Article March 12, 1990 Issue

God's man is always intact

To discover that there's something spiritually true of us that material conditions can't alter is to be able to heal those conditions.

Robert A. Charbeneau

Most of my professional career as an artist has been spent retouching photographs to be reproduced in magazine and newspaper advertisements. Superimposing things that were not in the original scene or putting people in places where they have never been is a common practice in the world of media design and production. Yet the photographer who projects the original image in his darkroom can readily detect any alterations to what he has created. He would be confident, moreover, that if any subsequent retouching or overlays were removed, his original print would be revealed intact.

The Bible, beginning with the book of Genesis, establishes the fact that "man"—the generic term for the God-created selfhood of each individual, male and female—is eternally good, like the divine creator. But the Bible also presents another picture, one of sickness, immorality, death. These ungodly images are like so many overlays, which, although never touching the original man, appear to make him mortal.

Which depiction gives the true picture? The Bible directs, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."^{Ps. 37:37.}

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