Anthropology
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Like Job, the Psalmist asked, “What is man?” This week Theology 101 modifies the question by exchanging “what” for “why.” God created us as beings in His own image and likeness.
Why? Of course the ultimate answer lies within God’s own heart, but we can begin to discern aspects of the answer from what God has revealed about Himself in Scripture.
A starting point takes us to God’s own nature. He has revealed Himself to be a person of love. What depth of meaning is compressed into the simple statement of 1 John 4:16, “God is love.” Love, such as God demonstrates, is not grasping but giving. His love is far more than mere sentiment of the heart. God’s love is a love that seeks objects upon which to bestow itself. Divine love is ever outgoing. By creating us after His own image and likeness, God made us capable of recognizing and receiving His love and, ideally, loving Him back in return. We might say perfect love motivated our creation so that God would have objects upon whom to bestow that love and to be loved in return.
‘Praise of His glory’
Another reason why God made us is for the “the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:12). In short, God created human beings for His own glory.
As God said in Isaiah 43:6–7: “Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth — everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory.”
God’s perfection and independence join to remind us that He does not need anything or anyone; He is self-sufficient. We read in Acts 17:24–25 that “God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made with hand nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
So why are we here?
We exist as God’s own creation because He loves us and desires that we bring Him glory. Herein lies the essence of human dignity and value. We are the objects of divine love and are important to God. Humans, every one of us, matter to God both here and now as well as in all eternity. His admonition to us here and now is: “Do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
His expectation about us in eternity is, in the words of Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be glory forever.” For those created in God’s image and likeness to bring Him glory forever defines a human being’s importance and significance.
Purpose for being
Hardly a day goes by that we do not hear or read about multiple acts of violence in which human lives are taken. When these sad occurrences come to our attention, do we have the thought, “There goes another person whom God made for the purpose of being loved by Him and bringing Him glory?” The devaluing of human life runs counter to God’s desire as expressed in Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God … will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by His love. He will exult over you with loud singing.” God made us that we might bring Him joy and live to His glory. To do less is to come short of our purpose for being.
Jerry Batson is a retired Alabama Baptist pastor who also has served as associate dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and professor of several schools of religion during his career.
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