God had said, "Let the waters bring forth.... Let the earth bring forth"
living creatures. "And God made the beast of the earth"; but before man was
created He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Of no other creature could it be said that he was made in the likeness of
God, and of no other do we read that he was "formed" by God "of the dust of
the ground," and that the Lord God "breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life"; then, and not till then, did man become a "living soul." The body
was made of earth, but the soul came immediately from God.
The more we learn about our own body, that wonderful and beautiful house in
which we live, the more we shall see, in what God thus formed from the dust
of the ground, to call forth our admiration; but the body of the first man,
although fashioned with such perfection in all its parts, did not _live_
until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Let us never forget how great a difference God has put between man, about
whose creation He took thought, and who was made in His image, to whom
He has given speech, reason, and a deathless soul, and all the creatures
concerning which we read none of these things.
And now let us learn just a very little about the way in which God has
formed what His word speaks of as our "house" or "tent"--the dwelling-place
of the soul and spirit.
It would be strange indeed if we did not care to know something about our
own home; but our body is not only the house in which we live, it is also
the means, through those five senses--the eye, the ear, and the organs of
touch, taste, and smell--which have been so well called "the five gateways
of knowledge," by which we learn all that can be known by us of the world
outside us.
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