2. We can co-operate with God in His creating, preserving, and redeeming activity. — Though now "subject to vanity" and (not as to locality, but as to apprehension) far from his heavenly home, the assurance of man's ultimate perfection rests upon the im- pregnable foundation that there is within him a Divine potency. With this Divine potency it is his duty and privilege to co-operate. Man is begotten, but he is being made —
Where is one that, born of woman, altogether can escape From the lower world within him, moods of tiger, or of ape? Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages, Shall not seon after aeon pass and touch him into shape ?
All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade, Prophet-eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade,
Till the peoples all are one, and all their voices blend in choric Hallelujah to the Maker, "It is finished. Man is made."'
IV.
Thkee Texts.
Take these three texts together — Gen. 1. 27. — " God created man in his own image." Rom. iii. 23. — " For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
Heb. ii. 9. — " But we see Jesus."
* H. P. Liddon. * Tennyson, The Making of Mem.
GENESIS I. 26, 27 63
The first text describes man as he was when he first came from the hand of his Creator ; the second describes man as he is, as we know him, in the condition to which sin has reduced him ; the third text describes man as he will be when his redemption is complete. He has not yet attained to the supremacy, the character and glory, which God preordained for him, but Christ has attained all these. We see Jesus crowned, and all things put under Him, and we shall be crowned also when our full redemption is reached.
1. In His own image, — The first great truth of the Bible in regard to man is this, that he was made in the image of God. He is the Creator's noblest earthly work. Out of the dust of the earth God fashioned man's body, and then breathed into it the breath of life. Science tells us that man's body is the culmination and recapitulation of all prior forms of life. But some of its highest and most authoritative teachers acknowledge that man as man is a distinct creation, Wallace, for instance, maintains that " man's bodily structure is identical with the animal world, and is derived from it of which it is the culmination " ; but he declares emphatically that " man's entire nature and all his faculties, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, are not derived from the lower animals, but have an origin wholly distinct ; that the working of material laws does not account for the exaltation of humanity. These are from the spiritual universe, and are the result of fresh and extra manifestations of its power." Let us try to realize this great truth. The body, the meanest part of man, is the culmination of all created forms of life. But between man and the highest animal there is an infinite difierence. How great then is man : " A little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour " ! He stands midway between the material and the spiritual, the manifestation of both. Dust and deity. Below, he is related to the earth ; above, he is related to the heavens. He claims kinship with seraphs; nay, he is God's own offspring. In man God objectified Himself, made Himself visible. God intended man to be the incarnation of Himself, for He "made man in His own image." What a stupendous truth ! Herder once exclaimed, " Give me a great truth that I may feed upon it." Here it is. Man is the incarnation of G od.
64 IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
^ " I am staring," said Maclan at last, " at that which shall judge us both."
" Oh yes," said TurnbuU, in a tired way ; " I suppose you mean God."
" No, I don't," said Maclan, shaking his head ; " I mean him."
And he pointed to the half-tipsy yokel who was ploughing, down the road.
" I mean him. He goes out in the early dawn ; he digs or he ploughs a field. Then he comes back and drinks ale, and then he sings a song. All your philosophies and political systems are young compared to him. All your hoary cathedrals — yes, even the Eternal Church on earth is new compared to him. The most mouldering gods in the British Museum are new facts beside him. It is he who in the end shall judge us all. I am going to ask him which of us is right."
" Ask that intoxicated turnip-eater "
« Yes — which of us is right. Oh, you have long words and I have long words; and I talk of every man being the image of God ; and you talk of every man being a citizen and enlightened enough to govern. But, if every man typifies God, there is God. If every man is an enlightened citizen, there is your enlightened citizen. The first man one meets is always man. Let us catch him up." 1