Thus human history is on the one hand a demonstration to angelic kind (elect as well as fallen) of God's mercy and His ability to act justly in providing that mercy (albeit at tremendous cost to Himself). We human beings are actually experiencing God's love and mercy as He provides for us here in the world despite the devil's opposition. To the angels, however, we are a demonstration of that love and mercy, made efficacious through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and our faith in Him. Being spirits and so not subject to the material limits that so try our human hearts of flesh, they must learn by observation, and observe us they do in great earnestness (Job 1&2; Matt.18:10; Lk.15:10; 1Cor.4:9; 11:10; 1Pet.1:12).⁽²⁾ That this demonstration will have been one of over seven thousand years' duration (when human history shall have finally run its course) is merely further proof of the graciousness and long-suffering of God (Is.30:18; Rom.2:4; 2Pet.3:9; 3:15 etc.). Through the long course of this demonstration (which is our collective human experience), the elect angels will have come to know God and His perfect character better than ever before, while the fallen angels will see their leader's every blasphemous accusation refuted and destroyed in voluminous detail. And when all is said and done, God's righteousness will have been affirmed as beyond reproach, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt in the merciful salvation of believing mankind.

2. Man created to replace Satan and his angels: The creation of Man following the Genesis Gap judgment (see Part 2, our previous study) is a clear indication that the two events are intimately related. For God to create a new species of creature, possessing along with the angels both spirituality and free will, and then to deposit them on the very scene of Satan's rebellious activity was no subtle indication that at least one of God's purposes for mankind would be the replacement of the devil and his evil legions. This must have been abundantly and immediately clear to Satan. For here was a new moral creature who (left to his own devices) might just do what he and his would not: obey God's will without rebelling against Him. As soon as the requisite population was reached through procreation, Satan and company could be removed, wholeness and completeness having thus been restored. Judgment, after all, had already been pronounced (Job 4:18; Matt.25:41; Jn.16:11). What could remain except for a one-for-one replacement of fallen angels with human beings, once our numbers became sufficient?  With judgment set, execution of God's sentence against the devil would be inevitable if not immediate (cf. Rev.20:10):

Therefore, with the creation of Man, a creature capable of procreation unlike the angels, the de facto removal of the only remaining, tangible barrier to Satan’s execution was only a matter of time.

The principle of God's desire to retrieve what is lost and replace what is missing is clearly seen in scripture in the parable of the lost sheep (Matt.18:12-14; Lk.15:4-10), the law of levirate marriage (Deut.25:5-6), and, of course, in His longing for all mankind to accept the gift of Jesus Christ and return to Him (cf. Ezek.18:23; Matt.18:14; Jn.12:47; 2Pet.3:9):

There is ample evidence to suggest that elect mankind is, in effect, replacing fallen angelic kind in God's universal order (Lk.10:17-20; 1Cor.6:3; Rev.20:4). The principle is most clearly seen in the God-Man's replacement of the original covering cherub (see Part 1):   Lucifer (the "light bearer") replaced by the Morning Star, Jesus Christ (cf. Is.14:12 with 2Pet.1:19; Rev.2:28; 22:16). Thus it is only fitting that the followers of the Morning Star should replace Lucifer's followers. In this way the wholeness and integrity of the creation will be restored, while everything that was lost will be replaced with something even better: willing worshipers of God in union with His Son, the God-Man, so that ultimately "God may be all in all" (1Cor.15:28).  Satan's motives for precipitating the fall of Man are therefore clear. Unwilling to repent, neither could he afford to accept the new threat the status quo entailed.

3. Man created for the glory of God: The replacement of Satan and his followers with willing worshipers, and the ample demonstration of God's love and righteousness through the sacrifice of His Son to save these sinful human beings abundantly redounds to the great glory of God. After watching the events of human history unfold, the elect angels (and, in fact, all creatures) are moved to praise and glorify the Lord Almighty for His matchless grace (cf. Ps.148-150):

It is for God's praise, for God's glory, that we have been created (Is.60:21; Jn.17:10; 21:19; Rom.9:23). By making us and by saving us through Christ, God shows His love and exposes the devil's lies. In us, in what He has done for us, the glory of God shines forth, and those who love Him cannot help but praise Him:

Having foreordained us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will, for the purpose of producing praise for the glory of His grace which He has graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved [One].
Ephesians 1:5-6

As the passages above indicate, only regenerate human beings (i.e., believers in Christ) form the echelon of replacement for fallen angelic kind. Human beings who choose to reject God's gracious gift of Jesus Christ will share the fate of the devil and his followers in the lake of fire (Rev.20:11-15). This too is a part of the demonstration of the righteousness of God, and also redounds to His great glory. Not only will the entire universe witness His gracious provision of mercy towards all who turn to Him, but all who oppose His will, Satan and all rebels, be they angels or men, will be crushed materially (in judgment) as well as spiritually (through the demonstration of human history; cf. Ps.76:10). And everyone, whether rebellious or regenerate, will eventually acknowledge the majesty, the righteousness, the glory of God:

It is in the nature of God not to let a lie stand, but instead to expose all lies to the blinding light of the truth. Human history constitutes, in effect, the "last judgment" of fallen angelic kind, a vivid, living demonstration of their error and utter sinfulness in the course of which "every mouth will be stopped" (i.e., every excuse destroyed: cf. Rom.3:19; Ps.107:42; Mich.7:16) and at the end of which every knee will bow and tongue declare the glory of God and the grace of God in the gift of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.14:11; Phil.2:10-11).

II. The Creation of Man

Although we owe our creation in part to God’s response to the rebellious defection of the devil and his followers, we have ever been in God’s plan, and ever in His love. God was under no obligation to create the human race. He did not have to give His Son to die for us. He did not have to pay that awful price the magnitude of which we can only dimly hope to comprehend. Yet create us He did. In making us, He shared Himself with us. He blessed us in making us, with blessings that have only just begun to flow our way. To create us, to save us, though it cost Him His Son, to make us part of His family, to take us to Himself and ultimately to come to reside with us forever, these are the acts of a God who is love itself, and we are truly blessed to call Him Father.

1. The Image and Likeness of God: According to the first chapter of Genesis, God created Man and Woman on the sixth day of restoration. After the heavens had been restored, and the earth refitted and replenished, when all conditions were suitable and everything marvelously in place, God gave life to our first parents, Adam and Eve, forming them and depositing them in a place of perfection:

As Genesis 1:26 indicates, the express purpose of Man's creation is his rule and oversight of the newly reconstructed earth (along with its creatures). This purpose is reemphasized at several points in the more detailed narrative of Adam's creation in Genesis chapter two:

Now as we saw in Part 1 of this series, Satan was the first trustee of earth, the original Eden, where he held the prestigious position of "covering cherub", i.e., the guardian of the throne of God on the Holy Mountain of the primeval, as yet unblemished earth. It was this pristine earth of which he seized temporary control in his bid to lead the angels in revolt against the Lord Almighty. Placing Man on this same earth, now rejuvenated, with a mandate similar to the one which Satan had rejected, is a clear indication that God meant Man (and his progeny) to assume a role very similar to the one abdicated by Satan (and his followers): namely, faithful, obedient supervision of God's creation. Now as we have seen, while angels and men are quite different in some important respects (most notably in the qualitatively superior longevity, knowledge and absence of corporeality possessed by the angels), we do share one critical similarity: both species possess spirituality of a type that mirrors the image and the likeness of their Creator; both species are intelligent, sentient, morally responsible, capable of being put in a position of responsibility. But the most critical point of comparison in each case, for both Man and angels, is the ability, indeed the necessity, of making a conscious choice to serve faithfully. For the angels, the tangible test was continued allegiance to God or defection to the devil; for Adam and Eve it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.2:16). But for both species there was a test and the corresponding ability of spirit to choose. Beyond all argument, God could have created innumerable beings to serve Him who would have been incapable of sin or rebellion. But God desires instead, creatures who will choose for Him of their own free will, who will love Him and serve Him and worship Him willingly (Jn.4:23). To be proper replacements for Satan and his followers, mankind had to possess a spiritual makeup that was essentially the same as the angels in two important respects: 1) the ability to make responsible and responsive choices (with the mental and emotional assets to support this quality), and 2) individuality (i.e., a personality unique and independent from all others in the species). Like the angels, Man is a creature capable of exercising and responding to authority within the parameters laid down by God, and, like the angels, every one of us must make these essential choices for ourselves. These two essential qualities of spirit (i.e., the ability to choose for God and the individual responsibility to do so) are referred to in the Genesis 1:26-27 description as the "image and likeness of God":⁽³⁾

Then God said, "Let us make Man in our image, according to our likeness, so that he may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over the beasts and over the whole earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth". So God created Man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

It is almost universally acknowledged that the purpose of the description "in our image, according to our likeness" is to mark out the similarities between Man and God. Naturally, the difficulty of comparing infinite God with finite Man makes any such analogy problematic, but as men and women of faith, we understand that God was well aware of this when He gave these words to Moses to pen. "Image and likeness", when properly understood, do in fact give us a wonderfully precise description of the ways in which this new creature would be like His Maker.

The first thing to understand about "image and likeness" is that the points of analogy between God and Man are entirely spiritual. And while it is true that more than one misguided theologian over the course of the millennia has attempted to bring Adam's physical shape somehow into the picture of "image and likeness", as Christians who believe in a God who made the universe and is Himself entirely spiritual, we must of necessity reject such fanciful notions out of hand.⁽⁴⁾ Secondly, and this point is considerably more controversial, the "image" of God and the "likeness" of God, though both spiritual, are not identical. In an effort to make the best out of a bad argument, one often hears proponents of the "image only" school say that "image and likeness explain each other", or claims to that effect. But such pleas bespeak a clear embarrassment about the need to essentially explain away the second phrase "in our likeness". From the standpoint of those of us who believe in the economy and purposefulness of what the Word of God has to say, "in our likeness" on the face of it ought to be providing additional information. This is especially the case when we consider that the two words "image" and "likeness" are introduced by different Hebrew prepositions with quite different meanings.

In fact, the two phrases "in Our image" and "in Our likeness" describe two very distinct areas of spiritual similarity between God and Man. Throughout the history of the Church, scholars have struggled with this problem, and the roots of the solution (if not the solution itself) are to be found in the likes of Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, and the Schoolmen, with the distinction (generally put) being between a general principle (image) and an individual application (likeness).⁽⁵⁾ It has fallen to the lot of modern exegetes to move the discussion away from biblical ethics and back to biblical psychology (where it properly belongs). J. Laidlaw's insightful analysis that saw in image and likeness both (species-wide) self-consciousness and individual personality is very close to the mark.⁽⁶⁾ Laidlaw, however, took image and likeness to represent this distinction collectively, and it falls to the great credit of R.B. Thieme to have first seen "image" as mankind's common spiritual essence (analogous to the divine essence which is common to all three members of the Trinity), and "likeness" as the individual personality of distinct human beings (analogous to the different persons of the three members of the Trinity).⁽⁷⁾

The Hebrew word translated "image" in Genesis 1:26-27 above is tselem (,lj); its Greek counterpart, also meaning "image" (as used in the Septuagint and New Testament), is eikon (eikwn). Both tselem and eikon refer to Man's spiritual mirroring of God's essence. Although it is possible, as some have argued, that tselem is to be derived from tsel (lj), "shade" (and that the connection between the words would be felt by the Hebrew reader in any case), in scripture tselem means "image" in a fairly concrete sense; the word is often used for statues of pagan idols which, after all, are meant to be exact replicas of the god in question.⁽¹⁰⁾ On this analogy (transferred to the spiritual realm), the image of God would seem to be a very clear reflection: Man acts for God (in paradise) and even as God in certain instances. God made us to serve Him, therefore when we are behaving properly we are indeed acting in His stead. We are el (la), a "small g" image of the God (`elohiym: ,yhvla), "God with a capital G" (although in the Hebrew it is a question of a singular noun in the first instance, versus a plural "of majesty" used for God Himself in the second).

It makes perfect sense, therefore, to find this analogy of creatures called "mighty ones" (i.e., "gods") applied to the angels as well as to mankind, because by His delegation they too share in the authority of God (the Mighty One):⁽¹¹⁾

This last passage, Psalm 8:4-8, is particularly apropos of our study because it provides a link between men and angels as God's delegates here on earth. The angels are described as "mighty ones", "gods" with a small "g", while Man, we are told, has been made "a little lower" than these entirely spiritual creatures who were the first to enjoy God's delegated sovereignty. Nevertheless, it is Man who has now been made sovereign (as God's representative) over the earth and everything that God has created on the earth (in place of earth's original angelic sovereign, Satan as we know from other scriptures such as Is.14:12-20 and Ezek.28:12-19).⁽¹²⁾

Now it is true that mankind fell (corporately, or "positionally") in Adam (Rom.5:12-21; 1Cor.15:21-22). It is also true that, as a result of Adam's fall, Satan is the present "ruler of the world" (Lk.4:6; Jn.12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 1Jn.5:19). But the devil's usurped sovereignty has never gone and will never go unchallenged by God (Gen.3:15; Rev.20:10). God has used (and continues to use) the sons of men to challenge the devil's temporary sovereignty which was destroyed positionally (i.e., in principle) by the Son of God in His victory on the cross (Is.42:3-4; Matt.12:20; 1Cor.15:54-57; Col.2:15;  1Jn.5:3-5) and will be destroyed experientially (i.e., in practice) at His return (Ps.110:1; Rev.19:11-21). For it is Christ who is the exact image of the Father (Heb.1:3). And it is Christ who will rule over the earth in complete and perfect sovereignty as delegated by the Father (Is.9:6-7) until all His enemies have been crushed and the kingdom can be handed over to the Father (1Cor.15:24-28). Then we shall witness the Father's unchallenged rule over the new heavens and earth where "righteousness dwells" (2Pet.3:13), where there shall no longer be the slightest trace of evil (Rev.21:8; 22:3).

Psalm 8 thus describes Man acting properly in his capacity as a true servant of God, ministering in God's creation according to God's will. So it is not at all surprising to discover that this passage finds its ultimate prophetic fulfillment in the Last Adam, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:

All of the scriptures just considered refer to the idea we have discussed above, namely that the central point of the image of God in Man is the ability to exercise and respond to authority, to act sovereignly in God's place where He so delegates, and to be responsible to Him for our actions.⁽¹³⁾ This key characteristic of spirit requires other obvious mental and spiritual aspects and assets (such as self-consciousness, mentality, conscience, etc.). But just as the sovereignty of God is the coordinating characteristic of His perfect character,⁽¹⁴⁾ so the ability to judge and govern, and to be morally responsible (in terms of our own lives along with whatever God places in our charge) is the key quality of comparison between the essence of God and the essence of Man, between God as archetype and Man as His image:

The Hebrew word translated "likeness" in Genesis 1:26 above is demuth (tvmd); its Greek counterpart, also meaning "likeness" (as used in the Septuagint and New Testament) is homoioma or homoiosis ('omoiwma, 'omoiwsiV). Both demuth and homoioma/homoiosis refer not to our common mirroring of God's essence, but to the fact that we have an individual responsibility to seek, follow and serve God.⁽¹⁵⁾ "Likeness" then refers to mankind's multiplicity in terms of many, unique and individual personalities. In this point, by analogy, we parallel the persons of Trinity (though even more loosely than we parallel His essence-image for the reasons discussed above). The fact that the pronouns in Genesis 1:26 are plural ("Us", "our image") makes it very difficult to exclude the Trinity from this passage.⁽¹⁶⁾ We share the image of God on an overall essence basis, but the likeness of God relates to the fact that just as the Trinity is "We", so mankind is composed of many different members, each of whom shares the image of God (and the corresponding individual responsibility to seek, follow and serve Him). Although it is possible, as some have argued, that demuth is to be derived from dam (,d), "blood" (and that the connection between the words would be felt by the Hebrew reader in any case, and also with the words 'adam, Adam, and 'adamah, ground), in scripture demuth means "likeness" with no demonstrable connection to this admittedly important term and concept. It is also important to remember that the point of analogy for the likeness of God is the threefold personality of God, entirely spiritual in every way.

This is the account of the generations of Man: Throughout the period (lit., “day”) when God was creating Man, He made him (i.e., mankind) in His likeness. He created them male and female and He blessed them and He called their name “Man” on the day He created them. Now Adam lived 130 years and he fathered [a son] in his likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.
Genesis 5:1-3

The “day” or period discussed here includes not only the original creation of Adam and Eve but also all the time which has passed since as the phrase “the account of the generations of Man” makes clear. Therefore, as a summary statement which includes both original creation and the subsequent procreation of mankind (i.e., the “generations of Man” wherein every human being is given life by God; see section II.3 below, “The Human Spirit”), the phrase in Genesis 5:1, “He made [mankind] in His likeness”, can be explained as a deliberately conflation of dual phrase used in Genesis 1:26 “in our image, according to our likeness. This technique is no doubt used by Moses because more than the original man, Adam, are in view (so that the focus naturally shifts to the multiplicity of mankind, but with the “in” retained to recall the essential free will each individual possesses; note that in Gen.9:6 where the case is individual it is again in His image). And also in the case of verse three here, the wording, far from being a crux of interpretation on account of the reversal of the prepositions used with image and likeness (be and ce, “in” and “according to” respectively), actually helps to confirm the points just expressed. The critical distinction between Genesis 1:26-27 and Genesis 5:3, quoted immediately above, is that the subjects of the two passages are entirely different: in Genesis 1:26-27, the subject is God; in Genesis 5:3, the subject is Adam. Obviously, a comparison based on an analogy with Man will of necessity be quite different from one based on an analogy with God. This fact accounts for the reversal whereby we have in Genesis 5:3 “in his likeness” and “according to his image”. Between a man and a man, “likeness” or individuality is exactly parallel: all of us are human beings (contrasted with the comparison of Man to God in Gen.1:26). However in terms of “image”, when comparing man to man, the comparison becomes less exact here, because now we are not contrasting divine essence to similar (in principle) human essence, but we are instead comparing a whole man (body and spirit) to another complete person: without question Adam and Seth, though similar in terms of species, were at the same time very different, even to the naked eye (not to mention the differences of mind, emotion, aptitude – all the factors that make for differences in personality). Reversing “in” and “according to” is the only way to make clear, based on the pattern set in Genesis 1:26, this distinction between the “man to man” image-likeness relationship on the one hand, and the “Man to God” image-likeness relationship on the other.

We have already seen that mankind has been created for the glory of God (section I.3 above). While this glorification of God is primarily accomplished by what He does for us (most especially in the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ on our behalf), we too have a role to play through the exercise of our will here on earth. Our image and likeness to God, that is, our self-determination and separateness, our ability to choose for God and the individual responsibility to do so, our limited sovereignty and its common disbursement (to a greater or lesser degree) to all members of our species, are aspects of spirit without which it would be impossible for us to participate in this glorification process (otherwise known as human history). Simply put, God is glorified by our obedience, by our response to His sovereign authority. Our will is not really "free" in the sense that we can choose the course of our lives without consequence. We really have only one choice: obey God. If we do, God is glorified by our obedience. If we do not, we suffer the consequences (and God still enjoys a measure of glory by dealing with us in justice, though He would have preferred to deal with us in love). No, we really do not have "free will" in the overarching sense of the phrase. Either we choose to do God's will, or we end up choosing to follow the present "ruler of this world" by default (Gal.5:16-17). Either we accept His sovereign authority over our lives, an authority He possesses by nature of being God, an authority He has underlined to an unimaginable degree by the price He has paid for us through the death of His only Son, or we reject Him for the usurped authority of the devil's world (1Jn.2:15-17). If we seek Him, if we follow Him, if we serve Him, if we obey Him, we will find that in our lives, in our spiritual gifts, in the production that flows from the ministries He assigns, we will be partakers in the delegated sovereign authority of God that was bestowed upon Adam so long ago. But instead of ruling over the perfection of Eden, our task is to manifest the glory of God by contesting whatever part of this battlefield called earth that the Lord has assigned to us. Whatever the spiritual gift, whatever the ministry, whatever the effect God has granted us, these are spheres of God's delegated sovereignty every bit as significant as Adam's charge over Eden. We serve at His pleasure, in His might and for His glory, demonstrating God's power at work in our hearts here on this alien domain, once the devil's charge (but spurned), once Adam's charge (but lost), now the arena wherein some of Adam's fallen seed do choose for God – because He first chose us – rejecting the devil's authority, accepting God's sovereignty, and glorifying Him in Jesus Christ.

Thus Man, as a replacement for Satan and the fallen angels, had to have the image and likeness of God, i.e., he had to be capable on an individual basis of exercising authority (as delegated by God) in order to reflect His glory by acting as His faithful steward (in place of the rebellious usurper: Eph.2:2), and of responding to divine authority (through faith in Christ after the fall). Since His victory at the cross, Christ is now our immediate authority, our "head", all power and authority on heaven and earth having been granted to Him (Matt.28:18; Col.2:10; cf. Matt.9:6; Jn.5:27; 17:2; Eph.2:20-23):

A comparison of the use of the word "image" in the two passages above reveals an apparent (though only apparent) contradiction: in 1st Corinthians 11:7, Man still bears the image, while in 2nd Corinthians 3:18, the fact that we Christians should be in the process of being transformed into "the same image" has seemed to many to suggest that we do not at present possess the image of God (or at least that it has been marred in some way, and so needs to be repaired).⁽¹⁷⁾ The root cause advanced for this putative "defacing" or "erasing" of the image of God is Adam's fall. But at the heart of all such theories is inevitably the misconception that the image (usually undistinguished from the likeness) is, at least in part, related to the body of Adam. In fact, as we have argued above, both the image and the likeness of God are entirely spiritual.⁽¹⁸⁾ Since the fall, our bodies have become subject to corruption and infected by sin, but our spirits retain the same two critical facets bestowed upon them by God on the sixth day of re-creation: 1) the capability of exercising and responding to authority ("image"), and 2) the responsibility for our own individual personalities ("likeness"). 1^st Corinthians 11:7 clearly states that Man is still the "image and glory" of God (exercising and responding to God's delegated authority as appropriate). And on closer examination, moreover, it becomes clear that 2^nd Corinthians 3:18 is talking about something quite different. In that passage the "same image" which we as Christians are being enjoined to emulate is that of Christ (cf. Eph.4:24; Col.3:10). Christ is the exact image of the Father (Heb.1:3), and our ultimate role model who followed the Father's will in perfect obedience (e.g., Matt.16:24; 1Cor.11:1). The "image and likeness" which is our common heritage as human beings is spiritual – but we are born in sin (Rm.7:18 & 24). As human beings, we have the potential to seek, follow and serve God, to willingly strive to transform ourselves into His Christ-like followers, but this requires obedience and response to God's authority in first believing in and then following Jesus Christ. Only in this way can we fulfill the potential of His "image and likeness" and bring the glory to God for which He created us, then re-created us in Jesus Christ (Jn.3:3).⁽¹⁹⁾

2. The Creation of Adam: The overview of the creation of Man (Adam and Eve) in Genesis 1:26-27, therefore, deals with general principles: 1) we are all made in the image of God (i.e., we share an identical type of spiritual essence whose most salient feature is our ability to understand, exercise and respond to authority for the purpose of being obedient and faithful stewards of God on earth, living and working for Jesus Christ); 2) we are all made in the likeness of God (i.e., we are all unique personalities with an individual responsibility to respond to God's authority). In Genesis 2:7, however, we find a more detailed description of the actual event of God's creation of the first human being, Adam:⁽²⁰⁾

It is important that we have this description of Adam's creation in addition to the Genesis 1:26-27 passage, for while that first passage tells us about Man's spirit, this verse describes for us the creation of Adam's body and God's quickening of that body by infusing it with a human spirit.

The agent of Adam's creation is "the Lord God"(yhvh `elohiym: ,yhvla hvhy). Although all three members of the Trinity are called Lord, the Father's representative and agent of creation is our Lord, Jesus Christ, the very one who has been chosen to lead the fight against the devil and ultimately to replace Satan as world ruler (Jn.1:3; Col.1:16; Heb.1:2).⁽²¹⁾ When He does, it will be as the God-Man, a genuine human being, body and spirit, in eternal union with undiminished deity. God's creation of a body for Adam, the first member of the species that was to replace Satan and his followers, must have sent a seismic shock through the diabolical rank and file, given the importance of possessing bodies in the Satanic platform.⁽²²⁾ In fact, everything in this passage emphasizes the true materiality of Adam's body: 1) he is created from the dust (or loose dirt), emphasizing his material origin; 2) he is "formed" (the Hebrew verb yatsar, rjy), emphasizing the plastic nature of the process and often used of the potter at work (e.g., Is.29:16); 3) the very name Adam ('adham, ,da) is closely related to the name for ground ('adhamah, hmda, emphasizing the man's close connection with the earth from which he was made.

Significantly, the material, plastic, earth-connected creation of the body, in and of itself, does not result in life – life occurs only after the Lord God puts a "living spirit" into the newly formed body. Moreover, it is only as a result of God’s breathing of a human spirit (the “breath of life”, i.e., “life-giving breath”) into the first man, that Adam becomes a “living person”.  This process, observed by angels and recorded for all of Adam's posterity, makes it abundantly clear that 1) Adam is both a spiritual and a material being; 2) neither the human spirit nor the human body is meant to exist without the other:

3. The Human Spirit: Adam's creation serves as the pattern for us all. It goes without saying that our bodies are now formed indirectly through natural procreation, not directly by the immediate creation of God. Nevertheless, the pattern of body formed first, life-giving spirit introduced by the Lord later, obtains now as it did with the creation of the first man:

The passage above is reminiscent of Adam's creation. Working backward in the process of creation, in Acts 17:24-25 Paul enumerates the same three elements in God's construction of Man that are found at Genesis 2:7:

•1) life (the living person – life resulting from the fusion of body and spirit occasioned by God's implantation of the human spirit into our bodies at birth).

•2) breath (i.e., the human spirit).

•3) everything else (i.e., our bodies and what is necessary to sustain them in the world).

Most important for the purposes of our current discussion is that just at it was at Genesis 2:7, so in the Acts 17:24-25 passage "life" is the result of God's gift of "breath" (i.e., a human spirit). Only after God places the human spirit into the body does life occur, and apart from this infusion of spirit, there is no life. Other passages of scripture confirm that human life is the result of God's imparting of a human spirit, without which the body would be dead:

1) The human spirit is given by God:

2) The human spirit's entrance into the body results in life:

3) The human spirit's exit from the body results in death:

The Hebrew words used for the human spirit are ruach (xvr), literally "wind", and neshamah (hmwn), literally "breath". The Greek word for the human spirit is pneuma (pneuma), used for both wind and breath. A point that Hebrew ruach and Greek pneuma have in common is that, in addition to the human spirit, they are also used in scripture to refer to the Holy Spirit or to literal wind, a fact that makes even more sense than is apparent at first glance as we shall see below in section II.4 "Dichotomy". What is clear at this juncture is that wind and breath are largely invisible phenomena, though both are very real phenomena. Breath-wind thus makes a perfect analogy for the immaterial, unseen part of Man which quickens the body and results in life upon implantation, that is, the human spirit:

    a) The human spirit is who we are: The human spirit is more than just a life-force that animates the body; the human spirit is essentially "who we are". Our will and self-determination, our conscience, our understanding and mentality, our consciousness and self-consciousness are, while not independent of the body, essentially aspects of the particular, individual human spirit that is us. Below is a list of scripture passages touching on the human spirit in its facets, qualities and functions. Taken together, they paint a vivid picture of what the human spirit is in the Bible, namely our "inner person", the real "us". The spirit is the place of

conscience:    

reflection:    

perception:    

refreshment:    

wisdom:    

willingness:    

volition:    

intellect:    

personality:    

mentality:    

growth:    

understanding:    

worship:    

blessing:    

When we die, our bodies return to the ground, but, as believers in Jesus Christ, our spirits (i.e., we ourselves) enter into the presence of God (cf. Rev.7:9ff.), temporarily clothed with an interim body (2Cor.5:3 [Greek]; Rev.6:11), to await resurrection and their (i.e., our) entrance into a new, permanent and highly superior home, the "resurrection body".⁽²³⁾ That the spirit so housed is really "us" is clear from Jesus' story of Lazarus and the rich man (though the pre-cross believers in the story have now been transferred to the third heaven: see Part 1 of this series). In Luke 16:19-31, we see an Abraham, Abraham's spirit, who though temporarily clothed in this pre-resurrection state seems in every aspect to be just as he was in life (except without toil and tears). This is also true of Lazarus, and even the rich man (except for the torments he now endures). The loss of our bodies will not change the essential facts of who we are, and, since God made us as creatures who possess both spirit and body, we will never be "naked" (i.e., without any covering for the spirit: 2Cor.5:3), and the day will come when we shall receive our eternal body for which we so eagerly hope (Rom.8:23).  Our bodies are important (1Cor.6:13), but rather than being who we are, they are more properly tools for who we are, that is, for the use of our spirits to be employed in the service of God for His glory which is our purpose (cf. Rom.6:20; 2Tim.2:20-21):

After the fall of Adam and its consequent corruption, however, the body often influences the spirit (i.e., "us") for ill. So, as believers in Christ, we find ourselves caught between the body's (now) pernicious influence and the divine influence of the Holy Spirit. Our spirits (i.e., "we") thus face the choice in this life of whether to follow the Holy Spirit in service of God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord, or instead to give in to the desires, cravings and lusts of our sinful bodies:

Don't offer up your [bodily] members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness. But rather offer yourselves up to God as those now alive from the dead, and [offer up] your [bodily] members to God as weapons of righteousness.
Romans 6:13

    b) The human spirit is created by God: In six days, God re-established and refurbished the heavens and the earth. But the seventh day of rest is not to be interpreted to mean that from this point forward, God no longer creates, only allowing (as some would have it) His creation to roll along entirely on its own momentum. Our Lord, speaking about His own miracles (performed on the seventh day) addressed this matter directly:

The human spirit is not passed down biologically through natural procreation (traducianism), nor was it "pre-made" in eternity past, then deposited in a heavenly storehouse for later implantation (pre-existence). The human spirit is the immediate creation of God (creationism):

I charge you before God who gives life to all things . . .
1^st Timothy 6:13a

The immediate creation of the human spirit by God at birth apart from the corruption of the flesh along with its close affinity to the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom.8:16) give us every reason to suppose that, analogous to the Holy Spirit, the human spirit is entirely spiritual exactly as its name suggests. For the Greek word for Spirit and spirit in both of these cases is identical (pneuma, pneuma). This principle of essential spirituality can also be seen in the introspective function or "consciousness" of the human spirit (likewise analogous to the role of the Holy Spirit):

For who among men knows the things of Man except the spirit of Man within him?  In just the same way no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God.
1^st Corinthians 2:11

    c) The human spirit is implanted by God at birth: Adam, of course, was not born.⁽²⁴⁾ His body was formed by the Lord from the dust of the ground. Immediately thereafter, the Lord breathed into his nostrils the "life-giving breath", and as a result of this implantation of the human spirit, Adam became "a living person". After our first parents, however, it is physical birth that has been the means of producing and providing bodies for us all. So it is that physical birth forms the first of the two natural termini of human life that scripture takes for granted from Genesis to Revelation (Gen.4:1; Job 3:11; Eccl.3:2; 7:1; Rev.12:2).⁽²⁵⁾ Therefore birth is for us what the Lord's formation of Adam's body was for him, that is, the point at which our life begins, when the Lord breathes into us our human spirit. The case of the first Adam (our common forefather) was unique; he is the only person whose body was formed by the Lord from the dust of the ground. In the case of the last Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, the taking on of true humanity by undiminished deity is the most unique event that has ever transpired in the history of the universe. His conception was also unique, for He was virgin born by the power of the Holy Spirit. But He came to share in our humanity so as to rescue us from the common fate of wrath that was our lot through our descent from Adam, and so His birth was after the pattern which we all have in common.  He entered the world in the manner of us all, that is, by normal human birth and the reception of a genuine human spirit at birth (cf. Ps.22:9-10):

Though His body was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ entered the world when we all do: at birth.⁽²⁶⁾ This explains why at Matthew 1:20-21 the angel can tell Joseph "that which has been engendered in her is from the Holy Spirit, and she will give birth to a Son", and why at Luke 1:35 Gabriel can tell Mary "the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for this very reason that which is being born will be called holy, the Son of God". Both the grammar of these passages (Greek neuters: "that which") and the prophecies here which are both primarily concerned with the birth of Christ (as is the case in all the Messianic prophecies; cf. Jdg.13:7; Is.7:14; 9:6-7; Lk.1:15), make it clear that it is not His conception, but His birth that is our Lord’s point of entrance into the world after the pattern by which we have all entered it: the physical birth of our bodies followed by God’s breathing into us of our human spirit. The star of Bethlehem and the angelic chorus that herald His arrival are celebrating not His conception but His birth (Lk.2:8-20), the point when He first drew breath as a human being (albeit the only divine One: Phil.2:6-7; Heb.2:14), for that is the point at which the Father brought His Son "into the world":

And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God’s angels worship him."
Hebrews 1:6  NIV

So once again we return to the analogy of breath, a function of our physical life that only occurs after birth and ends with death.  Breath, a manifestation of physical life which (while not synonymous with it) is coterminous with that life, is therefore the perfect symbol and analogy for the life that begins at birth, when God puts our human spirit into our body. This is why Jesus, to explain our need for eternal life, told us we must be born again, not "conceived again", for birth is the point where life begins by means of an act of God, whether it be the first or the second birth (Jn.3:3).⁽²⁷⁾

Thus it is the human spirit (eternal if we follow Christ to eternal life) that is all-important, not this flesh that profits nothing because it will not long endure in its present form. But the body is the battleground whereon this battle we wage against the "principalities and powers" of Satan is being fought out (Eph.6:12). We have seen that the human spirit (i.e., "we") will of necessity follow either the sinful flesh (influenced by the devil's world and all that is in it) or the Holy Spirit, but in order to grasp the mechanics of this process, we must first consider a subject that we have so far deliberately avoided: the so-called "soul".

4. The Dichotomy of Man: In non-technical (and non-scriptural) discussions of this sort, the word "soul" is often employed much in the same sense in which we have used "[human] spirit" above. Probably no concept has been responsible for greater misunderstanding of what the Bible actually has to say about the constitution of Man ("anthropology" in most systematic theological treatments) than that of the soul as a supposed third element in that constitution. According to a proper understanding of the scriptures, Man is not a trichotomous being (i.e., tripartite, composed of body, soul and spirit), but rather a dichotomous one (body and spirit being the only two discrete elements of his nature).

    a) Definition and Etymology: The word "soul" is of Germanic extraction, part of our common Anglo-Saxon heritage that forms the oldest stratum of the English language. All other things being equal, "soul", our word for something spiritual, immaterial and animating, would not be a bad translation for the Greek pneuma or the Hebrew ruach (both of which we have translated as "spirit" above). The problem is that while "soul" could be a synonym for the human spirit, it most definitely is not an additional element in Man's constitution.

When the Lord first breathed a human spirit into Adam's newly formed body, the result was that he became a "living being" (Gen.2:7). But beginning in the 3^rd Century B.C., the Hebrew word nephesh (wpn – properly translated "being" above) began to be translated into a very loose Greek equivalent: psyche (yuch). The task of rendering this particular Hebrew word into Greek was, to be sure, not a simple one. Ancient Greek notions of "anthropology" (the human constitution) were flexible, to say the least. But psyche was a particularly unfortunate choice, because the word much more closely patterns what we should call the human spirit.⁽²⁸⁾ This initial precedent was then perpetuated throughout the Septuagint, by and large, and then followed by the writers of the New Testament, who naturally built upon the conventions of their day. Understand, their words were most certainly written under divine inspiration – it is the subsequent interpretation of them with which we are here finding fault. And correct interpretation is not an issue as long as one realizes that psyche in the New Testament means the same thing as the Hebrew word nephesh (i.e., "being", not soul or spirit). But most English versions incorrectly identify psyche as "soul", taking their cue from Greek literature rather than from the Hebrew semantic exemplar. Worse to tell, these same versions also generally impute the error backwards, taking nephesh to mean "soul" as well, because it is translated by psyche in the New Testament! To be fair, the error is an ancient one, and the Latin Fathers who made use of Platonic and other philosophical distinctions (which have no place in biblical interpretation) often translate psyche as animus and pneuma as anima, that is, taking "soul" and "spirit" as "immaterial person" and "animating principle" respectively (which nearly reverses the true state of affairs). No matter how such concepts may appeal to us (because of our preconceived notions about possessing both a spirit and a soul), it is well to remember that the Bible needs to be our guide on these matters rather than conventional wisdom, no matter how comfortable. That said, we need to return briefly to Genesis 2:7 and reexamine the critical passage that divides true dichotomy from false trichotomy:

Two elements are clearly present here: 1) the body, formed from the earth; 2) the spirit, breathed into the body by the Lord. The result of the combination of body and spirit is that the first man "became a living nephesh" (the word we are translating "being" in contradistinction to the erroneous "soul"). Notice that the verse does not say that the Lord also created a soul/person as some third, distinct element. Quite the contrary. When the two true elements of Man's constitution combine, he (i.e., in his entirety) becomes a soul/person (nephesh), so that beyond all argument, nephesh in this most critical of all anthropological passages represents the whole person (i.e., the combination of body and spirit into one living person, and not some third, discrete part). That is why where the word nephesh is used in the Old Testament, and where psyche is used in the New Testament, almost inevitably one can substitute "person" or "individual" or "self" (or some other personal pronoun) for these words which are often (misleadingly) translated "soul" (compare the K.J.V. renderings of the following: Prov.19:8; Is.32:6; Acts 7:14; 1Pet.3:20):

Therefore, "soul" (nephesh-psyche) is the term used in the Bible to make clear that the whole person is in view. We are not just body, nor are we only spirit. As we have suggested above and shall revisit in greater detail immediately below, the human spirit is, at present, limited in its capabilities because of the limitations of our present bodies – it has to work through the sinful body (which is constantly struggling against the human spirit's will). It stands to reason, then, that the writers of scripture would, more often than not, refer to people in terms of the whole person, in which case the word "soul" (nephesh-psyche) is often the term of choice, but it is critical to understand that by "soul", the entire human being, body and spirit, is meant – the one thing that "soul" (nephesh-psyche) does not mean in scripture is the immaterial part of Man exclusively.⁽²⁹⁾

This principle actually helps to clarify passages of scripture which are often erroneously taken as supportive of the trichotomist position:

Just as the marrow cannot normally be separated from the bone without destroying life (especially from the 1^st century A.D. perspective), so the spirit is, for all practical purposes, one with the life it enjoys in the body – only the Word of God, the most penetrating force in the world, could make such a distinction.

"Life", or "soul" is here sandwiched in between the spirit and the body, because "life" (or "soul") is the result of body and spirit being combined by the Lord (Gen.2:7). Only in this union of spirit and body, complete and in tact, can there be a "living soul":

For Adam and for us, the body is psychikon, i.e., attuned to the "soul" or earthly "physical life" we now lead in these present bodies of corruption, but when we follow Christ in resurrection, it will be pneumatikon, i.e., attuned to the human spirit and to the eternal life that we shall live with Him forever. In the verses that precede and follow 1^st Corinthians 15:45, Paul explains this principle, and so it is worth our while to quote the passage at length here:

The body is a home for the spirit, and this body we now inhabit is more "soulish" (i.e., more attuned to the physical life we now lead), while the resurrection body will be more attuned to our spirit, giving it much greater rein than we can now even imagine for our service to and appreciation of the Lord:

    b) The heart: interface between body and spirit: The word "soul" is not the only biblical word that refers to the whole person, i.e., a spirit and a body which together constitute a living human being. The word "heart" (Hebrew: lebh, bl, or lebhabh, bbl; Greek: kardia, kardia) likewise refers to the human being as a unity, but with a special twist: scripture uses the term "heart" to refer to the whole person from an internal point of view, focusing on and encompassing all the facets of the inner life (e.g., mentality, volition, emotion, conscience, etc.):

The "heart", then is the Bible's word for the interface between the body and the spirit. That is to say, when scripture mentions the "heart", it is referring to the inner spiritual, mental and emotional functioning of our person, of our human spirit thinking, planning, emoting, deciding, all through the apparatus of the body (via the brain, the mind, etc.). In our present constitution, the body is a tool for our spirit's expression, but a delimiting one. For example, genetic, developmental and environmental factors have a great deal to do with our current capacity for thought and memory, for emotional control and expression, in a way that will not be true of our resurrection body (which will be pneumatikon, i.e., designed to give our spirit full expression: 1Cor.15:45). It will be recalled that a central plank in Satan's appeal to his potential followers was the promise of a body to give these angelic spirits sensual expression (cf. Lk.24:39: "a spirit does not have flesh and bones"). What we have, they crave, and what we shall have (a body perfectly attuned to our spiritual life) is something that at present they marvel at as they behold the first One to possess such a magnificent "home" for the human spirit, the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When that great day of our resurrection arrives, we shall no longer be subject to the limitations and the temptations of the home we now inhabit. But as things stand now, here in this present body of corruption, the limitations are severe, and the temptations intense. "It has not yet appeared what we shall be[come]" (1Jn.3:2), but what we are now, who we really are now deep inside is best summed up by the "heart" in its scriptural usage, for "heart" is the essence of our inner selves, where only God can know our true thoughts, our true motives:

As to the term heart, in Hebrew, Greek and English, it does refer in secular usage to the physical organ that pumps life-sustaining blood throughout our physical bodies. Its selection as the "pith" of who and what we are as individuals is, therefore, no accident. As the queen among our bodily organs, at the center of our physical being, and inextricably bound up with the circulation of the blood, a fluid recognized from earliest times as essential to our continued physical existence, the "heart" was a natural choice for this prime designation. "Blood is the [symbol of] the life-soul" after all (Deut.12:23) – physical life, that is, and it is in the heart that for literary (if not medical) purposes that we imagine this to be concentrated. This is why Old Testament scriptures connect the blood with the nephesh, the "soul" (Gen.9:4): when the blood flows out, so does the physical part of life, just as when the breath-spirit departs, so does the spiritual part of life. We see the end of physical life, the blood upon the ground, but the spirit departs we know not where:

In spite of its corrupted sin nature (Rom.7:18), God has demonstrated very clearly through His superintendence of its development (Job 10:8-12; Ps.119:73; 139:13-16; Is.44:2, 21, 24) and His loving provision for it (Matt.5:25-34) that He is "for" this body we now possess (1Cor.6:13). We are the human spirit, not the body (2Cor.10:2-6), but we live in the body, and the battle we fight for the Lord, we fight out on the battleground of the heart, endeavoring to make our entire life, inner and outer, well-pleasing and acceptable to Him:

But I perceive another law in my bodily members, waging war against the law in my mind and taking me prisoner – [a prisoner to] this law of sin that dwells in my body.
Romans 7:23

    c) The word "soul" used as a synonym for "heart": Finally, it is necessary to point out that there are times when instead of "heart", the center of the "living being" we now are (thanks to the union of our spirit and our body), writers of scripture employ "soul" as a synonymous term. This development is common enough in literature. The specific literary figure involved is called synecdoche, the whole being substituted for the part. In the case of the use of "soul" for "heart", the whole of our "living person" is substituted for the nucleus of that person (where all thoughts, emotions, decisions and pangs of conscience occur). This substitution has parallels in English: “my very being longs for thee”. Problems of interpretation only arise if one mistakenly takes this common literary use to mean that somehow the "soul" is a separate entity of our makeup (rather than the entire "being" we have seen it to be, encompassing our body and spirit in a living union):

5. The Creation of Eve (Gen.2:18-24): Up until now we have been speaking of mankind in the generic sense, "Man" with a capital "m", comprising both genders of our species. Before we move on to the original status of our first parents in the garden of Eden along with their temptation, fall and judgment, we must first consider what the Bible has to say about the creation of Eve and its implications. To appreciate the nature of Satan's attack on Adam and Eve and the consequences of their sin to all subsequent relations between men and women, it is first necessary to understand, by way of preface, that the status of the relationship between the first man and the first woman in paradise before the fall was very different from what would obtain when they had been expelled from the garden of Eden after the fall:

As it was with Adam, so the creation of Eve's body is unique. Neither of our first parents were born, Adam's body being formed from the dust of the ground and Eve's constructed from part of Adam's. In terms of her inner essence, however, that is to say her human spirit, we have no additional information given in the passage above. What we do have, however, is the statement in Genesis 1:27 that delineates the creation of the spiritual essence of both Adam and Eve:

The shift from "Man" (no definite article in the Hebrew) to "the man" (with the definite article in the Hebrew) is highly significant. On a collective basis, verse 26 applies to all human beings (i.e., "Man"), so that we may say that all mankind in a corporate sense must possess the image and likeness of God, and, consequently, the mandate to respond to God's authority. In verse 27, however, the switch to the singular means that the focus has shifted from the general (all human beings) to the specific (Adam in particular), and here the scripture is careful to attribute the image of God to Adam, but not to repeat this attribution when "male and female" come into view at the end of the verse. This apparent (but only apparent) contradiction is repeated in the New Testament where Paul can write in 1^st Corinthians 11:7 that a man is the "image and glory of God", but that, on the other hand, a woman is "the glory of her husband", and yet say in a second epistle to that same church (2Cor.3:18), that all of us (clearly men and women alike) are being "transformed into the same image (i.e., becoming more Christ-like)".

What are we to say then? Do women share in the image of God or not? Genesis 1:26-27 is the beginning of the answer to this question, for in spite of carefully avoiding a positive answer, neither is a negative reply forthcoming in that passage. In fact, these two verses supply no basis for finding any spiritual differences between men and women. The only distinctions to be found are the two already mentioned:

    1) male and female are separate categories. However, from the collective statement of verse 26, the conclusion seems unavoidable that the basis for this distinction is not spiritual, since no spiritual distinction is mentioned in this statement of the corporate creation of mankind (and we should expect something here if indeed men and women were to be distinguished spiritually). It must be assumed, therefore, that the human spirits of men and women are essentially the same, and that the mention of male and female categories in the following verse is a reference to our respective bodies (see below).

    2) verse 27 makes no specific positive attribution of the image of God to Eve – but this is a far different matter from denying the image altogether.

The first point given above is easily buttressed by scripture. In Christ, a spiritual relationship, there is "no male or female" (Gal.3:28); men and women are equally "fellow heirs of the gift of eternal life" (1Pet.3:7); and, in eternity, both are relieved of the institution of marriage with its respective biblical roles (which is at the root of the apparent dilemma with which we are now dealing: Matt.22:30). We may also make a persuasive "argument from silence" and add that in all the passages of the Bible that speak of our hope, our resurrection and reward, one searches in vain for any evidence of significant distinction between men and women in eternity based on gender.

The second point given above is also conditioned by our current, earthly circumstance. Less so in the garden of Eden, but much more so after the fall, the relationship between husband and wife turns on the issue of authority. As co-heirs in Christ, women clearly must share in the image and likeness of God, partaking of the exact same spiritual essence men enjoy. But just as the male role was altered by the fall (Satan’s usurpation of Man’s rulership over the earth and the replacement of perfection with toil and hardship), the female role was also changed dramatically in respect to authority relationships (see section IV below). As a result, scripture is careful neither to deny woman’s spiritual equality, nor to minimize the authority of the husband by stressing that equality. For before God we are all equal, but in this present corrupt body, we are all under various forms of authority, all ultimately delegated by God, and our proper response to that authority is intimately connected to the spiritual conflict that now rages unseen all around us (Eph.6:11-12). In Eden, just as the bodies of Adam and Eve were distinct from one another, so were their roles. However, in the perfection of paradise, this distinction did not have the authority implications that would later obtain after the introduction of sin (which makes the exercise of authority in human relationships at all levels absolutely essential):

This passage clearly affirms what we have suggested above, namely, that there are two ways of looking at this issue which are only superficially contradictory. Creation teaches both principles that Paul outlines above: 1) the precedence of Adam in the order of creation; 2) the equality of men and women before God. It is important to note that it is only after the fall that this precedence in the creation order has authority connotations, because the authority relationship in marriage is a result of the fall and the judgments of Genesis chapter 3. In the passage above, Paul switches the order in which these two principles are treated in Genesis 1:26-27. He first reproves the Corinthian woman for tearing and disheveling their hair in mourning after the pagan manner (a practice that shames our hope in the resurrection: cf. Deut.14:1; Mic.1:16). Using the priority of creation as an argument for their obedience on this point, Paul argues that such a practice dishonors their husbands by effacing the symbol of respect they are due by this priority of creation (cf. 1Tim.2:13). However, having established the obligation for the Corinthian women to respond to their husbands’ authority on this point of abuse, he is quick to anticipate the false conclusion that men are somehow "better" than women in the eyes of God. In truth, he tells us, we are all equal "in the Lord", with absolutely no advantage accruing to the male gender, nor any disadvantage to the female gender. This lesson too, Paul reminds us, is taught by the natural order of creation: since neither men nor women can exist without the other, it stands to reason that God does not place a premium on either gender. And in fact, all things originate from the creative hand of God, so that neither gender has any grounds for boasting – all of us are subordinate to God’s authority. This last point – that "everything comes from God" – is the most crucial. Whatever authority a husband has over a wife, an employer over an employee, a government official over a citizen, a pastor over a member of his congregation, all these forms of authority have been delegated by God for His own wise and sovereign purposes and it is well to remember that there is no man, no woman who is not subject to many forms of God’s delegated authority as long as he or she be in this present bo