Quotes about Humanity

There were no other groups in the ancient world going around claiming to be the human race.

God loves the world so much that he will not allow it forever to wallow in the corruption and decay into which the rebellious human race has plunged it.

We humans have thus, by abrogating our own vocation, handed our power and authority to nondivine and nonhuman forces, which have then run rampant, spoiling human lives, ravaging the beautiful creation, and doing their best to turn God's world into a hell

humans finding themselves called to play a vital role in the larger purposes of the creator for the creation.

James and John have been asking for the places at Jesus's right and left so as to accompany him as he completes the glorious work of bringing in God's kingdom, defeating all the powers that have held the human race captive. But those places are reserved for the two who are crucified alongside him as he hangs there with "King of the Jews" above his head.

The purpose of forgiving sin, there as elsewhere, is to enable people to become fully functioning, fully image-bearing human beings within God's world, already now, completely in the age to come.

All of this suggests that Mark's gospel, with Jesus himself as the great Character who stands behind it, is inviting us to something not so much like rule-keeping on the one hand or following our own dreams on the other, but a way of being human

Jesus, the Son of God, the truly human one, is leading his people to their promised land, and is available for all people and for all time as the totally sympathetic one, the priest through whom they can come to God. Following Jesus is the only way to go.

re: I Corinthians 15:34,58] "The present life of the church, in other words, is not about "soul-making," the attempt to produce or train disembodied beings for a future disembodied life. It is about working with fully human beings who will be reembodied at the last, after the model of the Messiah.

Sin" is not just "doing things God has forbidden." It is, as we saw, the failure to be fully functioning, God-reflecting human beings.

the work of salvation, in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely souls; (2) about the present, not simply the future; and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us.

Nearly all that we call human history … [is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity