WORD From The Woods
Genesis 1:26-28
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This passage, from the first page of the Bible, in the book of Genesis is probably very familiar to most of us. It’s Moses’ account of the grand finale of creation when God created mankind. Mankind was the final phase of God’s creation, you could say that we are the crowning jewel of creation. Mankind is the only thing in all the universe that God created after His own image. Just stop right there and ponder on that for a minute, THAT IS AWESOME! (Yes, all caps means I’m shouting.) Now, there is a lot that we could talk about from this short passage, like the fact that God created us male and female (boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.) I apologize if my bluntness makes anyone uncomfortable, but there are many people today who seem to be confused about this, so I just thought I’d clear that up…. Anyway, what I really want to focus on in this passage, is what’s known as the “dominion mandate.” The dominion mandate is the idea that God gave mankind dominion over all the other created things on the earth and gave us the command to go out into the world, subdue it, and multiply. This is a concept that has largely been lost to the last few generations in Christian culture. I believe it’s foundational to a robust and victorious Christian worldview. I want to clarify a couple of basic presuppositions that we should stand on as Christians before we get into more detail. First, Genesis 1:1, ”In the beginning God,” this might seem simple but it’s the first and most important thing we must believe. God is above all and before all things. If He has the power to speak the universe into existence, then He has the power and authority to give us the dominion mandate in the first place. He is God, we are not, it’s all and always for His glory. If you’re reading this early in the morning when I sent it out go outside, look to the stars, and behold the glory of the Holy God of all creation, then fall on your face in humble worship! Second, verse 27, “God created man in His own image.” This tells us that we are set apart from the rest of creation. The world teaches us that we’re just less hairy apes, just another animal. That’s a bunch of BS, and we must understand the distinction to properly understand the dominion mandate. When God created us in His own image, that doesn’t mean we have the power to create a universe. What it means is that we have personhood. Unlike the animals, we have an eternally existent spirit created by God and united to our physical body. It’s this spirit that gives us our unique intellect, sensibility, and will, that is distinctly different from the animal world, this is what makes us a person and it’s a special blessing from God that was not given to any of the animals. R.C. Sproul once said in one of his most memorable quotes “What’s wrong with you people?, the problem with the Christian church is, we don’t know who God is and we don’t know who we are.” We have to have a proper understanding of who God is and who we are to understand the dominion mandate. So, with that in mind let’s look at what this “dominion mandate” really is. It is clearly spelled out in verse 28 “And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This means exactly what it says. “Be fruitful and multiply” means have lots of babies, we’ll talk more about that in the coming weeks. “Subdue it” means to take charge and literally subdue it, we’ll talk more about that later as well. The part I want to focus on today is the word dominion. The word dominion comes from the word domain. God clearly laid out what domain he was referring to, the whole earth and every living thing in it. He mandated that we should take dominion over the whole earth. Remember who God is and who we are, He created us in his image to take dominion over the earth that He created and placed us on. He literally placed us in charge of the world, but under His authority and accountability, and all for His glory. This is a positional thing that we need to firmly grasp, and it’s tied to the gospel in a powerful way. Remember the great commission in Matthew 28? Because all authority was given to Christ, “therefore go into all the world, disciple the nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded” Do you see it? It’s the same dominion mandate that God gave Adam back on the very first page. As I said, we’ll talk about this more in the coming weeks. Way too much to cover in just one Setting. I hope this wets your appetite a bit. Be sure to keep up with the next few because they’ll all tie together. So, ponder and pray on this until next week.
God Bless and have a great week! -Terry-
Genesis 1:26-28
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This passage, from the first page of the Bible, in the book of Genesis is probably very familiar to most of us. It’s Moses’ account of the grand finale of creation when God created mankind. Mankind was the final phase of God’s creation, you could say that we are the crowning jewel of creation. Mankind is the only thing in all the universe that God created after His own image. Just stop right there and ponder on that for a minute, THAT IS AWESOME! (Yes, all caps means I’m shouting.) Now, there is a lot that we could talk about from this short passage, like the fact that God created us male and female (boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.) I apologize if my bluntness makes anyone uncomfortable, but there are many people today who seem to be confused about this, so I just thought I’d clear that up…. Anyway, what I really want to focus on in this passage, is what’s known as the “dominion mandate.” The dominion mandate is the idea that God gave mankind dominion over all the other created things on the earth and gave us the command to go out into the world, subdue it, and multiply. This is a concept that has largely been lost to the last few generations in Christian culture. I believe it’s foundational to a robust and victorious Christian worldview. I want to clarify a couple of basic presuppositions that we should stand on as Christians before we get into more detail. First, Genesis 1:1, ”In the beginning God,” this might seem simple but it’s the first and most important thing we must believe. God is above all and before all things. If He has the power to speak the universe into existence, then He has the power and authority to give us the dominion mandate in the first place. He is God, we are not, it’s all and always for His glory. If you’re reading this early in the morning when I sent it out go outside, look to the stars, and behold the glory of the Holy God of all creation, then fall on your face in humble worship! Second, verse 27, “God created man in His own image.” This tells us that we are set apart from the rest of creation. The world teaches us that we’re just less hairy apes, just another animal. That’s a bunch of BS, and we must understand the distinction to properly understand the dominion mandate. When God created us in His own image, that doesn’t mean we have the power to create a universe. What it means is that we have personhood. Unlike the animals, we have an eternally existent spirit created by God and united to our physical body. It’s this spirit that gives us our unique intellect, sensibility, and will, that is distinctly different from the animal world, this is what makes us a person and it’s a special blessing from God that was not given to any of the animals. R.C. Sproul once said in one of his most memorable quotes “What’s wrong with you people?, the problem with the Christian church is, we don’t know who God is and we don’t know who we are.” We have to have a proper understanding of who God is and who we are to understand the dominion mandate. So, with that in mind let’s look at what this “dominion mandate” really is. It is clearly spelled out in verse 28 “And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This means exactly what it says. “Be fruitful and multiply” means have lots of babies, we’ll talk more about that in the coming weeks. “Subdue it” means to take charge and literally subdue it, we’ll talk more about that later as well. The part I want to focus on today is the word dominion. The word dominion comes from the word domain. God clearly laid out what domain he was referring to, the whole earth and every living thing in it. He mandated that we should take dominion over the whole earth. Remember who God is and who we are, He created us in his image to take dominion over the earth that He created and placed us on. He literally placed us in charge of the world, but under His authority and accountability, and all for His glory. This is a positional thing that we need to firmly grasp, and it’s tied to the gospel in a powerful way. Remember the great commission in Matthew 28? Because all authority was given to Christ, “therefore go into all the world, disciple the nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded” Do you see it? It’s the same dominion mandate that God gave Adam back on the very first page. As I said, we’ll talk about this more in the coming weeks. Way too much to cover in just one Setting. I hope this wets your appetite a bit. Be sure to keep up with the next few because they’ll all tie together. So, ponder and pray on this until next week.
God Bless and have a great week! -Terry-