BASIC WORD THE CREATION OF MAN

                          GOD BREATHING THE BREATH OF LIFE INTO MAN

God created man with the breath of life so that man might have a spirit as a kind of receptacle to receive God.

VII. TO PRODUCE THE SOUL SO THAT MAN MAY LIVETHROUGH THE MIND, EMOTION, AND WILL

The producing of man’s soul is also recorded in Genesis 2:7. Genesis 2:7 says that when the breath of life was breathed into the nostrils of the body of man, man became a living soul. God used two kinds of materials—the dust for making man’s body and the breath of life for producing man’s spirit. When these two things came together, right away man became a living soul. This means that the soul is the issue of the breath of life getting into the physical body of man.

It is clear that man was made in three parts: the outward body, the inward spirit, and the soul as the very being of man. This is why 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says that our whole being is composed of our spirit, soul, and body. We are a tripartite man. The soul is our being with our body as the outward organ and with our spirit as the inward organ. The soul as our being is composed of the mind, emotion, and will. This is according to the revelation of the Bible. The Bible shows us that in our soul we have our mind to think, to consider things (Psa. 13:2), we have our emotion to love and to hate (1 Sam. 18:1; 2 Sam. 5:8), to like and to dislike things (Isa. 61:10; Psa. 86:4), and we also have our will to make decisions, to make choices (Job 7:15; 6:7; 1 Chron. 22:19). These are the functions of the soul.

                                VIII. THE INTENTION OF GOD’S CREATION OF MAN

The intention of God’s creation of man is that man may understand God’s desire with his mind, like God’s desire with his emotion, choose to take, to receive, God with his will, and eventually exercise his spirit to receive God as his life. God created a mind for man. By this mind man may understand God’s desire. God also created man with an emotion. By this emotion man may like God’s desire. God created man with a free will, and man may exercise this free will to choose, to make a decision, to take and to receive God into him as his life. Eventually, man may exercise his spirit to receive God as his life. This is the intention of God in His creation of man.

God created man in a way that was good for man to take God, to receive God, into man as his life. Man was created by God with a mind, an emotion, and a will and also with a spirit in the center of man’s being as a receptacle for him to receive God. Thus, by his mind man can understand what God wants; by his emotion man can like, can love, can prefer, what God wants; and by his free will man can make a decision to choose God, to take God. Furthermore, man has a spirit as an organ, even a receptacle, to receive God into him as his life. This is God’s intention in His creation of man.

IX. PUTTING MAN BEFORE THE TREE OF LIFE INDICATING THAT GOD WANTED MANTO RECEIVE HIM AS LIFE

God put man before the tree of life, indicating that God wanted man to receive Him as life. We have to see that at the very beginning, God had no intention to ask man to keep any law, to do anything good, or to bear any kind of burden. At the very beginning, right after God created man, God only put man in front of the tree of life. This indicated that God wanted man to receive Him as life, signified by the tree of life. God also warned man that he should be careful about his eating. Of course, what man did was altogether up to his own free will. What he chose to eat was up to him. But God’s desire was that man would choose the tree of life, which means that man would choose God as life.

                  X. MAN BEING CREATED AS A VESSELTO RECEIVE AND CONTAIN GOD

Man was created as a vessel to receive and contain God. This is fully revealed in Romans 9:21 and 23 and 2 Corinthians 4:7. In Romans 9 we are told that God is a potter, and we are the clay. The Potter made the clay vessels, and He made us vessels of mercy, vessels unto honor, and even vessels unto glory. Our being vessels to contain God is not because we are so good and preferable to God; it is altogether a matter of God’s mercy. God had mercy upon us, and He wanted us to be His vessels, so we are the vessels of mercy. We are vessels unto honor because we contain the God of honor. Eventually, we all will be filled with God’s glory and glorified in the glory of God to become the vessels unto glory. Thus, God created us as vessels—vessels of mercy, vessels unto honor, and vessels unto glory to contain Him.

We must see that God’s creation is to make us vessels to contain Him. We must stress this one point in this lesson—that man was made a vessel with a human spirit as a receptacle to receive God. This is the first lesson concerning life in our training. We have to make  it so clear and so impressive to all the trainees that the creation of man was just to make man as a vessel with a receptacle, that is, our spirit, to receive God into us as our life.