When God said “Let us make man in our image”, He did much more than a cosmetic job, matching one head, two arms and two legs. It was more than just giving us superiority over all other animals. God actually reflected Himself, His divine attributes, in our very anatomy.
This article started as part of Conception is not Life. It continues the theme revealing scriptural principles that are reflected in the very origin of our life and in this case, in our anatomy.
This should not be a surprise to us. God directed Moses to carefully replicate the pattern he had been shown on the mountain for the Tent of the Tabernacle and all its furnishings (Exodus 25:40). Similarly God showed David the plans for the Temple that Solomon built (1 Chronicles 28:19). But Hebrews 8:5 reminds us that this pattern and plan was a “shadow of the heavenly one”. But aren’t we a “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). And so we too should expect that our temple, our body, reflects the things of heaven and God Himself.
The following sections contain a few examples that I have seen, but I’m sure there are many more.
Are you one person? Yes. Is God one? Yes. But we have this dilemma of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. So look at our own body and what do we see…
We have a huge subconscious mind. This is the home of our creativity and emotions. It is known to recall all things we do, though often we cannot consciously recall them. I have heard that scientists estimate few of us use more than a 3 or 4 percent of its capacity. Here we see God the Father, creator of all things; who knows all things; whose ways are above our ways and we don’t consciously understand them. When we stand before Him, unless forgiven, we will recall all things that we have done and be judged.
We have a conscious mind that sorts out the things we want to communicate into a series of words. Jesus is God’s conscious mind. When God speaks it’s through Jesus and God “spoke” all things into creation. Often we talk to ourselves, sub-vocalizing our thoughts that come from our sub-conscious mind. So too the Father reveals all things to the Son; making them known through the Son.
We have a nervous system and motor control centre. This is distributed. There is even muscle-memory involved. You guessed it. Here is the image of the Holy Spirit who is Omni-present. The power of God. The Holy Spirit takes the directions from the Son and the Father, the conscious and the sub-conscious, and engages the body to do the Father’s will. But for the Holy Spirit, it’s all of Heaven and Earth that He moves at the Father’s command.
And then there is the Body. Aren’t we “the body of Christ”? Just as the nervous system traverses the whole body so we (the body) are filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It’s interesting that the brain and nervous system are known not to grow after birth. They are once off, while the rest of the body grows and regenerates. This speaks of the uniqueness of God.
God is a righteous God. He has declared that “the soul that sins shall die”. This is the law which for God is His rational logic. But he is a passionate loving God that “desires all men to be saved”. This is a dilemma, sometimes for us, but especially for God who, having exhausted all other ways, sent his Son in the image of mortal man, to suffer and die, so that His righteous decree was satisfied when Jesus paid the price of Sin – death. Now all who accept Jesus receive only the Father’s love.
Our mind has two halves. The left half is the thinker – the source of our logical rational thoughts. The right side is the source of our artistic creation and emotion – our love. Joining these two halves together is a thick bundle of nerves that allows the mind to reconcile these two centres of our being. So we see the attributes of God, His Righteous logic and His Love reflected in our anatomy. And here’s the best part. Can anyone now see Jesus on the cross; His left hand reaches to God’s righteousness decrees and His right hand reaches to God’s love for man. Jesus then reconciles these through His own body.
It’s all too obvious to point out that God created us male and female so that we might comprehend the passion that Jesus has for His bride. The covenant of marriage reflects the new covenant by which we are saved. We have children that are helpless and dependant on us so we can experience the Father’s love and desire for His children. But it’s much more.
God the Father created all things through the Son – not in isolation (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:2). So too we cannot create new life in isolation. The father/male acts through the mother/female to create the child. This pattern is true for all life on earth just as all things were created through the Son.
When Jesus spoke of marriage he said:
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. (Matthew 19:5)
Isn’t it great that we are joined in the spirit to Jesus:
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (1 Corinthians 6:17)
At a microscopic level we see the DNA in the sperm from the man literally merge with the DNA in the egg from his wife to create one new life. It’s not the Old Testament understanding that the man’s semen was “seed” that simply grows inside the woman’s womb, but it’s a true joining and merging (uniting) that gives the new life. Note that scripture actually uses the word “flesh” not life in regard to joining together. So too when the sperm and egg join, the resultant embryo is just flesh. The spirit is still dormant, but later, when the embryo gets attached inside the womb and develops a heart and blood, it then becomes a new spiritual life! It’s always a heart (spirit) issue with God!