What the Bible says about God-Kind, Reproduction after
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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!
Related Topics: God Reproducing Himself | God-Kind, Reproduction after | Image | Image and Likeness of God | Image of God | Mind | Mind of Christ | Mind of God
Not only is man shaped differently from animals, but also no animal can talk or has hands like a human. Greater than anything else, man has intelligence so far exceeding any animal's that there is no possibility of comparison. Because of these things, we can easily conclude that God created man to have dominion, to rule. He is a creation patterned after the God-kind, having both intelligence and freedom of will.
Animals are not self-determining; their actions are predetermined by God-created instinct. Thus, their wills are limited by what God has imposed on them. They cannot determine to meet a companion animal in two weeks at a certain location, then plan each day as to what they will do and what route they will take to meet their animal friend. It was man's high quality of intelligence combined with freedom of will that qualified him to be given dominion over every other form of life on earth.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Genesis 1 and Free-Moral Agency
The word for "God" in this verse is elohim, a Hebrew word that is plural in form but can be used in a group sense like the English word "church" or "team," which describe a number of people forming one unit. Elohim, we could say, is a "kind." According to God Himself, mankind was created "after the God-kind."
Adoption can be a wonderful thing, but humanity is much more than adopted. God has actually sired us! Luke writes in Luke 3:38 that "Adam [was] the son of God." Some say that adopted children are special because they were chosen by their parents, but the Bible says that more than being just the physical offspring of God, Christians have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). That is an incredible idea to consider.
Nothing produces offspring that is destined to be something different from its parent; it is a law of nature. In fact, Webster's Dictionary tells us that one of the definitions of reproduction is "the process among living organisms by which new individuals of the same kind are generated."
In John 3:3-8, Jesus relates a Christian's life, upon spiritual regeneration, to the process of being born into a new life. He says that to enter into the Kingdom of God, we must be born again. The apostle Paul, writing about the same thing, says that we become a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17). In I Corinthians 15:47-49, Paul writes that, as we have borne the image of the first man, Adam, "we shall bear the image of the heavenly man," Jesus Christ.
Job knew that he needed to be changed, saying in Job 14:14, "If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes." This hope helped him to have the patience and faith to endure his many trials. David knew that he would be resurrected in the likeness of God, as he writes in Psalm 17:15: "As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." And of course, the apostle John says that although we do not know exactly what we will be like, when our change comes, "we shall be like [Christ], for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).
Quoting Psalm 8:4-6, Hebrews 2:5-9 says that man was made for a little while (margin) lower than the angels. In the Hebrew of Psalm 8, the word "angels" is elohim, which indicates that David referred, probably not to angels, but to God.
After stating this, the apostle goes on to remind us that Jesus Christ is the "Captain" of our salvation (Hebrews 2:10). This word "captain" is archegos, one who leads the way so that others may follow the same path. In an army, is the private, corporal, or sergeant any less of a human being than a lieutenant, captain, or even a general? Of course, the answer is "no." The soldier has less skill and authority than his superior officers, but they are just as human as he is. What is more, in keeping with the analogy, the soldier has the potential of someday becoming an officer.
God has and will always have supreme authority, and at His right hand, Christ is second-in-command. Everybody else will fit perfectly somewhere into the framework of how that Kingdom functions—but we will not be anything less than elohim—of the God-kind—any more than one human being is less than another.
Jesus Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The prophecy in Revelation 5:9-10 says that God has made men to be kings and priests to God, and they shall reign on the earth. Christ gives the most conclusive proof that we will be much more than angels when He says in Revelation 3:9 that He would make those who persecuted the faithful members of His church worship before their feet. To worship anything less than God is idolatry, and Christ is certainly not condoning that, something He condemns elsewhere in the same book (Revelation 22:15).
God's Kingdom is a Family. God is the Father, Jerusalem above is our Mother (Galatians 4:26), Jesus Christ is "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29), and we are His sisters and brothers (Mark 3:31-35). When we are changed to spirit at the resurrection from the dead, we will be full members of the God Family, Elohim. Truly, this is the highest expression of "like father, like son."
John Reiss
'Like Father, Like Son'
In this one verse appears several important, foundational points that relate to marriage. The first is that God created both men and women in His own image.
Before God, a man and a woman are equal, meaning that both have the same potential: to be transformed into the image of God and inherit His Kingdom. Marriage, then, is a union of equals before God. However, Scripture clearly shows that God placed husbands in the position of authority—he is, as has been said, first among equals.
Yet, though they are equal in potential, they may or may not be equal in many areas of mental and physical abilities, and they are certainly not the same in emotional makeup or strength. It is evident that men and women have different natural inclinations, skills, and abilities—all the while not making one better than the other.
Being fashioned after God's own body and mind implies that both have human equivalents of God's abilities, desires, goals, preferences, etc. While creating Adam and Eve, God took many of His qualities and distributed them between male and female humans. Clearly, humanity's God-like qualities are not as excellent as His, since there is a great gulf between what God is and what humanity is, but we have human-level counterparts of what God Himself possesses. We are made after the God-kind.
That fact makes the relationships that we undertake with others quite important. Genesis 1:27 make it apparent that we are no longer dealing with just physical associations. In His first mention of mankind in the Bible, God begins by putting man's existence on a spiritual plane by letting us know He made us in His image. Our relationships, then, also have a God-plane quality to them, suggesting that we need to take them very seriously.
Why? Because the goal of every human being, whether he or she realizes it or not, is to be just like God. Male and female, created in God's image, are on the same track to the same place. So, the relationship between a man and his wife assumes a very spiritual and imperative quality.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part One)
This is quite a cynical perspective of death. Solomon penned Ecclesiastes in his old age, when he could look back on his wearisome years of searching for answers and experimenting and come to a few conclusions about life. An inference about death appears in Ecclesiastes 3:20-21: "All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animals, which goes down to the earth?"
Again, his outlook seems negative. He concludes that in many ways human beings are no better than animals, which is certainly the case when they try to live without God. Men simply die like beasts. Like animals, people are air-breathing, fleshly creatures, and when we can no longer breathe or our flesh is starved, diseased, wounded, or exhausted, we die like them. When we die, our bodies decompose, returning to dust just as their bodies do.
Yet, in Ecclesiastes 3:21, Solomon raises a question (paraphrased): "What do we really know about the human spirit as opposed to the spirit of a beast?" Do we actually know that a man's spirit goes upward and a beast's spirit returns to the earth? What can we observe? If we use scientific methods, what can we really find out? Nothing, because such a question involving spiritual matters is beyond science, beyond man's ability to measure or record.
Previously, in Ecclesiastes 3:11, Solomon had written that God has put eternity in man's heart—a yearning to live forever—so he has already conceded that God gives man the edge over beasts. He realizes that man is a special creation of God, made after the God-kind, who has been given dominion over the earth and all in it (Genesis 1:26), so his skeptical question conceals the fact that he believes that man's chances for life after death are far better than an animal's.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 reveals that, by the time he reaches the end of the book, Solomon has made up his mind on this question. He writes, "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." His conclusion is that, yes, there is a possibility of life after death for humanity. A person's spirit returns to God for safekeeping, yet that is as far as his understanding can take him. He does not know what happens next. However, he is wise enough to know that his conclusion leads to a truth: Since we do have a chance to live again, depending on God's judgment of our works, we had better fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Four)
"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)