1.1 The Purpose of this Course

The purpose of this course, Symmorphy VI: Mankind, is to explore definitions of the human, what we are in our source and design, our being and construction, our ways and purpose. In short, we are seeking a clearer answer to David’s question, “What is man that You are so mindful of him? Or the son of man that You visit him?” At the same time, we seek a more complete understanding of what God meant when He created us in His image and after His likeness and gave us all authority over His creation.

The purpose of this course is that we might understand ourselves in certainty and completion. What are we? From whence do we come? What is our purpose? How do we live?

Source to Construction. What is our source? From whence do we come? Was it from utter non-existence to existence? Or is there some other factor? As you can see, our study will ask many questions, for we must have the right questions before true answers can come.

What pattern did God use when He created us? Did He pattern us after animals as some think? Or is there a different pattern of our design? Some use the phrase “human nature.” What does that mean? Do we have a “nature” or life of our own? What is our substance? Are we made of atoms and molecules? Are we made of spirit?

How are we put together? What are our “parts?” How do those parts function together? What are they for? Education focuses much on our parts – does it consider all of them?

Ways and Purpose. Human action provides a study of many different things including society and individuality, economics and pleasure, science and art, recreation and work, romance and war. How does what we do correspond to the answers to all the previous questions?

The one thing, however, that guides everything else in our study, is purpose. Humans DO all sorts of things, but what is the ultimate purpose behind it all? Why did God create us? What was His purpose? What does God ultimately want from each of us individually and from all of humanity together? And why must we have God’s true answer for these questions?

God’s Intentions. God your Father has very definite intentions towards you as a learner making your way through this course. God purposed and designed you out from Himself – for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

As we shall see, the only way you will ever know the Father is to know yourself also. But the only way to know yourself is to know the Father as well. As God reveals Himself to you, so He shows you how He fits together with every part of His design of you. And as God teaches you of your makeup, so you will see how God reveals Himself to others through you.

God intends for you to know Him inside your own heart.

Benefits for the Student. The full meaning of wholeness is very much part of the definition of “salvation.” As you learn what you are and how you work, according to God’s design and intentions, so you know the wholeness and completion the Lord Jesus has already wrought for you.

The more you discover who and what you are, the more you sing with a joy you have never known – “This is me!” As you find yourself in the place God has prepared for you, you will resonate with unfathomable joy, “This fits me; this is what I was made for.”

All the difficulties of your life have come from not knowing God alive inside your heart. To know your own heart, then, what it is and how it works, is the beginning of all Salvation.

Becoming Complete. You cannot know yourself, however, without also knowing your Father through Jesus Sent into you. For this reason, to be human, complete and whole, is to know the incredible wonder of Father Himself sharing your life with you and you sharing Father’s ongoing life with Him.

You were made to be filled with all of God and God designed you perfectly – as a human – to fit Himself. This fusing of you and the Father, life with Life, through Jesus, is a way of living you have never tasted or considered.

All the difficulties of your life have come from not knowing God alive inside your heart. Upon completing this course, you will find a knowing of God with you that is inexpressible.

Problems and Issues. This text is NOT a study of unregenerate man or of the psychosis of humans who do not know God. Our definitions of “the human,” however, have been so weighed down by the knowledge of what humans are not that we must often draw severe lines between what we are of truth, and what the false imagination of empty hearts has devised. The majority of this text will focus on what we are for real inside of Christ. Nonetheless, in order to know ourselves and the God who fills us full, we must remove the false images on a regular basis throughout this study. All the many false definitions of the human come out from the hard rebellion of Adam and the brutal history of his offspring.

Adam and Rebellion. The most terrible statement ever uttered was penned by Paul – Adam was NOT deceived. Paul also made it clear that by one man, Adam, sin and death flowed as a river into all creation. The beginning of Adam’s rebellion was unthankfulness. Adam hated being like a God who reveals Himself through weakness and who humbles Himself, when He steps into His creation, in order to lift others up. Adam’s bottom line, however, the final motive of his horrendous decision, was utter contempt for his wife and all coming through her, and his determination to control them.

God set Abel and Enoch as the first witnesses of Christ, then, to show us that Adam’s wickedness did not change the human or the fulfillment of all God’s intention.

A Brutal History. Adam, however, is a story not understood by most. It is the brutal history of humans hurting one another that rules the false definitions of what it means to be human.  Arrogance and contempt, self-exaltation and self-loathing, these are the passions that rule the lives of humans who are empty of the knowledge of God. A heart empty of God is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, for God has never removed the authority He first gave to mankind.

Most mis-definitions of the human, then, come out from considering the savagery of human selfishness rather than considering Christ Jesus, the pattern by which we are made.

Endless Mis-definitions. The false definitions of the human begin with the serpent’s claim, “You are NOT like God, but you should be.” And since God and man are mirror images of each other, mis-defining God is a necessary part of mis-defining man.

Yet humans remain the image and likeness of God, regardless of all the travesty. For this reason, most studies of the human combine a mix of respect for what is true and good together with attempts to explain what is distorted and false. It is in Christian thinking, however, that the wrongful definitions of the human are the most destructive. For those wrongful definitions are centered around limiting and refusing the Salvation of God.

Limiting the Study. Our primary limitation in this study, then, is that we reference the human only as God designed us and as we are complete. Although we will consider “fallen” humanity as a means of understanding ourselves, this study separates entirely between true humans in the likeness of Christ, and the foolish contortions of the human mind and heart in the darkness.

Nonetheless, we will discover that we are not “limiting from,” but “limiting to.” That is, because God made us just like the Lord Jesus, we know what it means to be human by knowing the endless vistas of Jesus Sent into us. Limiting our study to knowing ourselves by knowing Jesus Sent into us is to widen our study to infinity.

Placing the Human. To define the human, we must know humans in their place. A spark plug cannot be known when it is sitting on a shelf, but only when it is placed into the engine and power is flowing through it. Then all its parts have meaning to the observer.

Humans, then, must be placed into God’s context, with the power of God flowing through, in order to know what humans are and what the purpose of their parts might be. You cannot know yourself without knowing where you fit and the functions of all your parts working in that place.

The first and most significant “place” for humans, then, is the entire realm of heaven-earth. And the first and most significant purpose of humans in that place is to love one another.

Definitions of the Human. The definitions of man from Webster’s 1926 are limited.

Man: A human being; an individual of the genus homo. Man is the highest type of animal existing… differing… more in his extraordinary mental development. Man alone has the power of articulate speech and …mental reasoning.

Mankind: The human race; man, taken collectively.

Human: Characteristic of, or relating to man in his essential nature as distinguished from the non-human; specifically …in distinction from the lower animal world, and as distinguished from the superhuman, the divine, or from nature. Human applies to whatever is characteristic of man as man; …the common sympathies, passions, or failings of man.

Developing a Definition. Some things in the dictionary definitions are applicable to various topics we will study, but we find very little that is useful.

Consider the example of the spark plug. This dictionary definition of ‘man’ is like a definition of a spark plug lying on the shelf, that is, “an object made of ceramic and metal…” But there is no thought of man in his place, doing what he was designed to do. And this is why many despair, for if this be what we humans are, then there really is no point.

The writing of this course is meant to provide a more complete definition of the human, but we will begin with what we presently understand. At the same time, we are using the original definition of ‘man,’ that is, both male and female.

A First Definition. Man: 1. A human being, both male and female. Man in himself is a story of words inside a spirit self-awareness, that is, a living soul. Man possesses a living form that is a fusion together of heaven and earth, spirit and matter. All expression of the human towards things in the heavens and things upon the earth passes through and is known by this spirit/matter form.

2. The Lord Jesus Christ. Man is known first as God’s thoughts, which are then spoken by Jesus to become the human in the here and now. Thus man is limited in every good way as the expression of God in time and space. When God appears inside His creation, He shows Himself through human persons, specifically through their love for one another. Human limitation is forever; loving one another is forever. Man is God-Revealed.

Restatement of Purpose. The purpose of this course is to explore these definitions of the human, to enlarge and clarify them, and to add to them as we know ever more how we are just like the Lord Jesus, the first One of our kind. The purpose of this course is to know ourselves by knowing the Father through Jesus and to know the Father by knowing ourselves, Christ living as us.

The purpose of this course is to discover our own personal place and purpose inside of God and inside His creation, that we might sing in the joy of our Creator expressing His personality through us. The purpose of this course is to know the beyond-knowing wonder of God-Revealed through us.

A Call to Action. Read this book; take this course. Spend careful time on each lesson; review and reflect regularly; tackle and complete each assignment. Engage directly with God in Person inside of you. As you do, the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to you as the One who fills your heart with all of His glory and who flows out from you to join you with precious brethren.

This course, Symmorphy VI: Mankind, as you spend time in it, will cause you to know the Father, His Person inside of your person, and to know yourself as you really are. And it will do so by showing you Jesus alive and real living in your heart as you live in the place God prepared for you.