I am convinced that there is not a single person in all of history that has not asked the question, Why Do I Exist? And I would go further to state that the other question most have is , What is the point of living a life and then we die? Is everything about us lost at death? Do we just cease to exist? When we see all the life of the planet Earth, why does humankind seem so different then the rest of nature? Humankind seems to have some traits not found in any other creature.
Knowing the answers to such questions is very important in knowing God. If God created us then there must be a reason and a purpose. If God created us different than all other life on this planet, He must have had a very specific reason. But something seems to be very wrong with the world around us. Most of us can just sense that something is not right here. Why do we have feelings such as guilt over our actions when other creatures we share the planet with do not seem to have such? Why does humankind continually strive for knowledge? And why do we all feel this sense that there is more to our lives then just living and eventually facing death? If God created us, then why do we have to die at all? If God created us with such a distinct difference from all other life on the planet why is there so much evil in the world on an ever increasing basis? No other religious writings in all of history seem to answer such questions as clearly as the Holy Bible does.
The Reason and Purpose For Humankind
The Bible makes it very clear that God created the heavens and the Earth and every living thing that exists. It also makes it clear that we are a race of beings that God made separate from all other types of life that exists.
God wants us to understand this and so the very first Scriptures in the entire Bible speak very simply and directly to us. Verses 1 to 20 of Genesis tell us how God created the universe, the Earth, the stars and the waters on the Earth. Then starting in verse 20 it reads,
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature 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. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:20-25 KJV)
The book of Genesis then goes on and states,
“Then God said, “Let US make man IN OUR IMAGE, in OUR LIKENESS, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. SO GOD created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 KJV)
One thing we notice is that God is showing that He is a Triune God by using words such as ‘us’, and ‘our’. God almighty is Triune; The Father, The Word (the Son), and The Holy Spirit. Together they are God. It is a mystery to us created beings living within a created time and space but this is what the Bible clearly teaches. All three are are co-equal as one God.
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. “ (1 John 5:7 KJV)
Notice that the “Word” is capitalized. That is because it is a name. This member of the Trinity, named The Word, is Jesus the Christ, the Son of God as we see in John 1,
” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…
…14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3…14 KJV)
These verses also show us that Jesus Christ is the part of the Trinity who created everything! He always existed and is an eternal being as God! He existed before creation as The Word and when He became flesh to save us all He is known as The Son Of God.
We can see in Genesis that after God created all the creatures of the Earth He then created humankind. So He shows us that we were created separately and that we are a very different race of beings that He is creating. We see from just these two verses in Genesis 1, that God is making this point very clear to us. Humankind was set apart from the beginning by God Himself. First God shows us why we are different from all other life on this planet when He says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,…”. So God made humans in His own image. We have many of the same traits that God has. In fact, throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation it is plain to see that believers are described as the children of God and that God is our Father.
“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:” (Romans 8:15-16 KJV)
“Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.” (John 6:27 KJV)
“To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:7 KJV)
“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7: 9-11 KJV)
These are only a few of literally hundreds of Scriptures that make it very clear that God is Our Father, as believers on Christ . Jesus also made this point very clear during His ministry to us. For God to call us His children and for us to call God our Father we must be able to relate to Him on God’s level, at least to some extent. We have the ability to both communicate with God and to also be like Him. That said, remember that God did not create us equal to Himself. The Bible does not say ‘Let us make man equal’, it says “Let us make man in our own image”. So God is clearly far superior to humans. But He created us with the ability to be like Him. And according to the Scriptures, God wants us to become more and more like Him through our life here on Earth and also in the Eternity to come after death.
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth 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.” (1 John 3:2 KJV)
This Scripture indicates that we do not yet know “what we shall be”. This implies that part of God’s plan for humankind is that we grow in knowledge and that His goal for us is in the future. That we grow and seek knowledge about God and learn more about God in the same way we learn about our parents from infancy and throughout our lives. It is an ever increasing knowledge to learn about our parents as we reach each stage of life. This is of course, is not speaking to Salvation as if we gradually becoming saved. Salvation happens at the moment of belief on Christ for righteousness (Ephesians 1:13-14).
How much more is this true about learning the knowledge of God and who He really is? This is why we all strive for more knowledge and why we look at the stars of the universe and marvel at God’s creation. God wants us to know Him. Not just know that He exists, but to really know Him intimately, in an ongoing relationship with Him. So the question remains, why did God create us in His image?
If you look at all creation each species of animal has their own way of communicating with each other. Look at Dolphins (an amazing creature to check out by the way), and the way that they communicate. It is a very intricate and complex language. Humans cannot understand them. In fact, either can fish or turtles or sharks. Why? Because God made every creature after it’s own species as we see in Genesis where it reads,
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:24-25 KJV)
You see here that God tells us that He made every creature after it’s own kind. I am reminded about my preschool days when I would pull a string on this big red toy with animals all around it. This is a cow, it goes mooooo. This is a dog, it goes woof woof. This is a cat, it goes meow meow. I am sure you can relate. God did not make all creatures with the ability to speak with one another. Sure a dog can learn about it’s owner and how to get a treat and even to protect those protecting it. But all your dog can do is go “woof woof” and jump on you when it has to go outside. There is a relationship between you and your dog but your dog can not really know you the way you may think the dog does. A dog has no concept of God nor can a dog effectively communicate with God or know God’s ways. But the Bible makes it clear that humans can.
This sets us apart from all other creatures on the planet. Humans also are made after our own kind. If God created us in His image it is so we can know Him intimately and have intimate communication with Him.
Physical Humankind
“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.” (Genesis 2:7 KJV)
God gave humankind life. We are essentially formed from the dust of the Earth, that is the elements on this planet. This is certainly true.
By mass, human cells consist of 65–90% water (H2O), and a significant portion is composed of carbon-containing organic molecules. Oxygen therefore contributes a majority of a human body’s mass, followed by carbon. Ninety-nine percent of the mass of the human body is made up of the six elements oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body)
Most other creatures also are made of elements on this Earth and that is why we can live on this planet. But here God is singling out this fact about humankind as to make the point that we are also made physically from the dust of the Earth. Many people believe that humans have a soul as a separate being from the body that is eternal. But it is important to mention that humankind did not receive such a soul from God when He created us. The Scriptures do not indicate this is true. It says in Genesis that God “..breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” So we became a living soul, or a living being, when God gave us the breath of life. It is an important distinction to make. I say this is important because I hear it said all the time, even by Christians, that we all have an eternal `soul’. But a soul is not something that is eternal or indestructible. Adam and Eve were not perfect beings with immortality before sinning. Ezekiel 18: reads, “…the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” We can see from this that a soul can die. If Adam and Eve were given an immortal soul at creation, they would never die. If one is immortal he cannot die by the very definition of immortality. Also look at 1 Corinthians 15:53 where it reads, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (GenESIS 2:15-17 KJV)
This along with so many other Bible Scriptures makes it clear that humans are created MORTAL and not eternal. Eternal life is a spiritual life with Christ having an immortal body. The kind of body we will receive at the Rapture. Adam and Eve were physical and would remain alive as long as they did not sin. Yet, so many Bible teachers today tell people that Adam and Eve were created eternal and that humans were made eternal until they sinned and only then was it possible for humans to die. While this is true partly, it is a simple misunderstanding of the truth.
What the Bible is teaching is that when Adam and Eve were created they originally did not know sin. They were not given an eternal soul as something separate from the body. They had an eternal Spirit. Soul and Spirit are not the same thing.
God breathed life into them and they became living souls/beings. The soul is all about our physical being. The breath of life by God is our Spirit. God created a physical body but it was not alive until He breathed into us the Spirit which comes from God.
God was with them and communicated with them in the Garden. We can see that God was in communication with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:8. The verse seems to indicate that Adam knew God was coming to communicate as if God always came to them and communicated with them. As long as they were without sin in their lives, their life would continue because God was with them. But if they disobeyed God by sinning against Him, they would surely die. This is confirmed in Romans 6:23 where it reads, “For the wages of sin is death…”. God is completely Holy and He cannot tolerate sin. Sinning is such a serious offence against God that the punishment is death.
Disobedience in the Garden
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17 KJV)
When the word `knowledge’ is used in this scripture it does not mean that Adam and Eve did not know about evil before they ate the forbidden fruit (before they sinned). The word knowledge is used above in the same way that the Bible uses the words `to know’ in the scripture that states,
“And Adam KNEW Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” (Genesis 4:1 kjv)
It is quite clear that the word `know’ in these scriptures literally means to experience intimately. Adam knew his wife before they had sexual relations. But to know his wife was something more; it was an intimate experience. The word knowledge in Genesis 2:16-17 means that they had not experienced nor committed evil themselves until they disobeyed God. Adam knew that he had freedom of choice. Adam could have obeyed or disobeyed God. Satan, the devil, came to deceive Adam and Eve depicted as a snake (the Devil is very subtle in his deceptions) we see in Genesis 3,
“And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:2-5 KJV)
Here we see that Satan is telling Eve that God is a liar and that by eating the fruit she would become like gods, which by implication are immortal. The fact that Eve could choose means that the capacity to sin was in her already, otherwise she would not sin. Freedom of choice is very important to God. He did not want to create robots to love Him. He wants a true relationship with humankind.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Genesis 3:6 KJV)
You see Eve and Adam both had the very same image of God that we all have but they also had the capacity to sin. We have a sense of morality and can be tempted to sin. In fact, the senses of ; taste, touch, smell ,sound; these traits allows us to perceive the world around us. These are the senses that the Devil uses to tempt us to sin against God. The Human nature of senses and temptation overcame them and they sinned against God by giving into the deception that Satan provided them with; namely “to make one wise “ (as God).
God created humans to commune with Him and to have an everlasting personal relationship with humankind. After all, this is the very reason for creating us in the image of God. Part of such an intimate relationship demands trust. God wanted trust but when Eve, and then Adam, sinned (ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) the physical death experience we all know began. Adam and Eve’s soul could die because they no longer had a sinless life with God. Humankind’s Spirit became known as the Spirit of Man (Adam). Sin had separated us from God and became a wall between humankind and God in having personal relationship in the Spirit. God then kicked them out of the Garden,
“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” (Genesis 3:22-23 KJV)
Remember that God said they may eat of any tree in the garden except one. Well here we see another tree in the garden called the `tree of life’. Apparently this tree gives the ability to live forever. God did not want Adam and Eve to become eternal in their sinful state because then they would be eternally separated from God and He loves us and wants communion with us. Out of His mercy and love He did not allow them a chance to eat of this tree because of their sin. Keep in mind that the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil and the Tree of Life are symbolic and a way for the writer to show us how sin entered the human experience. It was not that the tree itself or the fruit of the tree itself that gave Adam and Eve this knowledge. It is that God told them not to eat of that tree and by doing so they disobeyed God and sinned. Their own conscience let them know by experience that they had sinned and they now understood what evil was because they themselves committed an evil act of rebellion against God.
Here is another way of showing you that this is true; before they sinned Adam and Eve did not recognize that they were naked and openly communed with God not knowing (experiencing) sin (Genesis 2:25). After they willfully sinned, they hid themselves from God and covered their nakedness (Genesis 3:10). Adam and Eve hid from God because they knew they had sinned and done evil against God Almighty. So they knew they could sin before they did but it was only once they actually sinned that they knew the knowledge of good and evil. That is they committed the evil act and then they experienced sin by the act itself.
We are the descendants of Adam and Eve and therefore we all are mortal and separated from God. In Romans we see that “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” (Romans 5:12 KJV)
Because the relationship with God had changed so did the ability for them to resist evil and thus had no way of controlling the fleshly sinful mind. This flesh in all of us carries with it the consequences of suffering and death. With each generation since Adam and Eve the human evils (such as war, selfishness, and murder) have continually grown worse. We try to do good but we all have sinned against the God that created us. No person can match up to the holiness of God Almighty. In fact, any of our self righteousness and goodness is as filthy rags to God because it only takes one sin to disqualify us from being righteous in God’s eyes.
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6 KJV).
The Bible also talks about human beings as having a `spirit’ within us. This is part of the image of God that was given to us at creation from God himself that gives us the ability to communicate with God and have an intimate relationship with God. Adam and Eve both had this spirit before they sinned but once they sinned, the connection to God changed drastically.
When we believe on Christ for righteousness, The Spirit within us is the Spirit of God Himself. It becomes a new creation in the Spirit which is the very righteousness of God, in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17-21). When God’s spirit lives within us, we have a very intimate relationship with God.
After Adam and Eve sinned, God could not abide where sin is until the punishment for the sins were fully paid. God is perfectly just and sin must be judged. The punishment for sin is severe. The punishment for sin is an eternal death (Romans 6:23 ). And God must remain true to His own perfect character.
We lost that intimate relationship with God. That said, God is love and full of mercy and He used this situation the devil began and has given us a way to regain this intimate relationship through Jesus the Christ’s act of atonement on the cross. (For those that do not know, `Christ’ means the anointed one, it is NOT Jesus’ last name) So God gave us the Old Testament and later the New Testament so that the world would know that He exists and wants to regain the intimate relationship which is called everlasting life. The Bible is the very word of God and the Gospel of Grace Through Jesus Christ Crucified is the power unto salvation.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16 KJV)
Why Did God Create Humankind?
Let us go deeper a moment. Why would God create us if He knew we were going to sin in the Garden? God foreknew everything that would happen before He created us.Nothing takes God by surprise friends. God has a plan and it is beyond our full understanding. Yet, God gave us enough information to believe this.
So we can see that God created us and that He created us in His own image and that He did so in order that we could be in an intimate relationship with Him.
In Revelation 4, John was shown a vision of heaven where he writes,
“ The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Revelation 4: 10-11 KJV)
Here see that God created all things; the universe, the Earth and all things in and on the Earth for His own pleasure. God is a creative being and it pleases Him to create all that is good. Notice that the Bible does not say that we were created to merely entertain God. God did not create us out of a sense of being lonely nor for his entertaining pleasure. He created us in the image of God so that we could know Him.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8:4-5 KJV)
“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” (John 15:14-15 KJV)
There is only one God ( Deuteronomy 4:35). He created humans in His own image, “…a little lower than the angels…” and crowned us ”… with glory and honour.”
That does not sound like we were created just to entertain God. And Jesus Christ (God in human form) said Himself that we are His friends. Since we know that God is love and is perfectly good and Holy, He cannot lie. It gave God pleasure to create us to have fellowship with Him forever. It pleased God to create us because He loves us. (Deuteronomy 7:9, Romans 8:38-39, Psalm 23, John 3:16-17, Ephesians 2:4, 1 John 4:7, and so many many more Scriptures !)
Humankind was created by God so we could enjoy fellowship with Him forever, through the saving act of atonement by Christ Jesus. Both in this life and throughout eternity. To fellowship with God and to become more and more like Jesus as the Holy Spirit renews our mind from within our newly created Spirit of God.
Regain A Relationship With God By Removing The Penalty For Your Sin
We are all sinners and no one can match up to the Holiness of our God. The penalty for sin is Spiritual death and we shall all die (except those alive and remaining at His second coming). The real us is our Spirit which resides in our physical body. After death comes the judgement as it speaks about Jesus the Christ and His work of atonement on the cross in Hebrews,
“For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” (Hebrews 9:26-28 KJV)
Christ came and took on the punishment for our sin upon Himself (He is God in the Flesh) and all who believe on Him and ask Him for forgiveness will be saved. Once a person accepts Christ into His life and believes this He becomes a new creation.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (Jesus own words from John 3:16-18 KJV)
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 KJV)
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1 KJV)
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24 KJV)
“ Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” (John 6:28-29 KJV)
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:6-11 KJV)
“ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 KJV)
“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.…He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:17, 20 KJV)
