The Predetermined Life of Man

Because man is God's creation and creature, man's life can never be discussed in abstraction from God and His decree, nor from God and His world. Man is a creature made by God, who lives in a world created by God, and whose nature and whose world are totally governed by God and His law. The total environment of man is God and His law-word.

Psalm 1, like all of Scripture, sees man only in the context of God and His unified world of law and consequence. According to the psalmist:

1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 
2. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

The psalmist tells us, first, that the classification of men is by the Lord. Men are called "ungodly" or "sinners" or "blessed" in terms of God's judgment, not man's. In the Garden of Eden, man was given a task, naming or classifying God's creation, a scientific calling (Gen. 2:19-20). Adam was required to understand God's purpose, order, and design in creation in order to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth. In his own classification, man must totally accept God's classification, or else his life is a disaster. In classifying plants and animals, it was necessary for Adam to understand not only their place and order in God's phylum but also their relationship and utility to himself in the exercise of dominion. Thus, man early came to see the function of the cow, chicken, and horse in relationship to himself as well as to God's order, and he acted on that knowledge. In his own classification, however, man must subordinate himself totally to God's purpose. Men and women cannot use each other or others in terms of personal utility: in every respect, they are totally under God. The creation mandate requires man to exercise dominion over all the earth, but his fellow men are left out of the mandate (Gen. 1:26-28). Furthermore, the ordinance concerning marriage does not cite dominion but union in God's calling as basic to marriage (Gen. 2:18-24). St. Paul, in speaking of marriage, does not use the word dominion but rather headship (I Cor. 11:1-12; Eph. 5:21-23). Scripture requires man to exercise dominion over the world; this does not make mandatory that we love the chickens we use in the poultry-yard. We can love the earth we till, but the command is to exercise dominion. Headship, however, is plainly associated with love. Husbands are commanded to love their wives "as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Eph. 5:25, 28-33). A man is a fool if he sacrifices himself to the cattle he is called to exercise dominion over, but he is required to exercise a self-sacrificing headship over his wife in order to further the unity of their marriage under God. His self-sacrificing headship is not one of a wife-centered nature but of a God-centered calling and obedience. In brief, every facet of man's life must be governed and defined by God's law-word. A man can use cattle, having dominion over them, in a variety of legitimate ways, developing many uses not only out of their meat, hide, and bones, but their "by-products" as well. As long as he abides by the general requirements of the Lord, he is lawful. In his relationship to God, to his wife, and to other people, man's ways are carefully classified by God's law. He cannot use other men; together, they must be governed and used by God.

The same applies to man's relationship to himself. His thoughts, acts, sexuality, and being are totally commanded by God's law-word.

Second, the psalmist makes clear that man's life is derived from God and is dependent on the every word of God. Our Lord declares, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4), echoing the words of Moses in Deut. 8:3. Man is all too prone to speak of the influence of his environment. For fallen man, the environment he was called to subdue and to exercise dominion over is all too commonly exercising dominion over him. Man victimizes himself in order to justify his sin. For the redeemed man, the determining environment is the triune God and His law-word.

In terms of God as his environment, the redeemed man is comparable to a tree planted by a river, drawing continuously its nourishment from a well-watered soil, so that, "whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The ungodly, by rejecting God as their Creator, predestinator, and environment, wither away and are driven like chaff by the winds of judgment.

Because man is totally a creature in all his being, he is totally subject to God, and every condition of his life is created and conditioned by God. Man is not a self-made product. 

To be a creature means to be under authority. As T. Robert Ingram has shown, modern man has replaced the mandate of God's law with the mandate of human rights. But "to be created means to be dependent." Man, however, is possessed by the sinful "dream that mankind might become its own lawmaker." However, since "all power and authority is of God," it necessarily follows that "man's dominion vanishes without God's dominion from which it proceeds."1

Third, the "blessed" or "godly" is that man whose "delight is in the law of the LORD: and in his law doth he meditate day and night." Blessedness and godliness are not abstract conditions of spirituality but of very practical obedience to God's law. Holiness is not a self-induced feeling but that state of obedience by faith to God's every word which Scripture requires.

Humanistic holiness is a man-made product. It rests on man's spirituality and his self-hypnosis, not on obedience to the Lord.

Holiness is a way (derek in Hebrew), a trodden, established path ordained by God. "The way of the righteous" and "the way of the ungodly" are cited. Neither is man-ordained or man-created. God's law establishes which is the way of righteousness and also the way of the ungodly. Man has no independence nor any pioneering being even in his sin. Every way he takes is part of a God-created and God-ordained world.

Fourth, "For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." "Knoweth," yada in the Hebrew, means, as Leupold points out, to care for, to recognize as a friend. To be known by God is to be established and recognized as a member of His household and an object of His grace, care, and protection.

Each of the two ways of life is seen as a realm, so that we have here a hint of the two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Man. The way of the ungodly is also called "the counsel of the ungodly," counsel meaning the way, seat, assembly, or dwelling.7 In contrast to this is "the congregation of the righteous."

The psalmist thus classifies and identifies men in terms of God and His law. Man being God's creation and creature, any other classification is a myth.

One final point: when man denies that he is God's creature, and that God is his determinative environment, man then makes himself into a creature of nature, and his determinative environment becomes the world around. Instead of exercising dominion over that world, he is then driven and determined by it. He is like the chaff which the wind drives before it (Ps. 1:4). He looks to himself and to the world for salvation, and he becomes chaff and driven dust, born out of dust, driven like dust, and returning to dust (Gen. 3:19).

1. T. Robert Ingram: What's Wrong with Human Rights. (Houston, TX: St. Thomas Press, 1979). pp. 6,7, 11,59.