The Creation Mandate and Structure & Direction
The eight fold rhythm in Genesis 1 of ‘Let there be and it was and God saw that it was good' dramatically changes in v26 in order to grab our:
Just as the Eight creational ‘Let there be’s’ represent creational law for animals, vegetable and mineral>
The Creation Mandate is Four fold and represents creational law for Human society and culture.
1. Be Fruitful
2. Multiply and fill the earth
3. Subdue
4. Have Dominion
The creational distinctions between Male and Female as the Image and Likeness of the Triune God is foundational to the development of human civilisation to ‘be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion.
God’s creational ordinances extend to the Structures of society, to the world of the family, church, education, art, business, commerce, government
In short, in every field of human affairs there is a right and wrong way of doing things according to God's creational structural norms.
God's creational norms are not outside God’s plan for the Cosmos, but were built in from the beginning.
Creation is not static, God decreed Creation to unfold. Therefore the unfolding of culture and society are integral to creation and its development. The word 'Culture' from the Latin is 'cultus which means 'worship'. Therefore the development of human culture reflects what it means to be human as Genesis 1v26-28 reveals.
Any human culture will reveal therefore what it worships in terms of how it is oriented-As Romans 1v25 points out:
Because of the Fall of man, human nature is oriented either toward worship of the one true Creator God or worship of the creature/creation.
· Romans 1v25 shows that therefore there is NOTHING NEUTRAL in all of created life.
· What do you think modern Western culture worships today?
There is nothing in human life that does not belong to the created order. Everything is creational. There are many creational Structures but only 2 Directions-
This means that Human beings are either oriented TOWARD God through His Grace as shown in the Redemption of Jesus Christ in His Death and Resurrection.
Or they are oriented AWAY from God if they have not yet been reconciled to God through Christ's sacrificial atonement.
At the heart of the problem is the problem of the human heart.
The ‘Let Us’ in Genesis 1v26-28 reveals that God is a relational, social, communal, Being. It means that God is a community of Three Persons in mutual love and harmony. The One does not lord it over the Many meaning the Father does not lord it over the Son, nor does the Son lord it over the Holy Spirit. There is Unity in Diversity within the Trinity.
As one theologian said
‘Because of the Trinity we are called to put on display a new way of being human’
Why?
Because God IS a relationship, and that is why relationships are intrinsic and central to all of human life, individually and nationally. It means that the Trinity is the foundation for our true humanity, for authentic community and even a whole culture.
Genesis 1v26-28 also answers the fundamental question ‘Who am I? This means that Human beings are made in the Image and Likeness of God and the implications of this for all people is something that must be put at the forefront of all missional endeavour.
The creation of mankind is in a class all by itself then, because the expression ‘Let Us make’ is not used of anything else in all of creation.
In Genesis 1 God is like a glorious artist as He paints the big picture of creation. In Genesis chapter 2, we look with a magnifying glass at one particular aspect of that big picture.
Everything now focuses on this one particular aspect, the highest part of God’s creation as the Creator of the Universe creates Male and Female in His own Image and likeness.
Think of Michelangelo's painting 'Creation of Adam'
He does this not by speaking them into existence, but moulding them with His own hands first from the Dust of the ground and then gives them Dominion over all the earth.
In the Story so far then, human beings begin as Dust and then are given Dominion because we have been made to reflect the Glory of God. In our Story we have gone From Dust to Dominion
Relationship is therefore fundamental to how we are to reflect who God is, but so is the word 'Rule' for God said to them 'Subdue and Have Dominion'.
Through the Fall, human beings did not rule well, for they Dominated creational life rather than nurture and develop it.
Adam and Eve were called to be kings & priests of all creation, they were meant to develop the Garden into a God glorifying culture that lived out the Creation Mandate to the Glory of the Creator God...
But humanity IN Adam abdicated our authority and gave it to the serpent. History then is about the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.
What is wrong with the world'? What is the solution?
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