Meaning of MAN

There are several Hebrew terms that are frequently translated as "man."
(a) "Adam", "man", generic term for man, humanity (Gen. 1:26, 27).

(b) "Ish," "man," implying "strength and vigor" of mind and body (1 Sam. 4:2; 26:15); It also means "husband" in contrast to "wife" (Gen. 2:23; 3:6).

(c) "Enosh", "subject to corruption, mortal"; it is not used of man until after the fall (Gen. 6:4; 12:20; Ps. 103:15).

(d) "Ben", "son", with words attached, such as "son of valor" or man, or brave man; "son of strength" or strong man or man (2 Kings 2:16, etc.).

(e) "Baal", "master, lord" (Gen. 20:3).

(f) “Geber,” “mighty, warlike” (Ex. 10:11; 12:37).

There are passages where these different Hebrew terms are used in contrast. An example is Gen. 6:4: "The sons of God came to the daughters of men, and they bore them children.

These were the mighty men (“gibbor”) who from ancient times were men (c) of renown.” In Ps. 8:4: "What is man (c) that you remember him, and the son of man (a) that you visit him?" "God is not a man (b), that he should lie" (Num. 23:19).

Man was the summit of God's creative work (see ADAM), and gave him dominion over the sphere in which he was placed. It is impossible for man to arise by evolution from any of the lower forms of life (see CREATION).

God breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, and man is thus responsible to Him as his creator. For this reason, he will be called to give an account of himself, personally, before Him, which does not happen with any of the animals. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27).

They all descend from Adam and Eve. God, “from one blood has made the entire race of men, so that they may dwell on all the face of the earth; and he has predetermined for them the order of times, and the limits of his habitation; so that they may seek God” (Acts 17:26, 27).

Since the soul of man is immortal, it continues to exist after death. It is revealed in the Scriptures that his body will be resurrected, and that he will either spend eternity apart from God in punishment for his sins, or, by the grace of God, he will be in eternity with the Lord Jesus, in eternal joy, through the atoning work of the Cross.
The following main terms are used in the NT:

(a) "Anthropos", man in the sense of "humanity", without regard to sex: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4 ). In a few passages it is used in a more restricted sense in contrast to woman, as in Mt. 19:3 "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?"

(b) "Aner" man as distinguished from a woman: "The man is the head of the woman" (1 Cor. 11:3). Therefore, it is the commonly used term for "husband": a woman's man is her husband. "Joseph, husband of Mary" (Mt. 1:16, 19)

(A) The new man.

It is a descriptive expression of a moral condition or order of man that has become a reality in Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:21) and whose character is described in what is God's creation in righteousness, holiness and truth.

In his death Christ destroyed the intermediate wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles, to create in Himself "one new man" of the two, reconciling both with God in his body through the Cross (cf. Eph. 2:14). -16), so that in this way the one who is the object of reconciliation does not stand before God as a Jew or a Gentile, but as a man belonging to an entirely new order.

"The new man" contrasts with the "old man," which represents the corrupt state in which the children of the first man, Adam, find themselves. Since the believer has put off the "old man," he has also put on the "new," the believer's own state, the new creation in Christ.

The new man created in this way is entirely new ("kainos", Eph. 2:15). In Col. 3:10, Christians are regarded as having put off the old man with the deeds of it, which is replaced by the new man ("neos"), which is renewed ("anakainoumenon") to full knowledge.

Hence Christ lives in the saints, and his moral characteristics are vitally developed in a body. Christ is everything (because the old man of all kinds is excluded), and he is in every believer.