The annual Act Like Men conference is coming up this Saturday at Veritas Community Church, thus I have been thinking about what it is to be a Man of God in 21st Century America. Quite frankly, despite my short 23 years of experience, I can say confidently that it is hard. The world and its Prince tell us to do one thing while our Father in Heaven calls us to obedience to Him, and the conflict weighs heavily on our entire self. This is the first half of my thoughts on the topic, and I am looking at the Man that God created in Genesis and the men we see in the world (and, more often than we would like to admit, in the mirror). The eventual second part will be about how our concept of Masculinity, warped by sin, has become a unrealistic ideal in the eyes of our culture. (There may be a third and a fourth...who knows?)
In Eden, we see a perfect Humanity. The Image Bearers of God are living in perfect union with each other and with their Lord. God had presented Eve to Adam to be the most perfect helper for him, to be the mother of his children, and to have him be the father of her children, so that they can be fruitful and multiply. They were put in the Garden of Eden to work it and cultivate it, so that it would yield them food. This is what the Lord called very good. Now, it did not last very long, as Man sinned. We all know the highlights from the first part of Genesis, yet, when we start looking at whom God created instead of how Creation came to be (which is always a difficulty in this age when we talk about Creation), we can see a great foundation of the Man of God--the one who lives as a man after the Lord's own heart and conformed to the Image of Jesus Christ. With what is described here, we can see the Man which God made to reflect His glory (which we are called to be today, though we struggle) and the Man fallen in sin (which we tend to resign ourselves to in apathy, or carry on in the worldly pleasures offered to him).
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
In this last section of Genesis 1, the Race of Man is the crown set atop God's Creation. Man is set apart to be God's Image Bearer, His ambassador to all Creation. No other creature is given this distinction nor dominion over what God has created. This is no trifling matter; the implications are massive. Every human being ever to walk the earth was given this honor by the Lord, regardless of their belief and obedience of Him, thus they fully belong to Him. Now, this is something that is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying.
It is beautiful because we are Beings that are intimately known and loved by our Creator. He was our God from when He knit is in our mother's womb and a suckling infant in her bosom (Ps 22:9; 139:13). This is something that we as Men may struggle with, as some of us may be confused about how to actually receive love. Men today seem to be encouraged to show little emotion, and are taught that they are the Lover not the Beloved (as even the Song of Solomon connotes), which is more active than passive. In a quite subtle way of doing this, I personally tend to brush off every compliment I get. It would be a terrifying experience if all my loved ones sat down and in an intervention-esque way and told me of all my goodness (It's a good thing that the only time something that that is going to happen is going to be my eulogy at my funeral, so I'll be dead and not have to worry about it!). Man needs to know that he is loved by the Lord, and need only to look to the Cross to see the extent of that love.
Now, what is terrifying about this is that we tend to forget that because we belong to the Lord, we are ultimately answerable to Him for every idle word we speak (Matt. 12:36). Every sin of commission or omission is ultimately a rebellion against Him. And, if we belong to the Lord based solely on Him being our Creator, that means that every affront to another person leaves their Creator as the most violated Party involved. We do things that make us happy, that get us promoted, that give us glory and woe him who stands in our way! We are our own gods--we worship ourselves for our glory, and we serve ourselves for our pleasure. "You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions," (James 4:2-4) We act this way, and we believe we are answerable to no one and that we are above others. No Man is above this, and it is in fact rampant in our culture. Just look at stand-up comedians (or a room full of guys) and listen to how many times they poke and prod others for kicks and giggles. Sexist, racist, homophobic, and flat out rude and crude comments are made with no regard paid to the person, nor the God who created him.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (2:15)Much to our dismay, in a perfect and sinless world, there still is work! Adam was created specifically to be a gardener--to get his hands dirty for the reaping and sowing of the food that would sustain his family. Only after the Fall did work become a hassle, as Adam was now seeking to work a ground accursed by God, and it was to be by the "sweat of his brow" that he would eat (Gen 3:17-19). While most of us men do not have agricultural jobs where we have to sweat to produce our food, but we still feel the effect of sin on our vocation. We can have horrible bosses, employees, or coworkers, or we can waste life away in a windowless cube, work our fingers to the bone for little pay, etc. Yet, there is still a God-endowed efficacy to our work. On a practical level, work so we can support and provide for our family, which the Lord requires us to do (1 Tim. 5:8), but there is more to it than that. We reflect the Image of a God who worked--not laboriously, but in a way of a master craftsman--to create the heavens and the earth. In His Word, it is written that we are to take pleasure in our toil, and that we will be honored when it is done well (Ecc 3:9-13; Prov 22:29; Col 3:23-24).
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother... (2:24a)We live in the age of what some sociologists call "Emerging Adulthood" or "Extended Adolescence." That is a nice way of stating that people in their early 20s are more childish in their ways than generations before us by putting off adult responsibilities and tasks. Thus, we tend to lean on our parents to pick up or slack. A vast number of recent college graduates will move back home with no plan for future action and only a nominal desire to figure something out. Now, that is not to say that every person who is living with their parents or other relatives, unemployed, and still somewhat dependent on someone else (I can surely say that I have not become fully independent) is in the wrong, but there is a difference between being in a tight spot and being lazy. We tend toward the latter in this instance. Young men need to advance into the world, as unknown and scary as it may be, and become true Men. If one desires to have a wife and children, he pursue having a family. If one has a calling into ministry or into the workforce, he should pursue it.. Yet, he cannot do such daring things from in Mamma's nest.
...and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (2:24b)Holding fast to one's wife is the most difficult thing for Men in this day and age. Our sexualized culture beckons us to indulge in the in the beauty of women--pornography is a few taps on a keyboard away on every computer and smartphone, some women wear clothes that leave little to our imaginations, and we've been told the satanic lie that sex outside of marriage is acceptable, harmless, and the mark of masculinity. We as a society have allowed enough filth into our everyday lives that a young man that desires to be chaste is little hope to go through life unscathed and a married man has less than a 50/50 chance of still being married five years after he commits to love one woman and no other.
Now, I don't know what it is like to be married and to hold fast to a wife. I don't really feel qualified to even attempt to speak what wisdom I may or may not have. But, I do know that adultery is something that takes place quite often in the human heart. Christ says that looking at a woman with "lustful intent" renders us guilty of adultery (Matt. 5:27-30). With all these images around us, Christ's command for us to gouge out our eyes and cut off our hands to keep us from sinning sounds like a decent way out. Dietrich Bonhoeffer described this commandment to be taken both literally and figuratively at the same time (The Cost of Discipleship, 132). We cannot downplay the seriousness of Christ's command (thus lessening the issue of lust) nor can we truly say that Christ condones self-mutilation, therefore our only alternative is to obey and die to our lust and passion. That is the call to every Man--young and old, married and single. "Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?" (Proverbs 5:20). May we all be like Job, and make a covenant with our eyes never to look lustfully upon women (Job 31:1). In so doing, we hold fast to our wives and our chastity.
“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” (3:12)
After Adam and Eve sinned and hid due to their shameful nakedness, God came to Adam to question him about what had happened. Adam, unabashedly, blames both Eve and God for his sin. The woman that was put with him by God caused him to sin! This blame game is rampant even now. Just think about all the excuses that can be made for the topics I mentioned here--we can insult someone because they insulted us first; the job market is horrible, so I have to sit on my parents' couch and watch Netflix all day; my girlfriend seduced me into impurity.
Every man has fallen short of the standard to which God called him (Rom 3:23). We are all sinners, in need of grace. We cannot brush off our sins against a holy God in self-justification and self-righteousness. Our sins are hell-worthy; we are guilty men. We cannot plead our case based upon our own merit, prove that our sins are actually negligible minutiae, or perform some religious duty that gives us a clean slate. We need to own our sin--this is what I did out of arrogance and selfishness; this is how I failed to love my neighbor as myself; this is how I failed to honor you as my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Men are repentant--they bring a broken spirit and a contrite heart before the Lord (Ps 51:17).
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (3:15)This is Proto Evangelion, the First Gospel. From the very beginning, the Lord promised that He would not stand idly by, but that He would send One to oppose and destroy Satan. He is the Son of Man, the Son of God, and God the Son. While we are but broken mirrors reflecting a minuscule amount of God's glory, He is the very image of the Invisible God (Col 1:15). Where we fail in all our tasks as Men, Christ provides for us grace and forgiveness. He is the Everlasting Father whose steadfast love will not let us go, and He the Bridegroom of the Church, faithful to her for Eternity (Is. 9:6; Rev. 21:2). In an age when being Men is difficult with the temptation to indulge, puff ourselves up, and to grow apathetic in our fight for holiness, we look to the One hanging on the Cross. He was tempted in every way we are, but did not sin (Heb. 4:15). He humbly yet resolutely bore our sins at Golgotha (Phil. 2:8; Luke 18:31-34). He saves sinful Man and provides for him a perfect example of how to live and love.
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