Manhood Restored预览

Man's Problem

As part of God’s creation, mankind lived in perfect harmony with God and all He had made. Sin was still at bay. Death wasn’t yet part of man’s vocabulary. Shame didn’t exist. Man’s gaze wasn’t fixed on what he lacked (clothes, knowledge of good and evil, status, importance, etc.). Man’s focus was on God and God’s purpose. 

The immediate effect of man’s sin was shame. Perfect fellowship was broken. God’s creation began to serve an alternative purpose. Plants, which were once declared to be food for man (see Gen.1:29), became clothing. The result was an end to the perfect union between Adam’s form as a man and his function within God’s creation. 

The presence of sin in the garden robbed Adam of his purpose and destroyed his manhood; at least the way God intended it. The presence of sin in this world and in your life robs you of your purpose and destroys your manhood, at least the way God intends it. The irony of all the ways we describe manliness is that many of them involve the very sin that actually destroys true manhood. 

One of the most unfortunate by-products of the fall was the future of fatherhood. God’s intent was that families would always have fathers. 

Genesis 2:24 assumes an important facet of family relationships. Man leaving home implied the presence of a relationship between a son and his parents. God’s plan identified the father as a key figure in the development of His family and even in His plan for faith redemption. The role of the father in Scripture was to lead his children to know and follow God.

God’s purpose for a man’s life and God’s design for fatherhood are among the great casualties of sin’s presence in the world. Only by adopting a biblical definition of manhood and firmly establishing the powerful presence of godly fatherhood can we turn the tides. Like everything else in this fallen world, Jesus’ sacrifice came as a covering for these sins and as a remedy for sin’s consequences. It is in Jesus that we find the model of manhood and the proper treatment for this deficit in our lives.