Being Human: Who we are, Where we came from, Where we’re headed

Have you noticed the assault on our humanity is escalating? It happens through abuse, cultural influences, education, technological advancements, medical coercion, and political messaging. This is significant not just from a biological or practical day-to-day level, but from a spiritual and eternal perspective as well.

I may do a second part of this that talks more about the human experience, but first, to reclaim the will to live you need to know the greater story you exist in. Even if you are physically and emotionally alone in this moment, you are part of a broader human family both now and stretching back into history. We aren’t a hoard of parasitic monsters ravaging the earth and trapped in the wrong bodies, we aren’t minds floating in a machine connected to a web of other machines. We are a beautiful (if fallen) human family. Your value, the value of each one of us, is greater than anything else on this earth. Your will doesn’t belong to anyone but you, and you are not replaceable.

In light of this, today I’m bringing it back to basics and reminding myself and anyone reading where we came from, why we matter, who our real enemies are, and the hope we have. (Below is the accompanying podcast if there is anyone you want to share with, particularly anyone young– though this post is a lot more thorough)

The Context for Humanity (Genesis 1:1-25)

There is a God. In the beginning, God created the universe, aka “the heavens and the earth.” With creative genius and mastery on full display He spoke, step by step, unraveling the chaos in steady increments until darkness and light were put in their place: time and space, land and water, plant and animal. Whole ecosystems were created, with each creature designed to reproduce itself according to its kind.

The Identity of Humanity (Genesis 1:26-30; Genesis 2:7)

God spoke every plant and animal into existence with three words: “Let there be. . .” However, when it came to humanity, the pinnacle of creation, God knelt into the dust and lovingly formed us in His own image. Once He got us just right, He breathed His own breath of life into us. This means that unlike the rest of creation, we are both physical and spiritual. Yes, in a sense all of creation is spiritual because it was created by the Word of God, but the very things He created are physical in nature. So are we—but we are more than that, because His breath came from Him. God is spirit. We each have our own distinct body and individual spirit. We were never intended to die, (death being a process in which our spirit is separated from our body), and therefore our body and spirit belong together. It is good to cherish and nurture your body.

Being in God’s image, we were given the task of leading all the other creatures on earth, and of being the gardeners and developers of the world. We were meant to do this from a place of love, creativity and purity, in relationship with God who would guide us. We are not parasites on the earth, we are gardeners who live in the gardens we make. (Perhaps this is why Jesus was thought to be a gardener when the women at the tomb saw him at his resurrection) God is eternal and complex, full of beauty and mystery, and each human displays some aspect of Him which is beautiful and sacred. This can be twisted, but it can never be fully destroyed.

The Nature of Humanity (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:18-25)

Everything in all of creation was deemed good by God, until Adam had been alone for too long. Humans are made for connection. In a microcosm of the creation story detailed in Genesis 2, we see that the separation of mankind into male and female was an answer to our need for relationship and family in order to thrive. God didn’t choose to have a unisex humanity that lived in asexual partnership, but instead He made complementary opposites called man and woman. The woman, who Adam called Eve, is described as being taken from Adam’s own side while he was literally put to sleep by God (a compassionate surgeon?) and fashioned from his own bone and flesh. Adam, upon waking and seeing her there, thus acknowledges her as bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. The bible indicates that for this reason, (because they come from one and are meant to be one and belong together), men are to leave their parents and unite with the woman of their choosing in a permanent marital covenant, thus starting a new family. Each man was to have one wife, and each woman to have one husband. The man and woman were naked, and unashamed.

God’s decision to make humanity both in His own image, yet also male/female and required to participate in sexuality for reproduction as animals do, is arguably one of the most shocking things about the origin of mankind. God loved it! However, some have speculated that this decision to make hybrid animal-gods (lowercase “g” here) was so offensive to the already created angelic host, it contributed to the fall of Lucifer and rebellion of one third of the angels. Perhaps there is something about us having God’s breath and being made in His image, capable of reproducing and creating more image-bearers, yet also being humble and made from dust with fleshy bodies, that some otherwise superior entities in the spirit realm were enraged by. Perhaps they are jealous, and it manifests as seething resentment.

Satan is the god of this world, so today you see contempt for humanity seep into politics, Hollywood films and popular novels, with humans disdainfully referred to as cattle or viruses, and discouraged from living wholesome lives. (Psychopathic, antisocial tendencies are inherently demonic/Luciferian. The desire to kill, to destroy human sexuality, to hybridize us into the form or nature of an actual animal, to rob us of free will or to hybridize humanity with machines– all of this is demonic by virtue of the twisting of God’s image which humanity naturally bears.)

Humans are male and female, created in God’s image, are flesh and spirit, and destined to flourish through intimate, committed relationship with one another. (Some rare people are born without the desire to marry, and these may have a special call to serve God or accomplish specific tasks during their life. Jesus talked about this in Matthew 19:12) We create families and communities. We reflect God. And, our spiritual enemies hate us, as we’ll see in a moment.

The Fall of Humanity (Genesis 2:8-9; Genesis 2:16-17; Genesis 3:1-24; Ephesians 6:12)

Speculation abounds about whether the Tree of Life and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil were literal trees or simply metaphorical, but the bible is clear that from the beginning mankind was given a choice. (I personally tend to believe they were real trees with a spiritual essence, because just as humans are both physical and spiritual, so too our relationship with God all throughout the scriptures is portrayed as a hybrid of natural objects/acts with spiritual powers and implications. The most clear and enduring example of this is the eucharist, taking communion with the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. Another example is sexual activity, which is physical but also brings about spiritual consequences. It isn’t hard to believe they were real trees.)

God told Adam nothing was off-limits to him except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The message was relayed to Eve. At first she took it seriously and didn’t touch the forbidden fruit. However, one sly spiritual being, who scripture refers to as the serpent, filled her soul with doubts about whether God really denied them access to the tree, and also doubts about why God would deny them access. He told her it wouldn’t kill her, only make her more like God. Eve was seduced by the serpent’s words and, being very tempted by the beauty of the fruit, she ate what she shouldn’t and then gave it to Adam too.

They did die, and in more ways than one. First they felt shame, and ran to cover their physical bodies with leaves as if this could in any way undo the terrible thing they’d just done. Next they hid from God, who used to have free and open relationship with them. Then they lied to God by blaming everyone from each other to the serpent for their disobedience (this was the beginning of the marital breakdown). God pronounces a curse upon them for their acts of rebellion, resulting in more relational strife and a life of toil and labour. Not all the death was theirs, as God covered them appropriately by slaying the first animal, whose blood and sacrifice resulted in adequate clothing for them, and was a foreshadow of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ thousands of years later. (More physical acts with spiritual consequences)

Finally, God banned them from the Tree of Life, ensuring that eventually they would physically die. This was necessary, to keep mankind from living an eternal existence in a fallen state.

Redemption: Humanity’s Now and Distant Future (Genesis 3:15; 1 Corinthians 15:45-47; John 3:12-21; Luke 24:46-49; Luke 21:10-19; Luke 21:25-28; Revelation 21:1-8)

Part of the curse God pronounced upon the serpent was actually a prophecy of how Eve’s descendent Mary would bear Jesus (God made flesh), who crushed Satan under His feet: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed, He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel.”

So, an aspect of being human is spiritual warfare to this very day. Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth are also warriors whose prayers encourage healing, reconciliation and salvation on the earth. (Jesus Christ of Nazareth is not the Christ of the popular “Christ consciousness” spoken of in the new age, which has appropriated His name and used it to describe a form of witchcraft.) Humans either live under the sway of the defeated but still present “god of this world,” the serpent, or the resurrected and victorious Lord of All, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who will return to finish what He started at the end of the age. Under the dominion of the god of this world, we have an emptiness in our heart which needs the love of God to fill it, and we are also slaves to various lies and sins that harm our health and the wellbeing of those around us. The scriptures make it clear that anyone who does not receive Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of God, stays under the captivity and hypnosis of the god of this world, and in death will go with the serpent to the realm of eternal judgment commonly referred to as hell.

With relationship with God restored through Jesus, the believer can once again resist temptation and live a more holy and innocent life, being kind and tender towards one another, serving one another, forgiving one another, and doing the will of our Father in Heaven. This is done through the power of the Holy Spirit of God, which dwells within the believer. We are meant to live in spiritual families called churches, which have expressions in many forms and cultures: from underground house churches to cathedrals to prison fellowships. We can build loving communities and celebrate life with good food, hard work, adventure, music, art, innovation, dance, song, and most of all worship.

We are once again people of the Tree of Life, to be resurrected with new bodies in due time, but we pay a price living in this fallen world until then. Being shoulder to shoulder with the wicked and under spiritual warfare, we sometimes find ourselves without any perfect option (such as when someone has to use weapons or lie to protect the innocent – it may be the right thing to do in this time of war, but it’s not what we were made for). Still, the Holy Spirit gives believers strength and comfort as we experience the trials and testings that come with life here on earth. We aren’t perfect yet, but we will be perfected. Our eternity will be one without sorrow or sighing in the new earth. In the meantime, here we are doing our best with what we’ve been given, and being as gloriously human as we can.