We have already established that the world is created by God and he is in total control of the world. However, this world is under the influence of evil to such an extent that the world itself can be used by mankind to create enmity with God. The created world seen in the New Testament is full of spiritual agencies. They are servants of God and their main task is to communicate the message of God to man. The New Testament story is incomplete without them. They were part of significant events in the New Testament and the story of salvation. They played a major role in the birth of John and Jesus and in the resurrection of Christ. Revelation tells us that they have roles to play in the activities of the church presently and when Christ returns.
The world is also made up of spiritual forces of an adverse kind. The mission of Christ must be understood against this background.
Demonology pervades the New Testament literature and the activities of the demonic world is seen as hostile and opposed to the propagation of the gospel. Demonic forces held man captive in many ways. The mission of Christ was to overthrow them and indeed he did.
Self-Assessment Exercise 1
1) Mention the name of one good angel in the New Testament that you know and one thing he was sent to do.
2) Compare the role of the good angel with that of the bad ones 3.2 Man in Himself
The New Testament has not defined man and has not given us the psychological make up of man. However, we can get the New Testament view of man by deducing from the wide range of materials presented on the subject. Man is represented as being in communication with God (spiritual) or not being in communication with God (carnal).
The New Testament view of man has to do with man’s present state.
Man was created in the image and likeness of God to be a true reflection of God. Through man’s disobedience in the garden this was lost.
However, in Christ man is able to be a true reflection of God again. The New Testament teaches clearly that man is made in the image of God (Cor.11: 7). In 1 Cor. 11:7 image and glory are used, in Col. 3:10 only
image is used and James 3:9 uses likeness. From the above, image and likeness are used interchangeably and synonymously. Theologians say that the understanding of the image of God should not be restricted to an exegesis of the first chapter of Genesis. Example Col. 3:10 mentions knowledge as an image of God. It is also very clear that Christ is called the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). Throughout history, theologians have identified the image of God in man as original righteousness, true knowledge, and holiness. These come from the statement that man was very good (see Eph. 4:24).
This is what God’s salvation plan seeks to do. In the New Testament one finds the relations between sexes stated in clear terms especially by Paul and Jewish tradition. Jesus gives a more respectable position for woman while Paul supports male domination. In traditional Judaism women and children are not even counted. The New Testament upholds differences in sex roles. The New Testament presents Jesus alone as an ideal or perfect man. He alone perfectly fulfilled the divine intention for manhood. Other human beings are asked to emulate his life.
Man generally has infinite value before God. He has superiority over the animal world and has various responsibilities to God, to the society and the creation. Anthropologically, man has a soul, spirit, flesh, body, heart, mind, conscience, and there is an inner man. Sometimes man is viewed as consisting of the soul or spirit and body (dichotomy) and also as having body, soul and spirit (trichotomy). Jesus in his teaching seems to mention only the body and the soul – Mat. 6:20, 25, Paul on the other hand makes a lot of references to man’s essential nature and make-up.
In his vocabulary we find “flesh” (Sarx) 91 times; which is used in a physical and ethic sense; Spirit (pneuma) 146 times to denote the God – ward aspect of man’s nature; Body (soma) 89 times. Most often to designate the human organism but sometimes the carnal aspect of man’s nature; Soul (psyche) 11 times, carry the idea of the vital principle of life. Paul sometimes contrast flesh and spirit; body and soul, and yet other times employs the body, soul and spirit - 1Thess. 5:23. Other writers like John seems to talk only about flesh and spirit in their arguments with those who said Christ only came in the spirit (Docetists).
There are basically three views on the constitutional nature of man:
1. Trichotomy – the trichotomist argue that man is made up of three constituents. The body, soul and spirit.
a. The physical body is not different from that of animals and plants.
b. The soul is the psychological element, the basis of reason, of emotion, of social interrelatedness etc.
c. The spirit is the religious element, this enables the human to perceive spiritual maker and respond to spiritual stimuli, seat of spiritual qualities.
Their reference text is 1 Thess. 5:23, others are Heb. 4:12; 1 Cor. 2:14;
3:1-4 (KJV).
2. Dichotomy – the dichotomists teach that man is composed of two elements, a material aspect, the body, and the immaterial one, soul or spirit. From Gen. 2:7, God breathed into man one principle – a living soul. They find many passages in which the soul and spirit are used interchangeably (Gen. 41:8; Ps.
42:6; Matt. 20:28; 27:50; John 12:27; 13:21; Heb. 12:23 and Rev. 6:9).
In other passages body and soul are spoken of as constituting the whole person (Matt. 10:28; 1Cor. 5:3; 3John 2). Death is described as giving up the soul (Gen. 35:18; 1Kings 17:21;
Acts 15:26) and as well as giving up the spirit (Ps. 31:5; Luke 23:46; Matt. 27:50; James 2:27). There is also a support from the Hebrew parallelism (Luke 1:46, 47). Lastly, consciousness testifies that there are two elements in man’s being. We can distinguish a material part and an immaterial part, but the consciousness no one can distinguish between soul and spirit.
3. Monism- This is the view of materialistic. They say the idea to divide man into body, soul or spirit is a primitive one. That man is not to be thought of as in any sense composed of parts or separate entities, but rather as a radical unity. They say the Bible views man as a whole, self, body, soul, spirit are only synonymous. Even when people die they are viewed as whole.
They give the example of Abraham, the Rich Man and Lazarus. In that parable these people are not souls but full persons.
Self-Assessment Exercise 2
1) We have described two types of men; the spiritual and the carnal.
Who do you understand to be the spiritual people and who one the carnal people?
2) According to the discussion above who and what will restore man to his original state?
3) The New Testament talks about man in dichotomy terms as well as in trichotomy terms. Which of these do you think best represents your understanding of the constitutional nature
4) From this notes what makes man so special?