Samuel Beckett’s play, ‘Breath’, lasts for a total of 35 seconds. No people are seen on the stage. Instead, the stage is littered with miscellaneous rubbish. There is a recorded cry – a birth cry – at the beginning of the play. This is then followed by a recording of someone slowly inhaling and exhaling, as the intensity of the stage lighting is increased and decreased. There is a second identical cry. And the play concludes.
Is that all there is to being human? Is that what it means to be human?
Within some worldviews that is the point that we are brought to. For example, if the world is one in which God no longer interacts with us in any meaningful way we, in turn, lose the ability to act in any meaningful way. We become merely part of the clockwork of creation. This is only heightened if we deny God’s existence altogether. Under such a view we become even more embedded within the clockwork of creation and amount to nothing more than complex machines. Few of us can cope with such a blow to our personal dignity because following such a view to its logical end-point would mean concluding that nothing in life has any genuine or lasting meaning, purpose or value.
The worldview provided by the Bible presents us with a very different view of humanity. One example of this is a poem written by Israel’s king, David, around 1000 BC. It highlights two key aspects of what it is to be human.
The first aspect is that of relationship. He writes …
“I think about the heavens.
I think about what your fingers have created.
I think about the moon and stars
that you have set in place.
What are human beings that you think about them?
What is a son of man that you take care of him?”
– Psalm 8:3-4–
Despite the vastness and complexity of the universe around us there is yet a unique relationship that exists between the Creator and his human creatures. He thinks about us. He takes cares of us. That relationship gives us real dignity and incredible purpose.
The other key aspect that David’s poem draws out is that of rule. He continues …
“You made human beings rule over everything your hands created.
You put everything under their control.
They rule over all flocks and herds
and over the wild animals.
They rule over the birds in the sky
and over the fish in the ocean.
They rule over everything that swims in the oceans”
– Psalm 8:6-8–
God has given humans the privilege of exercising rule over His world as vice-regents under Him. This too gives us real dignity and incredible purpose, even though we have misused the privilege.
The meaning, value and purpose that can be derived from such instruction are wonderfully rich. And it reaches its zenith a thousand years after David. In taking on humanity Himself, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God demonstrated to the utmost the meaning, value and purpose he places on humanity. When we want to know what it is to be human, God calls on us to look to the perfect Man, Jesus.
“God has not put angels in charge of the world that is going to come. We are talking about that world. There is a place where someone has spoken about this. He said,
‘What are human beings that you think about them?
What is a son of man that you take care of him?
You made them a little lower than the angels.
You placed on them a crown of glory and honour.
You have put everything under their control.’
So God has put everything under his Son. Everything is under his control. We do not now see everything under his control. But we do see Jesus already given a crown of glory and honour. He was made lower than the angels for a little while. He suffered death. By the grace of God, he tasted death for everyone. That is why he was given his crown”
– Hebrews 2:5-9–