Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
earth, and our own final tendency is to it; and what have we then to be proud of?
(2.) Yet the Maker was great, and the make fine. The Lord God, the great fountain of being and power, formed man. Of the other creatures it is said that they were created and made; but of man that he was formed, which denotes a gradual process in the work with great accuracy and exactness. To express the creation of this new thing, he takes a new word, a word (some think) borrowed from the potter's forming his vessel upon the wheel; for we are the clay, and God the potter, Isa 64:8. The body of man is curiously wrought, Ps 139:15, 16. Materiam superabat opus--The workmanship exceeded the materials. Let us present our bodies to God as living sacrifices (Ro 12:1), as living temples (1Co 6:19), and then these vile bodies shall shortly be new-formed like Christ's glorious body, Php 3:21.
2 The high origin and the admirable serviceableness of the soul of man.
(1.) It takes its rise from the breath of heaven, and is produced by it. It was not made of the earth, as the body was; it is a pity then that it should cleave to the earth, and mind earthly things. It came immediately from God; he gave it to be put into the body (Ec 12:7), as afterwards he gave the tables of stone of his own writing to be put into the ark, and the urim of his own framing to be put into the breast-plate. Hence God is not only the former but the Father of spirits. Let the soul which God has breathed into us breathe after him; and let it be for him, since it is from him. Into his hands let us commit our spirits, for from his hands we had them.
(2.) It takes its lodging in a house of clay, and is the life and support of it. It is by it that man is a living soul, that is, a living man; for the soul is the man. The body would be a worthless, useless, loathsome carcase, if the soul did not animate it. To God that gave us these souls we must shortly