No End

TO BE

Shakespeare has been credited with saying, “To be or not to be.”  Long, very long before that Jesus said, “I Am” (Jn.8: 58).  Longer before that Moses heard a voice saying “I Am”(Ex.3: 14).  Shakespeare had existence in mind or is life worth living.  The Bible has being in mind.  It is all about being.  Man is a being and not an ideology or even a theology.  Every human is an “I AM” or a being.  According to the Bible, man is a specially designed being.  He bears the mark or image of His Makers, The US (Gen.1: 26-27).  After man’s physical form was completed, God added part of Himself by breathing His Spirit into him and man became a living being (Gen.2: 7).  This being is worth more to God than the entire world (Mk.8: 36-37).  It more than matches the price of God’s only Son (Jn.3: 16).  One of “the US” gave up His place in glory to rescue this fallen being (Gen.1: 26; Phil.2: 6-8). 

What is there about this being that holds God’s attention?  The Psalmist asked the question and provided the answer, “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet” (Ps.8: 4-6).  Man is crucial in divinity’s design.  Man is not just an image bearer of his Creators but also the product manager of creation (Gen.1: 26-31).  When man fell so did creation, paradise and everything beautiful and good (Gen3: 24; Ro.8: 22).  Man was no longer the being he was intended to be.  Man is but not what he once was. 

It is man that has devalued himself and not God.  God never stopped hoping that man would become His being again.  That is the major reason why one member of the Trinity assumed human likeness to rescue the being from total eradication (Jn.3: 16).  Christ came to restore the being to his original glory by the new birth or the new being (II Cor.5: 17; Eph.4: 24).  It is that new or recreated being that shall join Christ in Paradise (Jn.14: 3).  It is the being that must answer Shakespeare’s question, “To be or not to be?”