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The Nature of Mankind

Man and woman were made in the image of God with individuality and the power and freedom to think and to do’. God created man (and this term is used to include women also) to look like God (Genesis 1. 27). The Bible states that God took dust (Genesis 2. 7) formed it into a likeness of Himself and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. God recognising that man would be lonely, caused man to fall asleep and took one of his ribs and formed woman. At this point both were perfect, both were able to talk to God face to face and they lived in the Garden of Eden.

There was no need for God to actually use his hands to shape man. The creation story tells us that God spoke and things came into being, however such was his love that he formed man with his own hands. God then blessed man and gave him free run of the Garden of Eden with only one rule do not eat of one particular tree. God also created man immortal, at this point man was not destined to die because he was pure.

Man was not made to or set up to fail however man did. Their instructions were that they could eat freely from every tree except just one - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The question is asked why, well God the father was protecting His pure children from what he knew already existed. There was no need for them to know about evil, and all the good was already around them; all they had to do was to look at nature, take care of the garden around them and talk to God about any issues that they were concerned about. How sin entered into the garden is a common story, and starts with a serpent telling Eve that she needs to know and ends with both Adam and Eve being banished from their beloved home and having to work hard to survive. Their immortality taken away they would now experience death and death would now afflict all of mankind until a saviour could be found to give man a second chance.

It is often said that God is dictatorial and that humans must follow what God says however if this was the case surely when man did fail he would have just wiped them out and start again. God could have created a universe full of robots that would do what they were programmed to do, but God’s love demanded that He created beings that would respond freely to his love.  

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