The Biblical View of Man in His Religion

The Biblical View of Man in His Religion

by Johannes Blauw

31During the past three decades we have become more and more aware of the fact that it is impossible to speak of “the Biblical view of religions.” The words “religion” and “religious,” in the true sense, do not occur in the Bible, nor does any equivalent word appear. This may be, on the one hand, an indication that the Bible is not at all interested in religious systems and ideas as such. On the other hand it may be a reflection of the fact that the religious world in Biblical times was rather uniform in outlook and intention, despite local differences.

When speaking about the Biblical view of man, we are stressing here the fact that the Bible is interested in man; man in his concreteness as a living being on earth. But what about the addition of the phrase “‘in his religion”? Is it possible to speak about religion in abstracto? Professor Heinrich Frick reminded us some years ago that “religion is real only in religions.” 1 In saying this he warned us not to operate with ideas, but only with realities. Undoubtedly he was right, and if I myself had chosen the title of this short essay, I would rather either have chosen an expression other.than “in his religion,” or have simply crossed it out.

“In his religion,” in this connection, cannot mean anything but 32a more precise definition of man. A man without “religion” is a contradiction in itself. In his “religion” man gives account of his relation to God. His religion is reaction upon the (real or pretended) revelation of God. Man is “uncurably religious” because his relation to God belongs to the very essence of man himself. Man is only man as man-before-God.

Man before God

The first and most fundamental Biblical view of man is found in the first chapters of Genesis. Here the well-known words of Genesis 1:26-27 are of far-reaching importance, for they give us the clue to the whole story of man and mankind. The two features of primary importance are:

(a) Man is a creature, completely dependent upon his Creator like all other creatures, and yet at the same time entirely different from all other creatures. He is not the top of a creation pyramid, but a creation sui generis, bearing a secret that is only his secret.

(b) Man’s secret is that he is created “in our image, after our likeness.” This expression means (a parte Dei) that man is a reflection of God, a mirror, speculum Dei; and (a parte hominis) that man is a follower of God, called to have dominion over every living thing.

There is something of the glory and majesty (kabood) of God upon man, yet man is not, definitely not, a god himself, but a

creature. This does not mean that there is a “dialectical” relation with God. Being a creature is not the opposite or a weakening of man’s likeness to God. On the contrary, his being a creature of God (like everything else) strengthens and qualifies his dignity as a reflection and follower of God. The one cannot be understood without the other.² Man is creature before God and only as such can he bear and maintain his humanity. One cannot cut off “the image of God” as if man could be God’s creature without this image.³ Man’s humanity is his relation to God. This relation includes (but is not identical with) man’s responsibility to respond when God addresses him.

It seems to me undeniable that the picture presented in Genesis 331, which is a deep and sharply formulated credo, alludes to the deification of man and the world. This was common to old Eastern patterns of religion, and is common at all times to every man in the world. This fact becomes particularly clear in view of Genesis 3, where we find man’s reaction to the high place and holy task (Gen. 2) given to him by his Lord and Creator and where there is a definite distinction made between God as Creator and Lord on the one hand, and man as creature and servant, bound to responsibility and obedient service, on the other hand.

In Genesis 3 the basic temptation for man is set forth as the temptation for man to exceed the bounds that have been set for him, which are precisely the bounds that indicate his humanity! He is so near to God as creature and yet not content to act as privileged creature. Instead, there is a (willingly accepted) suggestion that this privilege of being created as man in communication with and dependent upon God is not man’s treasure but his deficiency. In the story of the serpent we are confronted with the temptation of man to bring God and himself to one common denominator. The servant of God becomes a magician, seizing the opportunity held out to him “to be as gods.”

Even the disappointment from failure in this seizing act does not suffice to cure man from his intention to exceed his bounds, as is made clear by the words in Genesis 3:22, “then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’” The dividing line between God and man has been ignored, and shall be ignored. Now the humanity of man is endangered (Gen. 4, 6, and 7) because the divinity of God is denied. “Every living thing’—the dominion of man—is influenced by man’s disobedience, and even the waters of the flood do not cleanse men from the desire to be like gods and to act like gods in self-assertion (Gen. 11).

On the other hand—and this is even more important for the Biblical understanding of man in his religion—God does not give up His claim upon man. He, unlike man, is not unfaithful. Man remains for Him the image of God and His creature. In other words, man’s view of God may have changed, but God’s view of man does not change. When man gives up service, God does not give up man as His servant. When man no longer considers himself a creature, God nevertheless treats him as His creature. When man hides himself from the presence of the Lord, God does not hide 34Himself from the presence of man. All this is guaranteed, after the flood, in the covenant that is established between God and man and every living creature (Gen. 9:12-13). The covenant remains intact even when man in a new combined effort exceeds his bounds (Gen. 11), despite the fact that the covenant takes the special form of a covenant with one man (Abram) and one nation (Gen. 12:1-3).

The history of Israel is the history of God’s action by which and through which He maintains the covenant with man as the creature before God. This means: (a) that man as creature cannot have God or the world at his disposal, but instead is entirely dependent upon the Lord of creation; and (b) that man will always be connected with God, not because he desires to, or is able to enter into connection with God, but because God maintains man in his humanity, that is, in his “deficiency,” which remains his “treasure” in the eyes of the Creator. This covenant, connection, and communication with God is man’s “treasure” in the eyes of God. The will to save, on the part of the God of Israel, is one with His will to create.⁴

Israel before God

The Biblical view of man as man before God can only become really articulate if we turn to the Biblical view of God as the God of Israel. The following two examples illustrate that the kernel of the Biblical message concerning man is: to different from and to be connected with God.

The first example comes from Exodus 3:7—14, wittre the name of Yahweh as the God of Israel is explained. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ This is not a name that has dogmatic or philosophical significance. It is not an ontological statement. It means: I shall be present as I shall be present (Martin Buber); or, I will manifest myself to be that which I will manifest myself to be (G. von Rad).

This means that God will never be absent or remote from Israel. But it also means that God is not “at the disposal” of Israel, for He is the free Lord who will never be rendered into the hands of men. Man cannot live without God, and he need not live without 35God, but he will never have the chance to use God merely to serve his human purposes, despite the fact that this is the hidden desire of the human heart.

In this respect it is surprising to compare the third chapters of Genesis and Exodus: the history of Israel is not to be a reiteration of the history of man in the Garden! The name of Israel’s God is a proclamation against man’s exceeding his creaturely bounds, and at the same time a promise of God’s permanent presence. The name of God is in itself a protest against man’s mastery of God for human purposes. And is this not one of the most common tendencies in human religion: to serve God in order to have God serve man and his desires? Certainly this was the case in the religions that confronted Israel.

The second example is found in 1 Samuel 15:1-26 (following 1 Samuel 13:1—14) where Saul is rejected as king of Israel because he was disobedient to the Lord of Israel. The declaration of Samuel (15:23) is important: “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” Saul did not refuse to serve God (verse 20), but he did refuse to serve God in the way that the prophet of God had showed to him. Serving God in your own way is serving God for your own purposes, and that is the same as the original sin.

It is significant that the examples chosen here indicate a turning point in history. On the eve of liberation from Egyptian slavery (Ex. 3) and on the threshold of the Davidic dynasty (1 Sam. 15) man is reminded of the fact that he cannot trade with God, he cannot dispose of Him as the first man in Genesis 3 tried to do.

In later times the Prophets unmasked man’s religiosity as being not just a desire for God, but a desire to have a god, to possess him, to have him for their own, at their disposal. In the famous and somewhat cynical passage of Isaiah 44:6-—23 we find a rather detailed description of the way in which man proceeds with his _ gods. We see him, the fabricator of idols, as a pseudo creator (of pseudo gods, verses 9-11); as a religious zealot who toils and moils in order to get the finest god he can produce according to his cultural and social status (verses 12-14); as a blind self-deceiver who makes a god from the unproductive leftovers of raw material (verses 15—20). Man, whose humanity exists in his relation to God, whose existence is and can only be an existence coram Deo, cannot live without a god before him. But the only real God is 36the living God who remains true to Israel even when she has been untrue to Him. The way in which God acts with and within Israel will prove to be the great démasque of the gods and the shame of those who trusted them (verses 21-23). We should also refer here to the significance of the second commandment which forbids the making of images of God, because it is forbidden to make use of the power of God, to “catch” Him in images.

Israel has been elected to represent the man, the right man, in a world where men refuse to recognize God as God and to serve Him as His humble creatures. Israel represents the right man because she has been elected to serve the only true and living God. The failure of Israel, according to the Prophets, is a disgrace to Yahweh and therefore God shall save Israel and restore her to true service, because the world is to know that He is the Lord.

A picture of the real man, the real Israel, is given by the prophet Jeremiah in 31:33-34:

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

This is the full counterpart to man’s sinful longing: “Make us gods who shall go before us” (Ex. 32:23).

Another picture, still more penetrating, is given in the so-called songs of the servant of the Lord, who both represents and replaces Israel. He represents the right Israel and therefore also the right man. In him the Biblical view of man culminates (Is. 42:1-7, 49:1-7, 50:4-11, 52:13, 53:12). It is also the culmination of the expectation of the Messiah. The mystery of the Lord’s servant is an indication that the mystery of man remains veiled until the real man, the “son of man” according to another prophecy (Dan. 7:13-14), will appear. ~

The Man Jesus

There is no doubt that Jesus regarded man in the same way as the Scriptures of the Old Testament to which he referred so often. Man, for Jesus too, was man only in relation to God. The name “sinner” is an indication that man is man-before-God, and the 37proclamation of the kingdom of God means that man stands over against his King and Judge.⁵ Man as creature has not fulfilled his duty and will be judged unless he repents and turns to him who proclaims the new kingdom of God.⁶

Certainly Jesus restricted himself and ordered his disciples to restrict themselves to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt. 10:6), in accordance with the “oikonomia tou mysteriou” (Eph. 3:9) which was the hidden policy of God revealed in Christ. But Christ “knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man” (Jn. 2:25). For him, man was both the creature who could not escape God and the one who yet was always trying to escape obedience to God. Man was pretending a righteousness that was in fact defective. Over against this, Christ is the right man, the man of Jeremiah 31 and the Servant of the Lord.

Man before Christ

The writers of the New Testament did not view man in general terms, but only in connection with the Gospel of Christ. There is no “general anthropology” in the New Testament. There is only man in the concrete situation of being confronted with Jesus Christ. There are very few references to man “in his religion.” One of them is Romans 1:18-32 where we are reminded of Genesis 3. Men can know God because God has shown Himself to them (verse 19), and they do know Him (verse 20), but they suppress the knowledge of Him with imaginations that cause their foolish hearts to be darkened (verse 21). The only proper response on the part of men to that which had been shown to them, would have been praise and thanksgiving to God for His eternal power and deity (verse 20). Instead, they became futile in their thinking, preferring their imaginations to reality, and thereby living as fools in an imaginative world where the creature takes the place of the Creator (verses 22 and 23). Since the creature is no longer understood as creature, the powers inherent in creation gain dominion over man, who originally was destined to dominate these powers (verses 24-25). God, seeing His honor perverted by dishonor, gave men 38up to impurity, dishonorable passions, and a base mind (verses 24, 26, 28).

We see here the darkest picture possible of man. It does not mean that all men come to such a state, but it is an illustration of what is meant by “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth” (verse 18). It shows the need of man for the Gospel of Christ as the power of God for salvation (verse 16). Certainly it is possible to say other things about man, such as in Romans 2:13—16, which suggests that every man, whether he be Jew or Gentile, knows the difference between good and evil and will be judged according to this knowledge. But here too stress is laid on the fact that God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ (verse 16) and that all men are sinners. This is not a view of man that can or will be accepted by everyone. It can only be accepted before Christ. In and through him it becomes clear that man is a sinner, that he lives with his imaginations, that he worships and serves the creature more than the Creator. In this connection it is important to notice that in Romans 1:18-32, and even more in Romans 3:23, is the suggestion that man has lost the image of God; a suggestion that was never made in the Old Testament.’ Here “the abolishes the first in order to establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9), which is the new man in Christ (cf. Eph. 4:24). “In thy light do we see light” (Ps. 36:9); “I have come. as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (Jn. 12:46).

Positive or Negative?

Is not this Biblical view of man too hard and one-sided? Are there not still other passages in the Bible that correct the picture given thus far? * I know of no more positive statement concerning man than the statement that he is the image and servant of God. I know of no more negative statement than the statement that he refuses to be a servant and wishes “to be as gods” or to use God (or rather gods) for his own ends. I know of no more exciting 39message than the message that in Christ the real man and the real relation with God has been restored. These are the realities in the Biblical view of man, over against which it is only a regression to speak about “human possibilities.” In my opinion the Bible is not interested in questions like “continuity or discontinuity.”⁹ The great continuity is the continuity of God’s love for man, revealed first in Israel and then in Jesus Christ. The great discontinuity is man’s permanent striving to have a god rather than to serve God; to claim independence when he is completely dependent. The light which the Bible throws on man in his religion, or religiosity, penetrates deeply into the hiding places of human existence.

It is only in the light of this Biblical view of man that we can try to approach the great religions of men for the encounter of the Gospel and the religions. What this means for a theological criticism of these religions can only be stated here in the form of several theses, which may be too apodictic after such brief analysis of the position of man.

1. A theological criticism of religion(s) must take into account that man in his religion is the man who—for better or for worse—is related to God. Religion is and religions are always signs and confessions of this undeniable fact. Therefore it is important for us to have an understanding of the religions in order that we may be able to hear in them the answer of men to God’s question, “Man, where art thou?” The answers given in the various religions are always human answers, and we must seek to understand these answers if we are to understand the man in and behind the religions.

2. In a sense we can say that religions are the result of the fact that God maintains man as man, in His image and as dependent creature. God gives men the opportunity to create and formulate their own answers. He does not interfere as He did with Abraham, Israel, and the Christian Church. He allows all nations, as in times past, to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16) and to do their own thinking.¹⁰

3. It is only in the light of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit that the ways of men in their religions are seen to be imaginations.

404. Only Jesus Christ is from above. We are all men saved or to be saved by him, and to be saved time and again from our imaginations. “Christian” imaginations are seven times worse than other religious imaginations (Mt. 12:43-45). Therefore it is the privilege of Christ and his Spirit to convince man and the world of sin and judgment (Jn. 16:8-11). We are his messengers and must remain faithful to him and his message. We remember his words, “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” (Jn. 12:47). To help people discover the deep and hidden process of thinking in the light of the Gospel means to help a neighbor who is in exactly the same position as we are; as sinners who fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Only in solidarity with man can we give him the bread of life and be identified as ambassadors of Christ.

5. While we may agree that the Bible does not know about and is not interested in religious systems as such, we must not draw the false conclusion that the Bible is interested only in “man” and not in “his religion.” The way in which many parts of the Old and New Testaments are formulated shows a vivid interest in, and often a reflection upon, the religious position of man. This is not because his position is considered either to be right or wrong, but simply because man can hear the Gospel only in terms of his own religious position. Therefore it is important to have a real knowledge of the religions of man, not only because of general interest, but in order better to be able to articulate the Word of God which is for all men, as the Word of God for this man in his particular religious position." _

6. By going as far as possible with man into his religious home, its atmosphere and vocabulary, perhaps the way may be opened for a new understanding both of “this religion” and “this gospel.” It is only through the Church gathered out of all nations that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10).

7. In full recognition of the Biblical view of man as sinner against God, it is necessary to consider at greater length than has been possible here the question whether or not the statement of St. Paul in Colossians 1:15—20, concerning the reconciliation of 41all things to Christ, has any significance for the religions. I would venture only to put it as a question: Do we not fall short of the glory of Jesus Christ if we exclude from “all things” mentioned in Colossians 1:20 the extremely rich heritage of the manifold religions by assuming that they cannot be reconciled to him? Or are we, in suggesting this question, already on the way (the old way of Genesis 3 and Romans 1) toward exchanging “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord for things which are to be counted as dung”? (Cf. Phil. 3:8 K.J.V.) If this be the case: pereat mundus, vivat Rex Iudaeorum!

Tip: use the ← and → keys to move between chapters; press Ctrl K to search. Share any printed page with index.html?p=<page>.

↑ Back to top ⬇ Download the scanned PDF