The Mystery of Man

S. Lewis Johnson Message of the Week

THE MYSTERY OF MAN
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson discusses man’s struggle with understanding himself outside of his creation by God.

Scripture Reference: Genesis 2:4-7

Click here to listen: The Mystery of Man

Transcript Excerpt:

The subject for today in the continuation of our exposition of the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis is the mystery of man or the modern crisis of identity.  The psalmist in the eighth psalm says, what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him?  What is man?  The mystery of man.  How perplexing?  And yet how contemporary and important.  Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most important and one of the best known of contemporary theologians said before he died, “Man has always been his most vexing problem” and the sentiments expressed by Niebuhr some 35 years ago are certainly sentiments that are appropriate at the present time.  Today more than at any time the question what is man is at the center of theological and philosophical concern.

G.C. Berkouwer who until recently was Professor of Dogmatics at the Free  University of Amsterdam in  Holland.  One thing that seems rather striking to us is that it appears in our 20^th Century is that man apparently, only apparently, of course, can ignore God but it is impossible for him to ignore man.  Though he thinks constantly about man, he puzzles about man.  He doesn’t understand man.  He doesn’t understand himself.  The perplexity is seen in the variety of answers that had been given to the questions.  What is man? Some of them are man is that nature able to will.  Man is that animated being that experiences.  Man is a deprived animal (I think we are getting closer there [laughter]).  Man is suppressor of instincts.  Man is thinking animal…full transcript here.