What Is Man? by C. P. Bollman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 3, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 43.

What Is Man?

By C. P. Bollman

By C. P. Bollman

To the Bible question, “What is man?” the Bible returns the Bible answer in many texts, all testifying one thing; namely, that man is mortal, that is, subject to corruption and death. Indeed, natural, inherent immortality is, in the Scriptures, set forth as one of the divine attributes, not only distinguishing the true God from all false gods, but also distinguishing God from man. Says the psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” Ps. 146: 3, 4.

In Job 4:17 Eliphaz appeals to the well-known fact of man’s mortality to overwhelm the afflicted patriarch, putting into the mouth of a spirit the words, “Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?” But thus reminded of his dying nature, Job’s faith was unshaken, for his trust was not in himself but in God. He knew that he must die, but he knew also that there was One who was superior to death, and through Him he believed that he would one day receive as a gift immortal life. In the language of the most sublime faith the world had ever seen, the patriarch, with the evidence of his mortality most painfully manifest in his own body, exclaimed, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and tho after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job 19: 25, 26.

Another important Bible evidence of the nature of man is found in the marginal reading of 2 Chron. 14:11. Good King Asa, when confronted by “Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots, . . . cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power; help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, Thou art our God; let not mortal man prevail against Thee.”

In this text the contrast to which reference was made in the outset of this article is most sharply drawn. On the one side is the immortal Jehovah; on the other, one million mortal men. But the issue was not doubtful. Mortality, even tho multiplied by “a thousand thousand” and reinforced by “three hundred chariots,” could never be aught but mortality—simply corruption and death, tho piled mountain high; while, on the other hand, immortality, tho belonging by nature only to the Supreme Being, could never be less than eternal incorruption, unending life.

Nor is it alone in the Old Testament that this solemn and all-important truth of man’s mortality is taught. The New Testament abounds in texts illustrating and emphasizing man’s dependence upon God, not only for present existence, but for all future life. As shown in a former article, the apostle Paul makes all hope of a future life dependent upon the resurrection of the dead through Christ (1 Cor. 15:12-18); and again in verse 53 he testifies most pointedly to the mortal, corruptible nature of man, when, in referring to the resurrection, he plainly says, “For this CORRUPTIBLE must put on incorruption, and this MORTAL must put on immortality.” How different is all this from the popular idea that man is by nature an immortal being, incapable of death, and destined to live, either in happiness or misery, a life that measures with the life of God.