The Question Hidden in the Human Heart
Scripture gives us a remarkable way of describing this mystery: “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
The word translated “world” in many older English translations is often understood in connection with eternity. God has placed within man an awareness that reaches beyond the boundaries of the present order.
This does not mean that man is eternal in the way God is eternal. God has no beginning and no end. Man is a creature. We have a beginning, and our existence depends upon God. Yet God has made man for a purpose that cannot be understood merely by measuring the length of his earthly life.
This is where the biblical picture of man begins to become larger than what we normally see. If we define man only by his present condition, we will miss something fundamental about why God created him.
We Were Created Within Time
The Bible begins with time entering the created order: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The creation account then speaks of days, seasons, lights for signs and seasons, and the ordering of times.
Man was created within this world.
We are born at a particular moment. We grow through seasons. We experience beginnings and endings. We watch one generation come and another go. Our earthly existence is marked by time.
But the fact that man lives within time does not mean that man's purpose is exhausted by time.
This distinction matters. The present age is real, but it is not the whole of God's purpose. What we see now is a portion of a much larger work that God is carrying toward His appointed end.
Ecclesiastes repeatedly confronts us with the limitations of human understanding. We see events as they occur, but God sees the whole. We experience time from within it; God is not limited in His knowledge as we are.
Therefore, to understand man properly, we must not ask only, “What is man now?” We must also ask, “What did God intend when He created man, and where is God taking what He created?”
God Did Not Create Man Accidentally
When God created man, Scripture does not describe the act as an afterthought. God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).
Then God gave man dominion.
The significance of this cannot be reduced to the ability to cultivate the earth or govern created things. It reveals that God gave humanity a particular place within His created order.
Man was made in God's image and entrusted with something.
He was not created merely to exist.
He was created with purpose.
This is one reason the biblical understanding of man is so different from a view of human life that begins and ends with biology. Scripture does not deny man's physical existence, but it refuses to reduce him to it.
There is a divine intention behind humanity.
God created man to bear His image, to exercise dominion under Him, and to participate in the purpose He established for creation.
Yet the question becomes even more striking when we look at man's place in relation to the rest of creation.
What Is Man?
Psalm 8 takes us from creation into wonder.
David looks upward:
“The heavens declare the glory of God.”
He considers the moon and the stars that God has established, and then he turns his attention to man:
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:3–4).
It is a question of proportion.
The heavens are immense. Man is small.
Creation is vast. Human life appears brief.
And yet God is mindful of man.
But David does not stop with man's smallness. He says:
“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour” (Psalm 8:5).
Now the question becomes even greater.
If man is lower than the angels, why has God crowned him with glory and honour?
What did God intend when He placed such honour upon a creature who appears so small?
And what exactly is this glory and honour?
The answer cannot be found simply by looking at the present condition of humanity.
Glory and Honour Point Beyond What We See
There is a tension here that Scripture does not allow us to ignore.
Man is weak, yet crowned with glory.
Man is mortal, yet given a destiny that reaches beyond death.
Man is lower than the angels, yet Scripture speaks about a future in which redeemed humanity will have a place of authority that angels do not possess.
Something about man's destiny is larger than man's present condition.
This does not mean that fallen humanity should be praised as though everything about us already reflects God's intention. Scripture is honest about sin, corruption, weakness, and death. The world we see is not the world as God originally intended it to remain.
But neither should the fall become our only definition of man.
There is a purpose behind the creation.
There is a glory that God intended.
There is an honour with which He crowned man.
And there is a future toward which God's purpose is moving.
This is why the question “What is man?” cannot be answered fully by looking at man alone. We have to look at God's purpose.
The Mystery of Man Is Not Finished in the Present Age
The Bible repeatedly teaches us to look beyond what is presently visible.
Paul says that “the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
This does not make the present world meaningless. What happens here matters. Our choices matter. Our bodies matter. Our relationships matter. Our obedience matters.
But the present is not the final measure of God's work.
There is an unseen dimension to His purpose. There is a future that God has prepared. There is a glory that has not yet been fully revealed.
This is why the Christian hope cannot be reduced to simply having a better life in the present. The gospel announces something larger.
God is dealing with man in time, but His purpose for man reaches beyond time.
And if Psalm 8 tells us that man has been crowned with glory and honour, we must ask where that glory is ultimately revealed.
The answer begins to emerge when the writer of Hebrews takes Psalm 8 and places it alongside a phrase that changes the horizon of the whole discussion: “the world to come.”