Created in Humility and Purposed for Dignity : The Business of Christian Education LXXV

⁵ When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Genesis 2:5-8

³  When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

⁶ You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,

⁷ all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

⁸ the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Psalm 8:3-8

           

            Even though Genesis 2:5-8 does not directly include Eve in the picture, we can safely interpret that Eve also inherited Adam’s origin of dust and God’s breath, since she was created out of Adam.  Clearly, Eve was every bit like Adam with some minor differences.  Essentially, however, Eve is equal to Adam.  Eve is a human being with all the dignity and honor that Adam had.  Thus Genesis 2:5-8 also refers to
Eve and thus to all humans from the beginning to the end of time.  Now, I want us to pay a closer attention to the process of the creation of humans in that passage.

            Dr. Richard Pratt, Jr. in his book “Designed for Dignity” points out from that passage that human beings are created in humility.  The fact that we are created out of dust humbles our nature.  Of course the next question is then: “Why?”  Why must God create humans, who are known as the crown as creation, from the dust of the earth?  We all know that dust has no value.  No one would be successful to put value on dust of earth.  Dust of gold, maybe.  But dust of earth, nope, I don’t think so.  This makes it even more interesting.  Because then we can see God’s masterpiece in creation.  He used a material that has no value whatsoever in order to create something that is infinitely more valuable than all the world riches.  This highlights the creative work of God for making something of no value into the most valuable thing in the whole wide world.  Now, the humble origin of human beings prompts our reflection of who we are.  If we are to know our identity we have to take into serious consideration that we are indeed created out of dust of earth.  Knowing our humble origin adds more pieces to the puzzle of human identity.  It is hard enough to understand who we are without knowing that we are made out of dust.  Now that we have the revelation that we are created from something of no value, it complicates the matter.

            Our nature is a given.  Something that we can’t choose.  It is chosen for us.  Our “dust-ness” makes us realize how fragile we are.  But on the other hand, in the fabric of our being lies the touch of the greatest being in the world.  We are said to be created in the image and likeness of God.  Genesis 2:7 speaks of God breathing the breath of life into a lifeless human shaped dust.  This breath of life is what makes humans alive.  The combination of God’s touch and the valueless material within our being provides a unique framework of our human structure.  But the question remains: “What do we make out of it?  How should we interpret our identity with the revelation that is given us?”  To add to this difficulty, the passage in Psalm 8:3-8 heightens the two polarities of our being.  The psalmist, obviously understands how unworthy humans are, but yet acknowledges that God himself has put the highest value on us by crowning humans with glory and honor.  We are lower than the heavenly beings, but to us is given the whole earth to rule.  This says a lot about our dignity.  But we need to understand that our dignity does not come from our physical construct.  We are dust, remember.  Our dignity comes from something else.  It comes as a gift from God.  This means that from within ourselves we are worth nothing.  But in God we become the most valuable thing on earth.  This piece of the puzzle is the very key for us to understand our identity.

            The gift of God for us within the framework of our being becomes the main value of our structure.  However, we can’t just take the gift and neglect our humble physique.  It comes in one package.  This means that we have these two aspects in our life that are integrated in the makeup of our identity.  This understanding is different from Plato’s concept of man.  For Plato, the body is evil and the spirit is good.  The goal is to leave the body and be one with the Form.  The body, in Plato’s philosophy, is a prison of the soul.  But the Bible reveals differently.  The body is not a prison.  The body is created in humility.  But this humility has its grand purpose, when it is combined with the dignity imprinted in our being through the image and the likeness of God.  But, for sure, understanding its grand purpose would not be an easy matter, especially after the Fall.  Sin has depraved our nature and confused our mind that we are no longer able to understand the integrity between the humble physique we have and the dignified imprint of our soul.

            Our dust-ness shows in our life, especially in our dealing with nature.  The weaknesses of our physique is undeniable.  We are not stronger than a bear.  Bear is said to have the power of ten grown men.  Cheetah is known as the fastest running mammal on earth, with the speed of 90 km/h.  The fastest we can run is about 35 km/h.  And we can’t outswim shark.  Our eyes are not as sharp as eagle’s eyes.  Our smell is not as keen as wolf’s.  And we do not have fur like moose to withstand winter and extreme cold weather.  Too many weaknesses we have even compared to the seemingly weak animals such as shrew for example.  Shrew’s reflex is the best in the world that it can avoid black mamba’s strike and in turn kills it with ease.  But in all our physical shortcomings, we have come out the champion in the world’s race.  Not one single animal on earth can compete with humans.  In our weakness lies our greatest strength.  We can outmuscle a bear with the machines we make.  Bears can’t carry a 5 ton log, but we humans can using our machine.  We can outrun cheetah now with our mustang.  We can outswim shark with our speedboat.  We can beat winter with our knowledge of fire, clothing, and shelter.  Moose can’t compete with us.  And even the fastest shrew can’t avoid our trap.  All the knowledge and skills that we have in technology is not possible without our weakness.  Our limitation and humble origin force us to dig deep.  The imprint of the image of God in our soul enables us to draw and learn from our limitation and figure out a way out to solve any problem we have.  The creativity feature that is deeply ingrained in our soul breeds solutions to our limitations.  All this is not possible without the integrity of our humility and dignity within our framework.  Banjamin Bloom’s taxonomy observes the stages of our intelligence.  And being creative is at the top of intelligence.  He puts it in this order: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.  Remember is the lowest stage.  Create is the highest stage.  And we do not have the capability to create from our humble physical origin.  But we got it from the dignity of the image of God given to us by the Creator.

            Now, this is God’s education.  This is divine education.  If we are all strong like the superheroes of our imagination: Superman and the like, we won’t bother to find out the secrets of the universe.  Somehow in our weakness we find ways to survive in this world.  We have that urge forcing us to know things.  And then the urge for us to create things in order to solve our problems.  In this way, God is teaching us the secrets of the universe.  No other beings on earth are granted such wisdom.  But we, through our weakness, may figure out what lies beneath our physical construct.  We find the secret code of our genome, our DNA, and so on and so forth.  We venture into the smallest particles in the world and find nano technology and quantum theory.  We venture outside earth into space and figure out black hole and galaxies and stars and light years and so forth.  We understand the basic compounds of chemistry and how it relates to one another.  We reflect deep into the secret of mathematics and understand complicated calculations of numbers and symbols and codes.  We learn the secret of politics, social networking, culture, language, and many more.  All is possible through our weakness.  Our construct, the integration between our humility and dignity, is the secret to this greatness.  The weak becomes strong through realizing weakness and learning to find a better way to live and solve problems.  God educates us through our humility.  Without it we won’t learn.  Without it we won’t know the secret.  We are now even able to fly and rule over the sky, which for so many years is the domain of the flying creatures.  In our own physique we can’t fly.  But through integrating our weakness and the dignity in the image of God within us, we figure out how to levitate and master aviation.  Not only we can fly on the sky, but we can even go beyond our sky and travel to the moon.  God reveals the secret of the universe to us, his creation out of the dust of the earth.  Weak as it may, we manage to be strong through the imprint of the image of God in us.

            This is our identity as humans.  Embracing this is embracing who we are.  There is a grand purpose in our humble constitution.  In our life we struggle to navigate between our humility and dignity.  We also struggle to keep the integrity of our humility and dignity.  But the fact that we have these two aspects is what makes us what we are.  We won’t have all these knowledge without being humble and dignified at the same time.  God does work in and through our weaknesses.  His power and glory is displayed through weaknesses and humility.  And this is greatness.  A masterpiece is not only seen in its beauty, but also in its origin.  God used dust to raise for himself the greatest creation.  This truth adds infinite value to his work.  God is glorious in that way.  He works through the weakest and the lowliest in order to create the strongest and the highest.  It won’t be glorious to create something strong out of what is already inherently strong.  The fact that we are fragile but at the same time indestructible make is grandeur.  All glory is for God.  In all this, God gives us glory and honor through our humility and weakness.  More importantly, God is like that.  He is simple and humble, but yet he is the strongest and the most honorable being in the whole wide world.  Being created in the image of God tells us of our likeness to our humble and majestic God.  Thus even in our construct we are like God in many ways.  This is our identity.  And we praise God for it!