The Total ManSample

When God created man, He made him in His own image. This immediately raises an important question: if God is invisible, what exactly is the image or reflection of an invisible God? Scripture tells us that God is Spirit, and if God is Spirit, then His image cannot be physical. Therefore, the man created in God’s image must also be spirit.

Interestingly, the Bible tells us that God created "them" male and female, in the beginning. We will take a deeper look at this tomorrow.

When we move to Genesis chapter two, the language changes. The Bible now says that God formed man from the dust of the ground. Is this a different man from the one created in chapter one? No. They are the same man. The difference lies in the verbs. There is a distinction between created and formed. While man was created in God’s image, Scripture does not say he was formed in God’s image.

To understand this, consider gas. One of the properties of gas is that it is formless, it has no shape, and fills whatever space it occupies. To identify and transport gas, a container must be designed. The container gives the gas a form, but the container is not the gas itself. It is simply the vessel that holds it. The container can exist and still be empty.

In the same way, the man God created is a spirit. But God formed a physical body from the dust of the earth as a vessel for that spirit so that man could function on a physical earth. The body makes the man visible, audible, and identifiable, but the body is not the man. The man God created lives within the body.

God created man as a spirit. That spirit was placed within a body, and according to Genesis chapter two, verse seven, God breathed into the man the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. In other words, the total man was created, formed, and breathed into. The total man is spirit, lives inside a body, and possesses a living soul.