There is a certain feeling that I know you have had. To deny it would be like trying to live without breathing. I know you have felt it because you are of the cloth of mankind and it is a universal disposition with which we are are all designed .
For some, it rises up in the heart when they look at the horizon across the thundering ocean. It is the drive to put their feet down on the other side. It is the thrill felt when accepting the great chess game of traversing the deep, mastering the challenge of reading the weather rightly, and choosing well the maritime moves to be made.
For others, this feeling is ignited at the surprise of walking through a forest and stumbling upon stone ruins that promise some great structure was labored upon in that spot long ago.
For most of us, this feeling develops into a deep warmth in the well of our heart when we see a field leading up to a warm, fire lit cottage, accented with a few happy animals resting in a stable, a family sized garden, and the hint that love and heartfelt laughter in engaged within.
Some have this feeling when applying the precise amounts of heat, instinct, and time to make a loaf of bread from raw ingredients that came from the earth, or when laboring to make cheese or butter from what the cow gives, or when putting these together with many other sources to make a feast for their family.
Some feel it when organizing the chaos of large gatherings, arranging and interpreting raw data into a veritable treasure map for business, or painstakingly constructing a strong dwelling in which people can accomplish all these things.
Some talented folk feel it when using instruments of wood and metal pulled from mountains and caves to manipulate the air around them and create music with invisible vibrations. In pursuit of this same feeling, their counterparts use their unique voices to enrich this music, while others dazzle crowds with the movement of dance, perfected with pain, time, and discipline.
Lastly, but not exhaustively, and perhaps most importantly, it is the same impetus for the desire of creating a family; a woman supporting her husband, a man loving his wife, and both of them seeking to build life together, and then nurture that life into good men and women to let them go into the world and continue in the same mission.
People pursuing the satisfaction of this feeling in various ways is what creates the order we need out of the un-order present in the raw world around us. It is what creates only what man can create. It is what provides culture and civilization, harnessing the inherent value of the world. Most importantly, it is what glorifies God. It is Him using His paint brush. It is in line with His organizing and creative nature.
To make it plain, you, along with every other man and woman were given a mandate to complete. It is called the “Dominion” or “Cultural Mandate”. We are to master the things in our control: the pieces of ground before us, the relationships we have, the raw material we are given, our own bodies and the amazing capabilities therein, and use it for good. We are literally designed and placed in this world to help it produce more value than it does on its own. God told man this in many ways, in many places, and at many times. He told our father and mother this at creation.
God made the good world. He then made what Scripture calls the Garden of Eden, implying an element of order there that wasn’t in the wilderness of the rest of the good world. In essence, God made the first civilization. He then made the first two people, Adam and Eve, and put them in it. His command to them after He had done all of this was “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,”- Genesis 1:28.
This means that mankind was to go and turn the rest of the world into this beautiful Garden. Bring order to the beautiful wilderness, including the animals, land, and resources. God is the creator and then created us as sub-creators. We can’t produce out of nothing like He did, but we have been given the delightful gift of being able to move His created stuff around in a way that produces beauty and value. And we were set loose to do it to our little hearts’ content.
A quick note should be made here; one that has always been obvious to thinking men. When we take dominion of the world, it would be completely antithetical and counterintuitive to God’s command if we were to rob His creation of value by engaging in destructive practices. Making things extinct, making things dirty, and causing harm to His good creation is obviously off the table. God commanded us to work and organize the world to enhance it and display His own greatness and glory, not to demonstrate the nature of sinful man or destructive Satan, whom we will discuss in the next chapter.
In relation to this, we must and do rely on the “programmed code”, or even better said, “the enchantment” that God has spoken into the fabric of His creation. There are invisible laws of organization which He has commanded His creation to follow. They are organized, like He is, and should be seen as an imprint of His nature in this created order. They are in all things. Gravity is one of them. Photosynthesis and plant growth are some more. The rules that govern math and allow us to rely faithfully on it are of this kind. The fact that things will repeat in the future as they have in the past instead of being completely different is also one of these. Basically, the reason we can build, design, expect, and plan is because God has commanded this realm to obey His orderly way so that he can enjoy it, be glorified, and so that we can build and exercise this constructive dominion.
As many may already know, things are very different from what they were originally like in the Garden of Eden due to Adam and Eve’s moral failure, which will be discussed later. However, it has not sponged away this amazing cultural mandate. God faithfully reminds us of it in His word, throughout history. He commands it of us again after the world is flooded and there in only one family, that of a man named Noah, left to restart the human race.
It is also seen when He has his chosen people, the Israelites, engage in conquest against an evil and torturous hoard. As they conquer, God tells them to make sure to build civilization in the wake of their conquest so that the area does not descend into beast occupied, chaotic wilderness. The King of the Israelite nation, David, as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit in the song that we call Psalm 8 repeats God’s dominion mandate for us to remember and obey. The Lord, Jesus, alludes to this in a spiritual sense when he talks about chasing evil spirits out of a person and how if the culture and presence of God’s Holy spirit does not fill that man, the evil spirits will come back in a terribly more destructive and numerous fashion.
Jesus, right before ascending to sit and rule from His Heavenly throne, tells His people to tell the whole world about Him, baptize them into His family, and teach them to obey Him. This results in future world wide order, and beautiful, life giving cultural development. This has already been played out in history to some amazing degrees since this commandment was given. Looking at the global map along with the progression of time, it can be seen that when the faithful church of God goes to a place and is well established, then flourishing, civilization, and development occur. It is how reality functions, because it is how God has designed and commanded for it to be.
Without going too deeply into it, this very thing, the inseparability between cultural/physical development and the spread of God’s kingdom for the salvation of man, was what drove one of the christian pioneers, David Livingstone as he cut paths into the dark wilderness of Africa. The area was a land of physical and spiritual death, where none knew God and where a horrible slave trade was the only successful market. Livingstone knew that Christ was the only answer. He knew that if the people would follow Jesus, it would develop the area out of the barbaric trade of man stealing. He and other christians brought success in this endeavor, but some parts still await such salvation. Some parts still cry out for the light and development that Christ the King alone can bring.
Even though this work is made difficult by how man’s sin has affected this world, the mandate still stands, and the power of the Lord who commanded it is stronger than the curse over creation. The King over this realm is fixing it. This creation is not waiting for a mercy killing, but is eagerly expecting its renewing by God, through Christ’s hands in the world, which is to say His people, the Church. This happens as individuals and societies turn to Jesus, love Him, and obey him on every civil and personal level.
This dominion mandate is a personal calling on each individual, namely you. It is how the light of Heaven conquers the dark of this world. It is the way that the King drives out the dragon. It is not the easy way of life. It only comes from personal sacrifice and hard obedience to Jesus. That is the place to start. A better world is the outcome.