Text: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and has because a living soul." (Gen. 2:7)

Moses, the man of God, as he was moved by the Holy Spirit, penned the book of Genesis. He was the amanuensis, or the writer; God was the Author.

It was not his opinion, but the veritable Word of God when he recorded, "In the beginning, Elohim created the heaven and the earth." "Elohim" –-"the Strong and Mighty One who is to dreaded." The "im" is the plural form of the name, yet we assured many times in Scripture that "There is none other God but one." (I Cor. 1:4) The plural form speaks of the plurality of His power, while it intimates the doctrine of the Trinity, although the doctrine of the Trinity is not the subject at hand.

In verse 26, Moses records for all posterity, "And God said,

‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion..." The pronouns "us" and "our" are plural pronouns. Certainly God is not seeking the assistance of the angels for the creation of man, but is speaking rather of the Godhead. Therefore, while we do not accept the motion that there is more than one God, we do believe in the existence of 3 persons in the Godhead. As Patrick so ably confessed, "I believe in a threeness with s confession of a oneness."

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Here is according to the Latin, the "imagio Dei" or the image of God.

The Hebrew word "stlem" means "outward image." When God created man immortal, He created him is His natural Image, (See: Gen. 3:22) By creating man to have dominion "over the fish of the Sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" --God created him is His Political Image. It should he noted that since God created man to have dominion, it is a perversion is creation when alcohol, drugs, etc. has dominion over man.

"Man" in the Greek language is the word "anthropos" which means "he turns and looks upwards" and which distinguishes him from animals that look downward.

In the third place, man was made in the Loral Image of God, for he was created with Knowledge (see: 2:19), Righteousness (2:15-17), and in True Holiness (see: Eccles. 7:29).

But God made man after His likeness. The Hebrew word "d’muth" means "inward likeness." Man was made with a free will, yet this freedom restricted to obeying the Law of God. Man was free to do the good he could do; but he was not free to disobey God, and the day in which he revolted from the Creator’s Law, he would die.

A host of Scriptures teach us that God is triune. (Compare: Matt. 28:19,20; II Cor. 13:14; Eph. 2:18; etc.) Since man is made in His image, it is absurd to believe man has only a body and soul, or a body and a spirit. This is what theologians call "dichotomy" or "two cuts." If the Bible teaches anything, it teaches "trichotomy" or that man is "tri-partite." Man has a body, soul, and a spirit.

If the Word of God is able to distinguish between "soul and spirit" (Heb. 4:12), there must be a distinction between the two. So it is that the Apostle Paul prays that God will preserve the Thessalonian believers is their "spirit, and soul, and body." (I Thess. 5:23)

What God orders, He makes provision for. Consequently, as man’s body is world-conscious, so God gave to trees in Adam to support man’s physical life. Since the soul of man is self-conscious, God gave man the Tree of Life to nourish his spiritual life. Through his faith, Adam was thereby sustained. The spirit of man is God-conscious. Therefore God gave Adam the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was a real tree, yet unlike the other trees of the Garden, this tree nourished the moral life of man by the exercise of his obedience: he benefited from this tree so long as he did not partake of it.

"And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the ‘neshamah’ (Heb. "breath") of life and man became a living ‘nephesh’ (Heb. "soul"). The animals were ‘created’ and ‘made’; man was ‘formed’ which speaks of process, accuracy and exactness.

The word "neshamah" or "breath" consists of the three elements of personality --intellect, emotion, and volition or the ability to make a decision. The presence of these 3 elements constitutes a ‘person;’ therefore, while ‘God is a spirit’ and without a body except in the person of the Son, He is nevertheless a ‘person.’ The same is true of the Devil. This is the reason personal pronouns are used of God and of the Devil.

God did not "breathe into" a cow or a horse the "breath of Life", for only man was made in His image and after His likeness.

The reason for confusion surrounding the soul and spirit is because Scripture occasionally uses the words interchangeably. This is not a peculiar case in God’s Word. For instance, When God commanded, "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Ex. 20:14) He encompassed the sin of fornication as well. Sometimes the words are clearly differentiated as in Galatians 5:19 where the apostle Paul declared, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these: adultery, fornication..." and again in Matthew 15:19. Yet it is certain that when Jesus declared "whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication..." He included the sin of adultery. Matt. 19:9)

In Revelation 16:3, the Apostle John prophecied, "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea." Such passages as this has inspired the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others to assume the animistic posture that the brute creatures have souls, which position is akin to Hinduism.

Solomon made use of the word "spirit", yet he distinguished between the spirit of an animal and the spirit of man. After declaring that what befalls men befalls beasts; that as one dies so dies the other, and in this regard he says man has no preeminence above an animal: man and beast return to the dust. But then, he makes this distinction:

But what of the origin of the soul? Where did it the Soul come from? There are three positions. First, some believe in the pre-existence of the soul. In Babylon the Jews learned the demonic doctrine of reincarnation. It would therefore seen to have been modified by believers when in John 9:1,2 the disciples asked Jesus, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that be was born blind?" In other words, they asked Jesus if this man was born blind because he sinned in his pre-existent state. It is certain that to dispel the doctrine of reincarnation, God moved the writer of Hebrews to pen, "For it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." (9:27)

The Church, however, historically has been divided between Traducianism --the belief that the soul is transmitted to children by their parents and Creationism --the belief that God creates a new soul at conception of each individual.

The Latin world embraced Traducianism, Tertullian being the first to enunciate the doctrine. Luther embraced it, as did Jonathan Edwards, as well as modern theologians such as Shedd and A.H. Strong.

They find their basis in such passages as --

Genesis 46:26 –"All the souls that cane with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six."

Traducianism maintains children are sinners having inherited the guilt of Adam’s transgression from their parents. However, this view maintains there is a reservoir of souls in Heaven.

The Greek world embraced creationism, as did Jerome and Calvin and is the official position of Reformed believers. Among modern theologians, Berkhof tends to embrace this position.

Creationists find the basis for their position in such passages

as these:

Creationism maintains children are sinners having had the guilt of Adam’s transgression imputed to them. But, like Traducianism, it too has its problems. For instance, if God creates a new soul at conception of each individual, is that soul pure or impure? Sinless or sinful? The problem is that this view makes God the Author of moral evil.

Which position is right? Traducianism with its transmission of the soul by parents, or Creationism

with God creating the soul at the conception of each person? Since the Bible makes no direct statement respecting the origin of the soul, Augustine, and more recently Robert Dabney {Systematic and Polemic Theology, p.320) and Herman Bavinck (Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, II, p. 630) halted between the too views. There is no clear teaching on this point, and since we are not to be wise above that which is written, I must confess this editor does not know the answer.

Within the past 24 months, attacks have been made on what is called "Dominion Theology." Some could identify it with such extremists as Herbert W. Armstrong. I appreciate every attempt to warn people of the heterodoxy of Herbert W. for his influence is keenly felt in many circles.

In fairness to Dr. Gary North and others who are the leading proponents of what is called Dominion Theology, while I do not subscribe to this view, it is misrepresentation to link it with British Israelism, or the Christian Identity movement.

"Dominion Theology" is basically the application of Post-Millenarianism or Post-Millenialism, whichever you prefer. While I am not convinced it is a proper view of eschatology, it nevertheless gave rise to the great missionary thrust of the 1700’s and l800’s.

It was the common view among the Puritans, and in this country gave rise to the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny," or that the wilderness

in the New World which was inhabited by pagan Indians was as the Promised Land of old. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale at the turn of the 1800’s, and my namesake actually wrote a book entitled "The Conquest of Canaan." However, he did not view America as Israel in the same sense as the Identity crowd.

It is to be highly ironic that Post-Millenialism which is often the eschatological view of Calvinistic Christians such as Presbyterians –I say, how ironic that they would "evolve" from a Calvinistic position to embrace an Arminian one and think that men can usher in the Kingdom of God.

Dominion Theology is basically the eschatology of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Reformed Churches in general, as well as embracing some Baptists. While I do not agree with this view of eschatology, and certainly am not a defender of Herbert W. Armstrong or his "Plain Truth," yet it is not accurate to marry these two viewpoints.

"Thank you for fourteen years of faithfulness to the Lord. I pray for you every day..." --Pastor Albert Bean

"The Angelus has been a great help to me in my ministry for Jesus. ‘I thank God upon every remembrance of you.’ With deep love and thanksgiving for your sacrifice, (signed) Pastor Walter Davis