented all people in the Garden of Eden."For as in Adam all die . . . ," (1 Cor. 15:22).

The phrase, "in Adam," indicates our relation to Adam--that he represented us in the garden. In the same way, our being "in Christ" indicates our relation to Jesus, that He represented us on the cross (Rom. 5:18, 6:11, 8:1, 1 Cor. 1:2, 15:22, 2 Cor. 5:19).

Our sin with Adam: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way,  death came to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12). See also Rom. 5:18, 1 Cor. 15:22.