Also a few months ago, I viewed the movie Harriet, the docudrama of Harriet Tubman
set in Maryland in the 1840’s. It detailed the cruelties of a slave’s life on a
plantation and Tubman’s escape from slavery. After her escape, she worked with
the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia assisting in the freedom of 70 slaves.
Later, she went on to command an armed expedition of 150 black soldiers during
the Civil War on a raid at Combahee Ferry in 1863, thereby liberating more than
700 slaves.
These two issues, slavery and genocide, are something
that I personally have immense difficulty in comprehending. How is it, that man
can do such evil towards other men?
It brings to mind the lyrics from a hit recording in
1969 by Three Dog Night:
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
How can people be so cruel
But to simply say that it is easy to be cruel is an
over simplification of this disturbing matter. For we live in a culture that holds
to a dualistic and contradictory viewpoint of mankind. One that worships their
idols: TV and movie celebrities, sports figures, and even politicians; and one
that regards life as cheap and expendable: infanticide, genocide (Holocaust)
and slavery. Ruling out the depiction of actual historic war battles, the
latter sentiment is represented today in a major fashion by Hollywood movies
and television which ostensibly celebrate the murder and killing of people.
The 20th Century brought great advances in most every aspect
for humans – medicine, technology, transportation – maybe more so than any
other century before. But in the 20th Century there was World War I,
World War II (including the Holocaust), the Armenian
Genocide, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Certainly it would be
naïve to think that wars and atrocities had only took place in the 20th
Century. A search of the 19th Century demonstrates similar
atrocities in the United States: the African slave trading and the American
Civil War to name just two. This violence has been ingrained in the minds of many
that the lives of men have little or no essential value.
What should be the Christian’s answer? That man, as a creature of his
Creator, is fallen – tainted by the original sin of Adam and Eve – even though,
he was created in the image and likeness of God, his Creator (Genesis 1:26).
Dr. Charles Ryrie notes concerning the terms ‘image’ and ‘likeness’
that they are:
Interchangeable terms [cf. Genesis 5:3] indicating
that man was created in a natural and moral likeness to God. When he sinned, he
lost the moral likeness, which was his sinlessness, but the natural likeness of
intellect, emotions, and will he still retains.2
In the Creator’s assessment, man has dignity and great significance in
His universe. Otherwise He would not have placed a high standard on the
sanctity of man’s life when He stated:
Whoever sheds man's blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man. (Genesis 9:6,
NASB)
When men strike out at other men, they are in fact striking out at the
very image and likeness of their Creator. They are demonstrating exactly what this culture thinks of God and the
value of His creature: that man in insignificant, and he is of no value. So it is
considered of no consequence to kill or murder someone – as if it were the same
as dropping trash in a dumpster.
And yet, man has eternal value in the eyes of his Creator – he was
created with an eternal existence, a soul: which is that part of man that will
not die even after his body gives out and is laid to rest. For it is written:
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment. (Hebrews 9:27 NASB)
Man does not have the right to indiscriminately appoint another man’s time of death3 or to be an avenger or a vigilante.4
The root of the problem we face today in our culture is that the
Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation has become a distant memory. 60 years ago in our country, there was still an
awareness of moral values based on the absolutes of Biblical truth. Even among
those who were not churchgoers, people at least knew of Jesus Christ, the Ten
Commandments, and believed that God had blessed America with freedom and
liberty – there was even prayer in the schools! Now, many are clueless about
anything spiritual. The secular humanists and Communists, like Madalyn
Murray O’Hair, have extracted the Biblical
consensus of absolute truth from our culture.
And since humanism rejects the absolutes of Biblical truth, they have
no absolutes for their values system. This naturally leads to arbitrariness in
every area of the culture which they control: what they say and demand at any
given moment – becomes an edict, only to be changed whenever the whims and consensus
of their followers shifts.
Dr. Francis Schaeffer points out:
[T]hat when we take
away the biblical teaching that God is the final reality and that God created
man uniquely in his own image, then man as man has no intrinsic value. In a
secular sense, human life is no different from animal life. Or in other words,
when one accepts the secular world view that the final reality is only material
or energy shaped by chance, then human life is lowered to the level of animal
existence.5
God demonstrated His love of man by providing the
means by which all men might regain fellowship with their Creator. This was attained
by the sacrificial death of His Son on the cross. He accomplished this because
He regards man as His highest creation and therefore man has dignity and
intrinsic value. It is essential that we Christians “contend earnestly for the
faith" (Jude 6); proclaiming Christ as the eternal and sole celebrity of the
universe. He doesn’t consider men's lives as cheap and expendable and neither
should we.
[1]
From the Three Dog Night Album (1969), Suitable for Framing (Dunhill DS
50058)
[2]
Ryrie, Charles C. (1995) Ryrie Study
Bible. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, p. 6 note
[3]
The right of a nation to administer capital punishment is so stipulated in
Scripture: Romans 13:3-4; 1 Peter 2:13-14.
[4]
Romans 12:19; 13:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:6;
[5]
Schaeffer, Francis A. (1982) The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books,
4.374
© 2023 David M. Rossi
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