Many people has asked: “What is man? What is humanity?” The Bible itself asks the question:“What is man, that thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set thy mind upon him,…” (Job 7:17)
Many people have a rather low view of humanity. Some people think that human beings are simply animals and have developed consciousness by some unknown process. Others think of human beings in economic terms. People are simply economic units who produce and consume. In some Asian religions the human person has no ultimate reality.
The Bible has a different view. The Book of Psalms says
“… what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor.” (Ps 8:4-5)
And the Book of Genesis says:
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (Gen 1:26)
In other words, human beings are made in the image and likeness of God and no matter how far one strays from God, no matter how far the image and likeness has been replaced by sin, the image and likeness can never be lost and a person can always repent and restore the image. In the words of St. Gregory the Theologian:
“Let us offer to Him who suffered and rose again… ourselves, the possession most precious to God and most proper.”
In other words, human beings are God’s most precious possession. For that reason God never gives up on humanity no matter how much we have strayed from God’s path, which is the reason that God chose the Jewish people for the coming of Christ to restore a damaged image. And finally Christ comes into the world to save us. Christ’s saved us by his life, death and resurrection. Christ’s life is salvific but in many respects the crucifixion is the heart of Christ’s mission. Quoting St. Gregory again, “A few drops of Blood recreated the whole of creation.” Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection renews and saves, not only human beings, but the whole of creation. In fact as 2 Peter 1:4 says:
“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
This is what humanity is called to and destined for.
We should realize that Christ never abandoned his humanity, but Christ’s humanity sits at the right of the Father. In other words, Christ, by ascending into heaven, has taken humanity into heaven. In this way Christ is divinizing or humanity and we all will be in heaven with God in our deified humanity. In other words, Christ ascension into heaven, body and soul, points the way to our life in heaven, body and soul.
Fr. John