Introduction to the Doctrine of Humanity

"My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken" (Psalm 62:1-2).

There is no religion with a higher view of humanity than Christianity, but to get it right you have to consider three important truths.

I said we were going to use the Apostles' Creed as the organizing principle for this project, but that left me with a quandary: Where do I put Anthropology (ie, the doctrine of humanity)? There really isn't much in the Apostles' Creed about mankind. The Nicene Creed, the next in the line of creeds from the early church, answered the question. It says that the Lord Jesus

"For us and for our salvation,
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin..."

And that makes sense to me, to consider why Jesus had to come for us before we go into detail about his nature and work.

So we're going to look at what God intended us to be, where we went wrong, and what God wants us to become. Then we'll be ready to talk about what God did to address our problem.