This likeness is so very special that it sets them apart from all the other creatures God made. But what is most important about human persons is their likeness to God. Human persons are created beings, and in that regard (as in others) they are similar to and share characteristics with other created beings. God Himself, as the Bible later reveals, is three persons all sharing one divine essence. Surprising as it is, man is made according to God's "kind," made in the image of God ( imago Dei). Man is unlike any of the other living creatures (v. To put it in modern scientific language, he is not a particular species within a given genus of living creatures. Man does not, therefore, belong to their kinds, whatever similarities there may be between him and the other creatures. The tenfold mention of this pattern causes us to expect it with each new living creature to appear, but something quite different happens when man is made he is not made "according to kind." Neither is man created according to any other kind among the living creatures. When God makes man, He breaks the pattern that He has set by creating living things according to their kinds. But the main purpose of the phrase is not so much to introduce us to the scientific work of taxonomy rather, it is to provide the background necessary for contrasting human beings with all the other living creatures. It indicates that while there is great diversity among all the living creatures, there are groupings among them that share common features, forming as it were "families" of things, as in the modern distinction between genus and species. This phrase occurs ten times and leaves a bold imprint on the narrative. They are all made according to their kinds. 20), livestock, creeping things, and beasts of the earth (v. Then come the creatures that live in the seas and birds that fly in the air (v. Living things are first mentioned with the vegetation that God causes to sprout on the dry land (v. But for all the similarities that may be noted, there is something about man that makes him quite distinct from all the other creatures. Other similarities could be noticed (hair on the skin, females give birth to their young and suckle them, and so on). Like other members of the group, man is made both male and female, and called to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the earth (vv. Some are living creatures (the plants and the animals). Everything else is created and, thus, finite, temporal, dependent, and changeable. God stands alone as the uncreated Lord of all, the maker of the heavens and the earth. The chapter divides the totality of beings into two basic categories: the Creator and the created. Something very special and quite important is before us. ![]() Not only was this the final act of creation, but fully one-fourth of the story is centered on it. The focus of the narrative clearly falls on this creature. ![]() Finally, as the culminating act, God created another type of living being, man. God filled these realms by putting lights in the sky to separate the day from the night, creating living creatures to swim in the waters below and birds to fly in the sky above, and causing the earth to bring forth living creatures on the dry land. He separated the day from the night, the waters above from the waters below, and the dry land from the waters below. As the days of creation unfolded, God gave form to the earth and filled it. We are told that "in the beginning" our home in the universe, the earth, was formless and void, covered in water and shrouded in darkness, while the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (v. The opening chapter of our Bible is a thrilling story of creation and formation, laying the foundation for all that follows.
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