What is man?

Beloved,

I have been thinking of late, what is man (and woman)?

What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? Job 7:17 

 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 

Psa 8:4 

LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him! Psa 144:3 

When I think that all the drama of Heaven and earth center around the Bride, I cannot help but wonder.  Some would think of this with pride, but that is not the case.  Our Champion has looked upon our frailty and rescued us, and is restoring us to that beauty that He created us for before the world ever came into existence. Like the song says,

"Two wonders here that I confess

My worth and my unworthiness"

These two essays put man in perspective, lest he think of himself above himself.

Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

Isa 2:22

 Man's Insignificance and God's Supremacy

Two things are indispensable to undisturbed tranquility of mind, namely, humble and distrustful views of ourselves, and supreme and unfaltering reliance on God. So long as a man depends on his own wisdom, power, and goodness, he must be disquieted and unhappy. We can attain to substantial quiet only when we feel that our dependence is on a Being omnipotent, independent, and supreme, as well as abundant in truth and love (Isa 26:3). To produce in us this two-fold feeling is the constant aim of Holy Scripture. The grand scheme of redemption is founded on the principle here laid down. Man is sinful, ignorant, impotent to good, and of himself inclined only to evil, and that continually. God, in His infinite mercy, wisdom, and power, hath provided the only means by which he can be restored to holiness, to the favor of his God, and to life everlasting. But while there is in all religiously instructed people a readiness to concede to Christ the merit of salvation, there is too much disposition to rely upon ourselves and our own arrangements for success in temporal and physical things, and to claim the merit of it if we do succeed. There are various things that have a tendency to produce within us a feeling of self-dependence, and lead to the ignoring of the Divine power and efficiency. There is in us too often an idolatry of human agency and natural or artificial instrumentalities, and too often these occupy in our souls the place of God. In the order of nature causes produce their legitimate effects, so that if we can secure certain antecedents we feel confident of corresponding results. To use all wisdom and discretion in the use of means is a plain duty. But the difficulty with us is, that in our reliance on secondary agencies we too often leave God out of the account. We forget that He is above all means, that He can work without them, or He can frustrate all our means and all our best-concerted plans. There is nothing that men are more disposed to confide in than superiority of intellect. Yet God has given us reasons sufficient to abate our idolatry of human talent. For—

1. The largest capacity of man is really very small. Knowledge with all men is very limited, even in those that know the most.

2. Men of great capacity and uncommon attainments seldom, perhaps never, bear to be examined very closely. If one excel in one thing he is deficient in another. Sir Isaac Newton, great as he was in science and philosophy, failed in the common affairs of life. Laplace, whose extensive range of thought took in the whole mechanism of the planetary universe, did not at all justify the high opinion formed of him by Napoleon, when he, at the emperor's invitation, undertook the business of the statesman.

3. Men of the largest pretensions to mind have been and are still guilty of the puerile, the absurd, the degrading crime of idolatry. E.g., Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, modern Hindus.

4. The comparatively few specimens of unsullied, religious character.

5. We see in the record which God has given of His dealings with our race, a series of illustrations of man's inefficiency and God's supremacy. He has seldom used the means to accomplish an end that man would have selected or supposed. Egypt saved from perishing by a seven years' famine by a young, falsely accused slave, wrongfully cast into prison. Naaman. Deliverance of Israel from the Midianites (Jdg 7:1-25). Destruction of Spanish Armada, Waterloo, etc., Lessons—

(1) Because means sometimes fail, that is no good reason why we should expect the end without them God ordinarily works by means.

(2) We should not rely on the means as being effectual in and of themselves.

(3) After having used all the agencies and all the discretion which wisdom and sagacity prescribe, we must still rely upon God for the issue.

(4) Apply the same rule to spiritual things. We are to use all prescribed and prudential means; frequent the means of grace, etc. But these are only the means which bring us to God.

(J. Holdich, D. D.)

 

 

 

Ceasing From Man

 

I. CEASE YE FROM EXPECTING TOO GREAT PERFECTION IN MAN. Many are sadly mistaken on this point. They have higher ideas of the excellency of human nature than the Word of God warrants. It is sad that our experience of life should chill its generous sympathies, and that the heart should become cold and selfish as our knowledge of mankind increases. We ought so to live that the more we become acquainted with human wickedness, the more our compassionate feelings should be enlarged; and that person has a Christian spirit whose experience of man's depravity and love for man have increased in the same ratio.

 

II. THE RULE OF OUR TEXT WILL APPLY ALSO TO CHRISTIANS. Cease from expecting perfection in them.

1. The Bible teaches us to regard a Christian as different from others only as the man recovering from disease differs from one who is still under its full power, not as one in perfect health and strength.

2. As Christians we may learn to cease from expecting too much from our fellow Christians.

3. We should cease, too, from making any fellow Christian our model, or measuring our faith by his faithfulness.

4. And let us cease from expecting too much from Christian friendship. Christ was forsaken by the twelve, and at St. Paul's first answer before the Roman emperor, no man stood with him, but all forsook him.

 

III. CEASE YE FROM THE FEAR OF MAN is another appropriate application of the text.

1. The Word of God warns us against this. Who can say that he pursues just that path which conscience approves without being drawn aside by the fear of man? And how strong is the antidote to such a fear which the text presents! His breath is in his nostrils!

2. We should be careful, however, that our ceasing from man be not attended with evil feelings towards him. If a poor man is fearless in the presence of the rich because he scorns them, that is wrong. If we go forward in the path of duty, undeterred by the opinion of the world, because we are self-opinionated, and care nothing for any conclusions except our own, that is wrong.

 

IV. CEASE YE FROM MAN AS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. We build our enjoyments on relatives and friends. We gather around us those who are worthy of our love; our hearts begin to knit with theirs, and we say, This is comfort, here is happiness. But one touch of death crumbles all to the dust, and leaves us to mourn over our disappointed expectations. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)