Conquering the World

Origin of Man

There are various theories, which explain the origin of man. But that's just what they are – theories. Studies based on opinions but mostly driven by one's beliefs. 

Theories aside, the truth is God created the universe; He's the author of life.

Genesis of Human Races

In the book of Genesis we learn that God created man, (male and female). He blessed and commissioned them to multiply and fill the earth. One then wonders, if God created only a single pair of human beings, how come there are about five distinct races in the world? 

Genesis gives an account of the earliest events of human life. Chapter one and two records creation of man; defining of man’s purpose; settlement at the Garden of Eden and declaration of rules and regulations. Chapter three picks up with questioning of rules and regulations by Satan; deception of man by Satan; the fall of man; withdrawal of rights of man by God; allotment of punishment and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. In chapter four we begin to see the full-blown fruits of sin, where Cain kills his brother, Abel out of jealousy.

In subsequent chapters we learn that men continued to drift farther and farther away from God and deeper into sin. But there was one man called Noah who was righteous and blameless. God preserved Noah and his family and swept the whole earth with floods. It’s from the three sons of Noah that people all over the world trace their descent. 

Chapter eleven gives an interesting account that would go a long way in explaining the origin of the different human races. Genesis 11:1, “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” Then in Genesis 11:7-9 the LORD said, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel – because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth, NIV.”

Environmental Conditioning

The fundamental truth is that human beings from all races whether black, red, yellow, white or all combined, came from one source i.e. Adam and Eve. For the obvious difference in color, beliefs, lifestyles etc, blame it on environmental conditioning, which took over after the 'scattering,' which was motivated by the towel of Babel incident. As a means of coping and adapting to the different environments that people found themselves in, different lifestyles and beliefs were birthed. Not forgetting the long-term effects of different environmental conditions on the genes, behavior, intelligence etc of humans.

The most important thing that we ought to get straight is the genesis of the different lifestyles and beliefs unique to each race. Lifestyles and beliefs can be acquired, learned or conceived. But in whichever form they find their way into the lives of people, the fact is they have an original source. 

We need to appreciate the human source of ideas, (which in this case I call the factory of human ideas) is the ‘mind.’ It’s these human ideas that give birth to lifestyles and beliefs. The ‘mind’ processes both primary and secondary ideas; primary stands for inspirations while secondary means learned information whether acquired through oral or written means. But it’s important to understand that any acquired secondary information was first a primary idea of someone. In other words, someone was inspired and passed it on to others. Therefore, it goes without saying that all beliefs and lifestyles are inspired.

Hence the question is what or who is the source of inspiration? Is it nature? Or is it the spirit world? Or is it both? 

Essentially, nature is God's creation made for His own purpose. In the light of this therefore, I think the human mind is controlled by its creator, through His divine power, which occupies the entire universe. Acts 17:28 records, “In him we live and move and have our being.” 

Though it's important to note, there exists an opponent of God’s power and will (Satan), whose full-time engagement is to fight everything that is good/of God. Therefore, it's right to say that the original source of inspiration is either God or Satan.

Game Changer

In the early days, God used messengers to deliver his messages to the people. These messengers were called prophets. One of these early prophets named Isaiah prophesied that God would send His son/ Messiah/ Christ, to restore the broken relationship between God and man. Before the fall of man and subsequent scattering of people all over the earth, God used to have face to face fellowship with man at the Garden of Eden as seen in Genesis 3:8-10. 

About two thousand years ago, God sent His son (Messiah) to Earth to redeem the fallen man. Through his death and resurrection, Messiah performed an everlasting restoration of the broken God-Man relationship. 

Now, whoever believes in Christ and repents his/her sins receives forgiveness, freedom and justification for their evil deeds. In other words, the Son of God came to restore us to Genesis chapter one and two. (Remember Genesis one and two record accounts before sin ruled man and there were no different human races either.)

What this means is, we should all lay aside what causes division among us and draw back to our Maker as one people because that was the purpose of the Son of God coming to the earth; to reconcile humanity to God. Instead of allowing the effects of environmental conditioning to define our lives and create rifts among us, we should allow God’s will to drive our lives to the ordained destination.

With this knowledge, let’s therefore look beyond our different colors, traditional beliefs, and lifestyles and see ourselves as one race and one people from one source belonging to one God. (NOTE: We All Trace Our Descent To One Couple; Adam and Eve.)