Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
God Reproducing Himself
(From Forerunner Commentary)
|
Genesis 1:26
Genesis 1:26 expresses the specific purpose statement of the Bible. God, the Creator, the Master Potter, is reproducing Himself! This is THE work of God. He is in the process of making man in His image. That project is completed in two stages, the physical and the spiritual. When the physical aspect was completed at creation, the spiritual one began. This is the overall project He is supervising. God is already a unit: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!" (Deuteronomy 6:4). God is one, but consists of more than one Person. When Jesus came, He proclaimed the gospel of the Kingdom of God. In doing this, He publicly announced the expansion of this unit to include others besides the two Beings already revealed. A kingdom is synonymous with a nation. It consists of large numbers of people, but it, too, is one. Indeed, the church is called "a holy nation" in I Peter 2:9, and though it has many members worldwide, it is one church. Thus, Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God will consist of many more personalities. He also told us how we can become a part of it and how it will be accomplished. Through these means the project stated in Genesis 1:26 will take a giant step toward fulfillment.
John W. Ritenbaugh
In the Grip of Distrust
|
|
Genesis 1:26-27
Notice the overall context of these verses. It is the very first chapter of the Bible, and God is laying the foundation for what will follow. If the foundation is not laid correctly, then the rest of the building is crooked. God is beginning to establish our vision of what His purpose is and where we are headed with our lives, and being what we are, we need to have some insight into what He is. So He tells us immediately that we are made in His image and His likeness. He contrasts us with the animals. Each one of them reproduces after its kind. And when they reproduce, they look like their parents. They look like each other. God is clearly implying that He is reproducing Himself and that His purpose is that we will be exactly like Him when He is finished with us. Even now, in our physical forms, we are made in His image so that we will have the potential to be exactly like Him. Virtually every explanation of these two verses begins with an assumption: that God did not really mean what He clearly states. Verse 26 says the creation of man is about to occur. It is yet future. Verse 27 says that the creation is in the past tense. By the time the statement in verse 27 is done, man is already in His image. It is not future. It is past tense. It is not an image and likeness in progress as in the creation of a character image, but within the context, the image was already accomplished. A physical image and likeness of God has been made. Who knows better? The God who authored the Book and the people He used to write these things down—or people who are looking at it centuries after the fact and have never seen God or heard His voice, people who are using a combination of Bible verses, metaphysics, philosophy, science, and assumption? What is the assumption based on? It is usually on men's definition of the word "spirit." They combine that with John 4:24, which says that "God is Spirit." Adam Clarke provides a typical explanation: "Now as a divine being is infinite, he is neither limited by parts or definable by passions. Therefore he can have no corporeal image after which He made the body of man" (vol. 1, p. 38). That is a direct contradiction based upon an assumption. It is based upon disbelief. Certainly, God does not have a material body, but that does not address the issue. The issue is whether He has a spiritual body, which served as a model for mankind, and whether He has a body that has parts. This is important because men within the church of God are now telling members that God does not have form in mind at all in this verse, but only character image. This is important to us in understanding the nature of God and getting a correct perspective of the goal and purpose of life itself. They are associating Him with being not much more than the Catholic beatific vision or with man becoming part of a vague, immaterial blob without independence. This would effectively do away with the doctrine of being born again into a constructive and developing Family of creators.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part One)
|
|
Genesis 1:26-27
The implication in these verses is clear! When a human being is compared to the animals, his or her image is not just of him or herself, but in the image of God. This is the principle of kind reproducing after its kind. Though it is not stated directly, the text infers that mankind reproduces after the God-kind! Verses 26-27 provide a contrast between humanity and the other verses that address the beasts of the field, the sea, and the sky. Man is not just different—he is like God! Man is after the God-kind—not animal-kind nor angel-kind! But how is mankind like God? It is not merely a matter of form and shape, though that is included. It is principally in terms of more important things: intelligence; broad, emotional capacity; self- and other-consciousness; abstract, spatial, and artistic thought; creative powers to bring plans to pass; and most of all, desire for and capability to grasp spiritual content such as living forever. Mankind has the powers of mind! Humans haveminds in which the character of God can be created! These verses do not say all of that here. We can gather supporting information from other parts of the Bible, but God lays the groundwork for it here at the very beginning, showing that humans, though physical and mortal, are created after the God-kind. God does not hide vital truths like this by putting them in some "obscure" book like Obadiah, which is one chapter long and unread by most people. Yet, almost everybody reads the first chapter of Genesis! And there it is—right at the very beginning of the Book. The first powerful statement that man is made after the God-kind is in the Book's first chapter! Mankind is exceptional, distinctive from all other created things!
John W. Ritenbaugh
|
|
Genesis 1:26
The actual creation of Adam and Eve and the placing of them in the Garden of Eden was not an end in itself but only a necessary step at the beginning of a process that continues right down to today. God is creating a community. From the very beginning, God implies the expansion of His own community. He says, "Let Us," indicating a community already exists. Man was made, physically, in God's image, and he begins with characteristics of shape and form in common with his Maker. The rest of the Bible fills in the details of how mankind is being brought from having not only form and shape in common with his Maker, but also character, so that he fits perfectly into the community that the Maker is expanding. When the Son of God came, He came with a message from His Father. Jesus gave as the title to the message that He brought, "the good news of the Kingdom of God" (Mark 1:14-15). This is the Boss Himself, and this is the title He Himself gave. It was the good news of the Kingdom of God. Is there any doubt in our minds that God is forming a community? Is there any doubt that Jesus Christ will rule this community, first, and that afterward, He will turn everything over to the Father? (I Corinthians 15:28)? There is nothing ambiguous here. Is God forming a community? The important thing for us is what ramifications the good news of the Kingdom of God has on the way we live our lives. In the course of the unfolding of Christ's ministry, and the apostles' afterward, we find some interesting things that have a direct impact on the way we live our lives. First, Christ was the Son of God. Does not a son indicate a family relationship? “Son” is used in the Bible in at least two different ways. One means "a direct descendant of." The other is used in the sense of "characteristics of, but not necessarily direct descendant of." The Bible says plainly that Jesus was the Son of God, a direct relationship. Since He was of the same Family, there is a family relationship. He was not only a literal Son born of Mary of the Holy Spirit, but He also showed the characteristics of God. He was God. Is Christ indicating a family relationship with us in Mark 3:34-35? We have already seen that the community that He is creating is a kingdom. This kingdom is also a Family. Everybody is related, all being sons of the Creator. Everybody has the same characteristics. Do not the descendants of parents look like their parents? Sure they do. Everything fits together beautifully, and logically. God is reproducing Himself. Consider Romans 8:14-15. Is that a family? Thus, if we have the Spirit of God, we are part of a family. We are Jesus' brothers. We are Jesus' sisters. We are Jesus' mothers (see Matthew 12:50). We have the same Father as He did.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part One)
|
|
Genesis 1:26
Most people's thinking is limited to what immediately follows, the creation of Adam and Eve. This concentration on them is natural, but it is not the complete story of God's creative purposes. It is only the beginning of God's intention, a first step. His purpose is that we become as fully manifested in His image as He was when He made that pronouncement and remains to this day. The Father and Son are eternal spirit Beings of awesome intellect, character, power, and purpose. We find another clue to God's intention in Genesis 3:22 after Adam and Eve had eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God says, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. . . .” Do we catch the full effect of what God says here? He implies that from the beginning, He has intended that mankind live forever! He means “forever” even as He and the Son live forever. The tree, of course, was only a symbol, and its fruit would not literally impart everlasting life. However, from the very beginning, it was His ultimate purpose that, when His creative efforts are complete, those whom He created would live forever in His image. The creative methods God must employ to ensure that we will live as God lives are the most difficult and time-consuming part of His operation. Genesis 17:7 provides further evidence as God reaffirms His covenant with Abraham, adding circumcision as the outward sign of the inner intention to be faithful to it: “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.” For them to enjoy everlasting possession of the inheritance, they must also have everlasting life! No matter where we search, except for Christ Himself, no human yet has lived an everlasting life. We have progressed through only the first seventeen chapters of the first book, and significant clues about what God has been and continues doing stand revealed. Do we believe them? We often fail to give much consideration to—and thus overlook to our detriment—that this universe is God's creation. It did not arise from nothing. From within Himself, God designed it and gave it shape and life. Equally important, He governs His creation. He has overseen and administered it from the moment it came into existence. He brought it into existence in a massive operation through His Companion, the One the Bible reveals as Jesus Christ, the Word. The problem is not that God has failed to communicate these truths, but that we fail to believe Him or take what He says seriously enough to do something about His revelation. The Creator God is carrying out what every living thing does, except for the angels, whom He also created through Christ. In His case, He is systematically reproducing Himself. He is expanding into a Family in His image to share what He is and does with others of His eternal kind.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Six)
|
|
Genesis 1:28
God provides marriage to produce children, and evidently, He wants many of them! The Catholic Church teaches that the primary reason for marriage is to produce children, but spiritually, it is secondary to God's higher purpose. Certainly, marriage is the only union so authorized and blessed to produce children. This purpose contains all the sexual aspects to marriage relations, as regulated by the seventh commandment, "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18). Children produced outside of the marriage union will automatically be burdened by severe disadvantages. Beyond the emotional troubles inherent in illegitimacy, single-parent households are typically poorer than the average and are powerless to improve. The harried single parent is forced to work long hours at his job or several jobs, decreasing the precious time that every parent needs to give to his children. In this situation, children often spend a great deal of time alone and undisciplined, frequently finding themselves in trouble with teachers and administrators, neighbors, and law enforcement. As a result, they often feel unloved, abandoned, and at odds with the world, and many end up repeating the sins of their parents. Only within marriage and the traditional family can children have the best environment to produce, not just secure, peaceful, useful lives, but also the discipline and character to have the image of God created in them. This does not preclude a child produced outside of marriage from God's calling, although it can make matters more difficult. By the same token, not every child who grows up in a traditional Christian family will answer God's summons to belief and repentance. However, marriage provides the best and the only God-sanctioned relationship for the conception, bearing, and rearing of children. If a child begins his life in the proper environment, he has a head start on reaching both his physical and spiritual potentials. These purposes of marriage always seem to return to the idea that God is reproducing Himself. The lawful union of man and wife is a vital first step in this process. Once God binds them together and they conceive a child, they bring into being another individual who has the potential to be a member of God's Family. This is the way God intends the process to begin. Then, after parents train them up in the way that they should go (Proverbs 22:6), they turn them over to God for further development as His children. This is one of the great ironies in all of creation: that God gives often young, immature, inexperienced human parents "first crack" at producing children in His image. He places upon them the tremendous responsibility to mold and shape the next generation into the moldable clay that He can work with to shape righteous sons and daughters for His Kingdom. Nonetheless, it all begins with marriage, the best environment to turn out the ideal product for God to use in reproducing Himself.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Three)
|
|
Genesis 6:1-4
“Sons of God” cannot refer to angels in Genesis 6:4 because it warps God's ultimate plan for humanity's salvation. He states His purpose in Genesis 1:26, “Let us create man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” In other words, God is reproducing Himself! Human beings are not fashioned after the angel-kind but after the Godkind! Notice how God introduces His earlier creations: “Let the earth bring forth grass . . .” (Genesis 1:11); “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures . . . (Genesis 1:20); and “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind . . .” (Genesis 1:24). But when He begins to create man, He reveals that He brought humanity from Himself. While Adam was made of the dust to be physical, his origins in terms of “image” and “likeness” came directly from God. Because of this vast difference, God commands that men—His potential spiritual children—“have dominion” over all living things on the earth (Genesis 1:26, 28). God is reproducing Himself. The concept of angels reproducing themselves through interspecies marriages with humans denies the very gospel of the Kingdom of God, the good news that God offers human beings the opportunity to join His Family and inherit all things. Angelic/human hybrids insert an alien element into the plan of God, which He would never allow to confuse matters. In addition, while angels are called “sons of God,” they do not have the potential humans have. They were created, not as potential members of the God Family, but as servants. It is plain that God never intended that angels, though presently far exceeding humans in intellect, power, and wisdom, be born into God's Family and inherit the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 2:5). The Bible consistently shows them in the form of mighty servants who carry out God's will and help Him fulfill His purpose. As the author of Hebrews says, while currently lower than the angels, human beings will one day rise to be greater than they, crowned with glory and honor and possessing power over the works of God's hands (Hebrews 2:6-8).
John Reiss
Can Angels Marry Women?
|
|
Genesis 28:20-22
Abraham and Jacob knew that their substance, their success, and their defense all came from God. They were reliant upon God. This is the lesson that we, too, are learning and practicing as a way of life. The International Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 4, page 862, says, "Jacob's tithe that went to support God's house, as symbolized by the pillar, anticipated a major purpose of the tithe in later Israel, namely, the care of God's house." The question continues to arise: Were God's laws in effect prior to the Exodus? The world considers the giving of the Ten Commandments'and the laws that followed'the first time God gave His laws to mankind. Does this mean that God gave no instruction to Adam and Eve? What was God's purpose for mankind, for creating man? It was to reproduce Himself! Can we honestly believe that God would not take the time to instruct the first man and woman He created and placed on the earth for this grand purpose? How did Abel know to sacrifice? How did he know what animals to sacrifice'unless he received instruction from God? Cain could not have been corrected for giving a wrong offering had he not been instructed as to what a right offering was. God is perfectly fair. How did Abraham or Jacob know to give ten percent? Why did they not give 2 ½ percent or five percent? Why did they not say, "Take whatever you want"? We see that God's laws had already been given to man. God had instructed those with whom He was working.
John O. Reid
Tithing
|
|
Ephesians 1:3-4
"For I am the LORD. I do not change" (Malachi 3:6). He has never deviated from His purpose from the foundation of the world. Once He had planned what He would do, He set out on to fulfill His purpose, and He has never strayed from it. Genesis 1:26 suggests this strongly: "Let Us make man in Our image." What is He doing? He is reproducing Himself. If He is creating man "in His image," then He is reproducing Himself!
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part One)
|
|
1 Peter 1:2-5
We have been summoned to a great cause. The summons is personal and specific. It presents us the challenge of choosing to live a life worthy of the awesome vocation to which God has summoned us. Our calling has become our life's work. God has summoned us to yield to His creative efforts of reproducing Himself, just as II Corinthians 3:18 instructs us: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Elements of Motivation (Part Five): Who We Are
|
|
 |
The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment
Sign up for the Berean: Daily Verse and Comment, and have Biblical truth delivered to your inbox. This daily newsletter provides a starting point for personal study, and gives valuable insight into the verses that make up the Word of God. See what over 155,000 subscribers are already receiving each day.
Email Address:
|
We respect your privacy. Your email address will not be sold, distributed, rented, or in any way given out to a third party. We have nothing to sell. You may easily unsubscribe at any time. |
|
|
