How Does God See Mankind?

I’ve been thinking a lot about “worldview” again. Often I use “Christian worldview” and “Biblical worldview” interchangeably, though I know there are lots of people who profess to be Christians and who do not believe the Bible the same way I do.

In part I think that latter fact is responsible for professing Christians differing in our worldviews, one from another. “Worldview,” of course, is how we look at the world—through what glasses, if you will.

But how I view what is, does not change what actually is. So a group of people can state loud and long that the Nazi holocaust never actually happened, but their view doesn’t change the historical fact that Hitler’s Germany slaughtered millions of people, mostly Jews. Their worldview is false, though they might hold it religiously.

So it seems to me, the wisest thing is to work toward as accurate a view as possible. But can that happen? I mean, doesn’t everyone have a right to his or her own view?

A right, certainly, but again, another person’s right doesn’t make what they believe, true. And not all beliefs can be declared true because many clash with each other.

Thankfully, God did not leave us in the dark. Granted, the lenses we look through are still darkened, but at least we have lenses. I’m referring, of course, to the Bible. Through the pages of Scripture, God reveals Himself. He also tells us about His plan and purpose for us.

So I came across a quote from The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer that reminded me how important it is to see Mankind, other Christians, myself, the way God sees us.

The moral shock suffered by us through our mighty break with the high will of heaven [when Adam sinned] has left us all with a permanent trauma affecting every part of our nature. There is disease both in ourselves and in our environment … Until we have seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected (p. 110; emphasis mine)

“There is disease both in ourselves and in our environment”—the disease of a sin nature that causes us to live under the law, that sentences us to death, that separates us irreparably from God.

And yet … God created Man in His own image, then declared that everything He had made was “very good.”

So which is it? Both. The “made in His image” part is clear—we have a will, emotions, “eternity in our hearts,” a moral compass, a propensity to worship, reason—all things no other created being on earth has.

And yet, God, who sees perfectly, identifies us as sinners, under the penalty of death (“all have sinned,” “none righteous,” “the wages of sin is death”).

Here’s the resolution: knowing who we are, God declared His love for us through His self-sacrifice—God, in the flesh, dying in my place. So now, we clay pots can be temples.