In Lesson One we saw God’s marvelous eternal plan. In Lesson Two we saw the selection of the people to fulfill His plan. According to this plan and selection, God then went ahead to create the heavens and the earth for man. Finally, He created man, the center of His creation, in a very special way.
First, in Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Here we can see that God created man differently from all other creatures. All the other things that God created were after their own kind. Only man was after God’s kind. Do you see how close man is to God? A good way to illustrate how man is in God’s image is with a glove and a hand. Man is to God like a glove is to a hand. A glove is made according to the shape of a hand and for the hand to enter into the glove. Man was created according to God’s image and after His likeness so that God could enter into him. Do you see how wonderful you are? Only you, among all of God’s creation, were made in such a wonderful way. This makes you a “V.I.P.” of the universe. You were created as a vessel in the image of God so that you could contain Him and express Him. None of this was by accident or evolution. It was absolutely planned by God in eternity past and carried out in His creation for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose.
Second, the Bible tells us that God created man in His image and likeness as a vessel (Rom. 9:21-23). The purpose of a vessel is to contain something. A bottle may contain something to drink. That is its function or purpose. Man was made to contain God. That is his function or purpose.
However, we are not simple vessels, but vessels of three parts: spirit, soul and body (l Thes. 5:23). So, we call man a “tripartite” vessel or being.
The first part of man is his body, the physical part. It was created by God from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7). Through our physical body, we can live on the earth. We can touch, see, smell and hear things with our body. As you are reading this lesson, you are using your hands to hold the book and your eyes to read it.
The soul is the psychological part of man. This is you, your person or your personality, and it has three parts or organs: your mind, your emotion and your will. As you are trying to understand this lesson, you are using the organ of your mind. You may get excited about being a man created in God’s image and want to know more. This is your emotion being stirred up. And as you determine to read the Bible to find out more about God and man, you are using your will to make a decision. The soul is the part of man created by God for us to know Him, love Him and turn to Him so we can be saturated with God and express Him.
The spirit is the deepest part of man. The Bible calls it “the inner man” (Eph. 3:16) and “the hidden man of the heart” (1 Pet. 3:4) because it is deeper and harder to know than our other two parts. Of all God’s creatures, only man was created with a spirit. Its function is to contact God and to receive Him. Did you know that you not only have a body and a soul but a spirit too? You may never have considered it. If you have never come to God, you have never had to use your spirit. You need your body and soul to exist as a human, but if you have never come to God, you have never used your spirit. Just as our ears are for hearing sound and our eyes are for seeing colors, our spirit is the organ for receiving God’s life and for being one with Him. Hallelujah! What a wonderful spirit God has made within us! With our spirit, we can contact God and contain Him to express Him on the earth. This is exactly what makes God happy and fulfills His eternal purpose in creating man.
Do you have any friends who do not know the Lord or who say that He doesn’t exist? This is because they have never used their spirit to contact God. They are like a blind man who does not believe in colors because he has never seen them. In the same way, some men do not believe in God because they have never used their spirit to contact Him.
As for you, you may know how to use your body very well and how to take care of it properly. You are also going to school to train your mind to know many things and to function properly. But, to be someone fully according to God’s purpose, you also need to learn how to use your spirit to contact God, to receive Him and to contain Him.