Dignity, Dust, Depravity

Blaise Pascal once wrote: “The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is in man some great source of greatness, and a great source of wretchedness. It must then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions.”¹ The beginning of the Bible gives such an account.

Genesis 1-3 explains how people can be so wonderful and capable, but also so terrible and fragile. Three words, which summarize anthropological truths from the Bible’s opening chapters, capture this paradoxical balance: dignity (Genesis 1), dust (Genesis 2), and depravity (Genesis 3).

Dignity

Genesis 1 explains why man is a creature of incomparable glory among all other things on earth. The dignity of human beings is unsurpassed and unparalleled on this planet because we bear the image of God. Better said, we are the image of God. But the Bible helps us not to go overboard in the way we think about man’s value and dignity, because soon after we read about man made in God’s image, we read also he was made from dirt. 

Dust

Finding out man came from dirt helps explain that man is a creature who is (on his own) feeble, fragile, and—after death entered the world—fleeting. We are dust. Though man is a creature of incomparable glory on the earth, he is still a creature. His dignity, as the image of God, is far above all other created things; but his dignity, as a creature made of dust, is still far below (infinitely below) the dignity of the Creator whose image we bear.

Depravity

Finally, Genesis explains why mankind is shockingly evil, and pervasively so. Now no part of man is uncorrupted by sin. In his depravity, man uses his incredible capacities, which were originally given so he could reflect God’s glory and goodness, in ways that are perverse and harmful. Further, in his depravity, mankind turns from God and crowns himself the sovereign determiner of what is good and evil. Chaos, suffering, and every kind of immorality ensues.

All Together

When we put it all together, Genesis 1-3 teaches us to understand man as an exceedingly marvelous and glorious arrangement of living-for-a-little-bit dust, which is thoroughly corrupted by sin. Only this thick biblical explanation can make sense of mankind: how a creature could be (at times) so magnificent, and (at times) so weak, and (at times) so appalling. The Bible contains the only comprehensive explanation for humanity, because only the God who made us could satisfactorily explain this paradox: the glory and horror and greatness and smallness of man.

Whenever someone downplays (or eliminates) one of these aspects of biblical anthropology, people end up getting hurt and dishonored. If you forget man is the image of God, you will eventually start to treat other people in a beastly way, like they are just animals for you to try to control for your own personal benefit. If you forget that man is dust, you will in effect deify man, and ascribe to him (perhaps especially yourself) powers and prerogatives that belong to God alone. Here again, you will eventually harm and use others, and will also, given enough time, become profoundly disillusioned with your own life. If you forget that man is depraved, you will eventually lose all sense of good and evil, and that will lead—ironically—to losing the sense of man’s high dignity (including your own).

The Bible helps us truly understand ourselves and others, and these seeds of truth, if watered by God’s grace, can cultivate in our hearts so many good and beautiful things: brotherly love, amazement, humility, sympathy, ministry, prayer, and more. And Scripture does even better than explain the paradox of man’s fallen state. It tells us about man’s redemption…

A Redeemed Humanity

Starting in Genesis 3, and stretching to Revelation 22, Scripture tells us about God’s plan to save an innumerable group of people from all over the planet. For these beloved people, chosen by grace, God will (1) restore and perfect His image in them, making them more glorious and honorable than we can imagine (1 John 3:2); (2) turn these men of dust into sons of heaven, imperishable and immortal, raised up in glory and power (1 Corinthians 15:42-49); (3) transform these sinners into former sinners, making them good all over, godly through and through, with every trace of sin and depravity gone forever (Ephesians 1:4, 5:27). 

How can God do that? He sent His Son—His eternal, infinite, perfect Image and Glory (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3)—to take on our weak, mortal dust-frame (John 1:14; Hebrews 2:17-18; Romans 8:3), so his Son could die for our depravity (2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:4-6) and then rise (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 20) to bring many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:9-10).

¹ Blaise Paschal, “Paradox of the Greatness and Wretchedness of Man,” Monergism, https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/paradox.html, accessed September 12, 2023.