Harold Willmington
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THE DOCTRINE OF MAN
INTRODUCTION
Some 10 centuries before Christ, a young shepherd lad near Jerusalem gazed into the starry sky
and exclaimed, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars,
which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that
thou visitest him?” (Psa. 8:3-4).
What indeed is man? Who is he? Where did he come from? Why is he here? Where is he
going? These questions are among the $64 billion ones in nature. Furthermore, the way in which
a man answers these questions will determine his conduct of life. As the Bible declares: “For as
he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7a).
Worldly materialism can be defined as that bloodless philosophy that knows the price of
everything, but the value of nothing. What is the true worth of a human? Is there any reliable
standard to determine the value of a man?
The following article appeared in the April 1977 issue of Reader’s Digest.
Six-Million-Dollar Original
Tired of hearing that the human body is worth only about three dollars? And of the
humbling and humiliating realization that a chicken or a salmon sells for more than you
are worth? There’s news to heal our bruised egos.
Yale University biophysicist Harold J. Morowitz says that the human body is actually
worth $6 million. And that price covers only the raw materials – hormones, proteins,
enzymes, etc. The intricate work of fashioning the material into human cells might cost six
thousand trillion dollars. And assembling these cells into a functioning human being
would drain all the world’s treasures. “Each human being is priceless” is the professor’s
understatement. (p. 144)
The scientist has thus placed a surprisingly high figure upon each human. After all, $6 million
is nothing to sneeze at. However, this huge price tag is less than nothing when compared to the
worth God places upon each and everyone of his creatures. Here is the divine estimate: “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “But we see Jesus, who was made a
little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he
by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb. 2:9).
What then are we worth to God? The simple but staggering truth is he gladly sacrificed his
only and beloved Son to redeem us back to himself out of sin’s slave market. This study briefly
reviews the past, present, and future state of God’s multi-trillion-dollar investment – man
himself.