In our current series we’ve been going through an old list of questions and answers contained in the Westminster Larger Catechism published in 1648. Last week we began looking at God’s work of creation in regards to humans. We saw that God created humans male and female. This week I want to look at the fact that God created humans with living, reasoning and immortal souls.

Firstly, God created humans with life. You may take for granted that you’re not an inanimate rock, but you shouldn’t. It is a marvellous privilege to be alive. And that is the way God made humans: ‘the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being’ (Genesis 2:7). Frankenstein is fiction. God is the giver of life and you should acknowledge and thank God for it.

Secondly God created humans with reason. Elihu is right to declare that God ‘makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’ (Job 35:11). You do not have a bird brain, you have a human brain. Yes, because of sin, human brains sometimes function at the capacity of a bird’s, but that is not the way God created humans in the beginning. Anyway, generally speaking, humans are far superior intellectually to any other creature.

Thirdly God created humans with immortal souls. We read in Ecclesiastes: ‘dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it’ (Ecclesiastes 12:7). This final point about immortality is important for everyone lives forever, regardless of who they are. Daniel says: ‘Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt’ (Daniel 12:2). Thus the question is not whether you will live forever, but under what conditions you will live forever.

So how do you make sure you awake to live in everlasting life in heaven? Listen to the words of Jesus : ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him’ (John 3:36). Trust in Jesus’ death for your sins and you will have everlasting life in heaven.

Do you recognise that God has created you with a living, reasonable and immortal soul? Do you trust in Jesus so that you will not experience everlasting contempt?

Joel Radford.