WHERE WE BELONG
RELATEDNESS, ASSOCIATION, AND IDENTIFICATION
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:26-28
The purposeful sorting of items into different groupings, or genres, is a commonplace activity in daily life, as well as a critical activity in science. In biology, the result is a “taxonomy” of living things, which today is based not so much on discontinuous differences as it is on similarities: In particular, perceived ancestral degrees of “relatedness,” in an attempt to sketch out an evolutionary “tree of life.”
By the year 2000, after a number of years teaching, I noticed that few persons, in particular Christians, recognized the evolutionary bias inherent in today’s biological classification. This motivated me to expose and explain that bias. Yet further, I became driven to promote a different bias—to see what a biblical framework for biological classification might look like. So I began an in-depth study of the creation-oriented passages in Scripture, leading to a broader study of all biblical passages concerning living organisms. What came of this 15-month effort was the book Biblical Classification of Life. (You can download a “pdf” version of it here.) Though it certainly had mixed reviews and I cannot assess its long-term impact, I’d like to spin this month’s essay from its main ideas…a primer of sorts, followed by specific application for us regarding our identity.
I will start with a simple question: Which two of the following four creatures are most closely related?
an eagle / a salmon / a bat / a whale
A typical biologist today would declare the answer as “bat and whale,” due to their mammalian characteristics (they are in “class Mammalia” in the modern taxonomy). In fact, not only would he or she believe that these two are most closely related, he would, by evolutionary inference, believe that all four are truly “related,” only to different degrees. 
All share a common ancestor, but bats and whales just happen to share a nearer common branch on the tree of life.
So what is the correct answer? Actually, there are two:
1) None of these are related. All four are of different, discontinuously created kinds, and
2) Though not related, the eagle and that bat are most closely associated, created as flying creatures (Hebrew owph) on Creation Day 5, and further listed together as “unclean” flying creatures in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.
To clarify our ideas about these things, we should define three terms: 1) related, 2) discontinuous, and 3) associated. “Related” concerns the all-important biblical concept of the “kind” (miyn in Hebrew). This should be the fundamental unit of biological classification, and this is essentially what Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) had in mind when he fathered modern taxonomy, using the term “species.” Yet for reasons I will not detail here, today’s species have little in common with his original concept. The Hebrew word miyn is used ten times in the first chapter of Genesis, “according to its kind [miyn],” punctuated with several other phrases shown as important through repetition. Though the exact number of original kinds is not declared in the creation account, it is evident that on Day 3 of creation, God created multiple kinds of vegetation. On the two days in which living creatures were made (Days 5 and 6), God created multiple kinds of aquatic creatures, multiple kinds of flying creatures, multiple kinds of terrestrial creatures, and separately, mankind. Kinds, not species or varieties, delineate what Adam named, and what Noah preserved by boarding selected specimens on the ark. Within these kinds, that is to say, through ancestry on each separate tree of life, the variety is truly “related.” That is the extent of how “related” should be used.
Thus, “discontinuous” is the complementary idea to “related.” Any organism of one kind is discontinuous in terms of ancestry, or relatedness, to any organism of another kind. Again, the reality is not about a massive ancestral tree of life as evolutionism draws up, but rather about many trees of life. Within each “tree” (all ancestors in a kind), we find true relatedness, and a glorious expression of variety therein! Yet between each “tree” is discontinuity, and no inbreeding—past, present, or future.
“Associated” should be applied to things grouped together on a meaningful basis other than relatedness. We might also use the term “affiliation,” and will do so later. For example, all creatures of water and sky can be associated as Day 5 creatures. This is not to say that these are related. More specifically, creatures of water can be associated together, and flying creatures can be associated together. Neither does this say each of these associations has common ancestry. Even more specifically, Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 indicate that the leaping insects can be associated (even though grasshoppers and crickets are unrelated), and that the birds of prey can be associated (even though falcons and owls are unrelated).
So we see two distinctly different approaches to biological classification. On one hand, the evolutionary method assumes that all are related, and therefore any associations based on similarities are also inferred as associations based on ancestry. On the other hand, the biblical method presents purposefully distinct and unrelated kinds, which are just as purposefully associated together based on the Creator’s own prerogatives. So the two methods differ not only in how they associate creatures (that is, by what criteria they are grouped), but also on what these associations mean (descent vs. design).
That having been said, let’s take a look at some fundamental differences in classification criteria between these two approaches. Larger associations are inevitably going to be defined by what is considered the most important, or primary, criteria. Songs, for example could be classified first by genre, then artist, then date. A person looking to build a cross-section of music from the 1920s, however, would classify them first by date, then perhaps genre, with artist last. Several approaches could be made, but few would consider song length or age of musicians as a meaningful primary criterion. So, classification criteria are purpose-driven decisions. Consider the following general groups of creatures: beetles, birds, fish, bats, spiders, cattle, corals, humans, crabs, and earthworms. In the evolutionary scheme these creatures are all thought to be related, but those most related would be primarily grouped as follows:
| Chordates (vertebrates): | Humans, Bats, Birds, Cattle, Fish | |
| Arthropods: | Beetles, Spiders, Crabs | |
| Invertebrates: | Corals, Earthworms |
Thus we see that, among kingdom Animalia, the primary classification criterion for the evolutionist is skeletal structure. (Cell structure is actually more important in the overall organization of domains and kingdoms leading up to these). The Biblical approach would associate these quite differently (and again, by doing so would not suggest relatedness):
| Aquatic: | Fish, Corals, Crabs | |
| Flying: | Bats, Birds, Beetles | |
| Terrestrial: | Cattle, Spiders, Earthworms | |
| Mankind: | Humans |
The difference is that God did not create based on skeletal structure, saying “let there be arthropods…” but rather based on major habitat, “let the waters abound…” (Genesis 1:20). Such distinctly different criteria between the two approaches co
ntinues at many levels, and we find that the two approaches assign differing importance to characteristics such as locomotion, mode of reproduction, cell structure, complexity, metabolism, and so on. For more detail on this, have a look at this table.
Well, that is a primer on the fundamental differences between an evolutionary and a biblical approach to classifying life. So what is the application for us? After all, how many persons find themselves concerned daily with how one should associate animals?
Our personal application, which is indeed important, begins with recognizing that we are not animals, but human beings, created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-28). Though God made multiple kinds of land animals on Day 6 alongside mankind, He did not make more than one kind of man. We are a lone kind, unrelated to the animals in nature, associated with them only as terrestrial-dwelling, Day 6 creations, and totally affiliated with all humanity. We are made separately from the animals (see the transition in vv. 25-26). We are given rule and dominion over the earth and its creatures (vv. 26, 28). We are the climax—the final movement in his creation symphony. And to really bring this home we read that God did not merely speak mankind into existence, but involved His own hands in the creative process (Genesis 2:7, 21, 22).
Thus, our primary association and relatedness is to be human. Do not mutter, “I’m only human,” for to be human is a wonderful thing. And though it sounds intelligent to call oneself a member of Homo sapiens, beware of this name, for it describes the human animal. In Luke’s genealogy of Christ, we are told at the end “…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38). It is not a stretch to say that God not only created the first man, but fathered humanity.
Yet as glorious is our association and relatedness in humanity, it is equally sobering that we are associated and related in the sinful condition. One might protest “But it was Adam’s doing!” or even blame Adam’s wife, or the serpent. (Hardly an original protest given the dialogue of Genesis 3:12-13.) But the reality is that Adam’s rebellion is our rebellion. We are “guilty by association” as the saying goes, but even more so, “guilty by relation.” We ate of the forbidden fruit. A tough reality, but an essential understanding if one is to be saved, redeemed, and regenerated. To identify with Christ, the “last Adam,” we must identify with the first (1 Corinthians 15:45).
Which brings us to a more specific level of association, and yes, even of relatedness in a mysterious way: Belonging to the church universal—that glorious affiliation of believers through the ages who have a discontinuous nature to the rest of humanity. Christians are “members of one another” (Romans 12:5), an interesting and pleasantly illogical statement. Though we are all in the family of humanity through the 
creation and the fall, only believers in Christ are sons of God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). It is more than a cultural, ethical, or religious association; it is literally one of relatedness: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Thus the Jew who receives Christ is not a Christianized Jew, but a Jewish Christian. The devout Lutheran might call his denomination the “Lutheran Church,” but this in inaccurate. His local fellowship is a “church,” and he belongs to the universal “Church,” but there is no church in between, regardless of doctrine or practice. “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). Jesus said, “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). This should be held above any club membership, professional affiliation, political party, or crusading cause.
Considering these two associations, it is a difficult matter to live out our Christian lives without being worldly: Difficult because we identify well with the flesh that we must continually crucify. It is our first affiliation, and God does not want us to forget it just yet. Still, our new belonging and nature must usurp the old one with which it coexists. We can foster no nostalgia for our first family (“Do not love the world, or the things in the world” – 1 John 2:15), and yet we must still love its members to fulfill the Great Commission (Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:18-20). And so the tension: we are no longer the sinners that we are (1 Corinthians 6:11, Romans 7:21-25), and our second family comes first.
And lastly, just as we are associated as humans (both in the splendor and the fall), and as Christian believers, we are associated personally with Christ. This is a profound affiliation, and one of Paul’s few stated “mysteries,” that individually, Christ is in us, and we are in Christ (Colossians 1:27-28). In terms of association, it is the ultimate overlapping set, much like the “members of one another” idea, only closer to home. For the believer, the great question of identity, “Who am I?”, is really the question “Whose am I?”
© 2010 Chard Berndt.
All Scriptures NKJV .
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Fascinating! I remember trying to meld what I learned at church with what I was learning in elementary school. I couldn’t figure out how I was an animal if God made me human and breathed a soul into this mortal body.
That was about as far as my thoughts went. I started plunking things into a box in my brain separating science from the Scripture.
Renae,
Thanks for posting. Yes, early education is so formative…critical. Research has shown that the natural classification that children put upon living things is much like the Biblical approach (based on habitat and locomotion primarily), until they are “enlightened” by today’s evolutionary science. Ask most any kid, even if they remember very little of their instruction, and they’ll usually “know” that “The bat is a MAMMAL.” And they’ll know other “facts” such as that a sturgeon looks more “primitive” than other fish, or a crocodile appears more “primitive” than an alligator.
No, Renae, you are not an animal, and neither was your greatest-grandaddy Adam. It is a wonderful thing to be human, especially when we reunite with our Maker.
- Chard