As we pursue a clear mission target, which is the goal of this podcast, Christians today can inadvertently be shaped by a “lifeboat” view of our mission in this fallen world. We can subtly act as if the created world and its culture were the Titanic, and now that we’ve hit the iceberg of sin, there is nothing left for us to do but get ourselves and others into lifeboats. The ship is sinking rapidly, God has given up on it and is concerned only with saving those who will respond to the gospel and get in the lifeboat. Any effort we make to improve life in this world through vocation—building a bridge, producing a movie, designing cell phones, teaching secular kids in public schools—has no real meaning. It is just “rearranging the deck chairs” on the sinking ship of our fallen culture on its way down to ruin.
But such a view of Christianity is very flawed. This world is not sinking down to ultimate destruction like the Titanic; to the contrary, it has been boarded by the builder and designer of the ship who at great personal cost is patching the giant hole caused by sin, restoring everything damaged by the toxic sea water, and sailing that renewed ship right into the golden waters of a perfect, eternal world. The lifeboat understanding of Christianity ignores two fundamental biblical facts. The first is the goodness of God’s creation, a mirror of God’s glory, upon which God Himself will one day dwell in its renewed form with his people forever. The second is the reality of God’s nature as a delegator. In the first chapter of the Bible, God is revealed not only to be the great creator and ruler over his good earth, but also to be the great delegator—having fashioned Adam and Eve in his own image to continue the creating and ruling process that He began. His delegating words were, “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 episode examines how God delegated to humans the process he started, i.e. creating and ruling the material order and why such an understanding gives everyday life great meaning.
Today we continue our series, Life Is Knowing God, by examining God’s role as delegator. The chief way God chooses to rule his creation is by delegating that rule to humanity, and the chief way Christ brings renewal to his fallen creation is, likewise, by delegating his rule to the new humanity commanding us to seek first the spread of Christ’s kingdom rule into every sphere of our lives and ever corner of the planet. The word, delegate, means “to entrust to another,” “to appoint to act on your behalf." God’s plan to delegate his task of creating and ruling the material world to mankind seems to have shaped how God recounts his creation of the planet, providing a pattern for humans to continue. Two aspects of this process stand out.
A. In the creation narrative, God first makes the stuff of creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then the creation narrative reveals God following a distinct pattern for Adam and Eve to later follow, separate and rearrange: Vs 4 And God separated the light from the darkness. Vs 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. Vs 9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” God, the Master Craftsman, recounts his actions in creating the cosmos not as simply speaking every sparrow, giraffe, and oak tree directly into existence. This would be a pattern no human can follow! Rather, he describes his creative work as separating and rearranging the stuff of creation because that is a pattern that he wants his delegates, human beings to follow, as they continue his creative work of developing the material world he entrusts to them. They are to separate the sound waves into notes and rearrange them into music, separate the light waves into colors and rearrange them into art, separate iron ore from the ground and rearrange it into bridges, separate rubber from trees and rearrange it into balls.
B. The second pattern in God’s creative process that leaps off the page is creating four kingdoms first, the heavens, the air, the water, and dry land (days 1-3.5) and then the rulers of those four kingdoms (days 4-6): 1) The ruler of the heavens: And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. 2) The ruler of the waters: God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm. 3) The ruler of the air: and every winged bird. 4) The ruler of dry land: And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth.” The connection of created beings to the kingdoms (realms) they rule sets the stage for the creation of man.
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. Notice how closely being God’s image bearers is linked to exercising dominion. That is what the High King of Heaven does. He rules. That is what he designed his image-bearers to do—rule. God delegates his rule over Kingdom Earth to humankind.
After linking the likeness of humans to himself as the ultimate ruler, God then issues the First Commission to the first man and woman. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Jordan Raynor, in his book, The Sacredness of Secular Work rightly observes that a correct understanding of our mission as Christ-followers begins by realizing that God’s work of creating was never completed by God. He argues, “God never intended creation to be a product we passively consume. He intended it to be a project we actively participate in.” The sixth day of creation has been mistakenly viewed as the end of creation, when it is actually just the beginning of the next chapter about humans creating:
“You might think that our story is ending, but in fact it is just the beginning. God made you to look like Him—to act and work and create with Him. Because while in six days God created a lot, there are so many things that He simply did not—like bridges and baseballs, sandcastles and s’mores. God asked us to create and fill the planet with more” (The Creator in You).
God delegated to us, his image bearers, the responsibility to continue his work of creating with the stuff of the material world and continue his work of ruling over, i.e. shaping the growing interaction of image bearers with each other and with the material world as they develop its potential. This interaction is called “culture.” Before the Great Commission was given by the Second Adam, God gave the First Commission to the First Adam and Eve. Let’s dig into a deeper understanding of it.
1. Be fruitful and multiply. The creation of human beings is not finished. However, God no longer makes males from the dust of the ground and females from the ribs of males. God delegates to the first husband and wife, the responsibility of creating humans through sperm joining egg. This very delegation of the further creation of humans through the pattern of one man and one woman conceiving a child by making love to one another speaks volumes about God’s creation of the human family as the first human institution. How perfect for a child to be conceived in a home in which his mom and dad are in love with each other and thus provide the stability of both father and mother for the child.
We are raising children and grandchildren who hear many voices that undermine God’s design of the family. Marriage is no longer defined as the joining of one man and one woman. God’s design of children to need the feminine touch of a mom and masculine involvement of a dad is being denied. In fact, the value of children, themselves, has been substantially lost in America, which now has a birth rate that is insufficient to replenish our population. Nevertheless, God’s created institutions will prevail against this assault. In contrast to the message sent through social media that the recipe for personal happiness is making money, living for yourself, and staying single or childless without the constraints of marriage or children, UVA researcher Brad Wilcox has proved that the opposite is actually the case. Here are just four of the facts uncovered by his research for his 2024 book, Get Married:
- Both men and women who get and stay married accumulate much greater wealth than people who don’t marry.
- Married men and women with families report more meaningful lives, compared with their single and childless peers.
- Couples who take a “we-before-me” approach to married life—by for instance sharing joint checking accounts—are happier and less divorce-prone than couples who do not.
- Couples who form “family-first” marriages—characterized by frequent date nights, family fun time and chores done with the kids—enjoy the happiest marriages.
It should not surprise us that those in marriages between one man and one woman who choose to have children flourish by every measure of evaluation. They are following God’s creation design. Every ounce of energy spent loving our wives, serving our children, and building our homes is fulfilling The First Commission!
2. Fill the earth. Jordan Raynor explains the meaning of the Hebrew word fill: “Scholars agree that this isn’t God reiterating the call for us to fill the maternity ward. While the command to ‘increase in number’ is a call to procreation, the command to ‘fill the earth’ is a call to civilization and cultural creation. It is God’s call to take this largely blank canvas he handed us on the sixth day and fill it with art and architecture, schools and services, tree forts and telescopes.” Nancy Pearcey notes that fulfilling this command given in our God’s First Commission to humans is fundamental to every human’s sense of fulfillment.
“The lesson of the Cultural Mandate is that our sense of fulfillment depends on engaging in creative, constructive work. The ideal human existence is not eternal leisure or an endless vacation—or even a monastic retreat into prayer and meditation—but creative effort expended for the glory of God and the benefit of others. Our calling is not just ‘to go to heaven’ but also to cultivate the earth, not just to ‘save souls’ but also to serve God through our work. For God himself is engaged not only in the work of salvation but also in the work pf preserving and developing his creation. When we obey the cultural mandate, we participate in the work of God himself." (Total Truth).
3. Subdue the earth. The ESV Study Bible notes:
“The term ‘subdue’ (Heb KABASH) elsewhere means to bring a people or land into subjection so that it will yield service to the one subduing it. Here the idea is that the man and woman are to make the earth’s resources beneficial for themselves, which implies that they would investigate and develop the earth’s resources to make them useful for human beings generally. This command provides a foundation for wise scientific and technological development.”
“Subdue the earth,” means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, operate businesses, write fiction, design I phones, and compose music. God has delegated to us, his image bearers, the responsibility for building civilization on the planet that is a mirror of his glory. I don’t know whether or not the cofounder of Nike, Phil Knight, is a Christian. But Knight captured the essence of this concept when he wrote:
“When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly the way everything should be done but seldom is—you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama” (Shoe Dog).
4. Rule over all of creation. The ESV renders rule, exercise dominion over the rest of creation. The High King delegates to us the shaping of life on Kingdom Earth as the population grows and diversifies, developing the earth’s resources. But we are to rule our portion of the kingdom FOR him, in alignment with the moral law of God written on every heart (Rom 2:15). Human life is to be regulated by the righteousness of the High King, summarized in the two Great Commandments, “Love the LORD with all your heart” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Righteousness was to prevail on earth, just as righteousness prevails in heaven.
After Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s rule, Satan, sin, and death took over earth’s throne causing life on the planet to descend into such wickedness that God destroyed nearly all of it in the flood. Interestingly, as the flood waters recede and created life begins anew, God repeats The First Commission to Noah in words nearly identical to those said to Adam and Eve, with one huge exception. Be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. But notice that the command to rule over creation is missing. This omission seems to reflect the truth that at that time, Satan, sin, and death were ruling Adam’s throne, not Adam. Adam’s race needed a Second Adam to overthrow the kingdom of darkness and win back Adam’s throne. And, as we are now celebrating in Advent, our Redeemer did come to take back Adam’s kingdom, and give it back to us, paying the penalty that our sins justly demand so that as Jesus destroys sin, he doesn’t have to destroy us. The Second Adam now re-delegates to us the responsibility to spread his kingdom of righteousness over all the earth making disciples of every nation.
FIVE TAKE-AWAYS
This entire episode about God the delegator is background for grasping more fully that God has delegated to us the responsibility for ruling earth in The First Commission and then again in the Great Commission, assigning us responsibility for taking his redemptive kingdom of righteousness into every sphere of earthly life where we have influence and into every corner of the globe. We are to exercise dominion, to rule, to implement righteousness there. Here are a few practical take-aways from what we’ve seen:
A. Every ounce of energy you spend to care for your wife, kids, grandkids and extended family is fulfilling our First Commission. The family is God’s primary institution for the benefit of planet earth, beginning even before the church. The importance of this sphere of life is so foundational that we all need a game plan. Here is a quick way to design a simple game plan for loving your wife well this week. Read through these components of love asking, “which need more attention from me?”
Love is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope.
B. Since vocation is how God tasked humans to develop Earths’ resources to benefit mankind, every effort to accomplish your work well, matters to God. It fulfills our First Commission. Richard Pratt describes this assignment: “The Great King has summoned each of us into the throne room. ‘Take this portion of my kingdom,’ he says, ‘I am making you my steward over your office, your workbench, your kitchen stove. Put your heart into mastering this part of my world. Get it in order. Unearth its treasures, do all you can with it.’” (Designed for Dignity)
C. Your vocation, the place where you spend most of the day, is your primary sphere for spreading the kingdom of righteousness. You might want to make some time to think and pray through how you can better cause your work sphere to conform to the values of the kingdom of God. Kingdom values include humility, servanthood, justice, integrity, treating all with dignity as God’s image-bearers, forgiveness, grace, mercy, compassion, fruitfulness, generosity, etc.
D. Because God has delegated to humans the development and shaping of every sphere of life on planet earth to exhibit his righteousness, you might make time to think about and write out Christ’s agenda for each major sphere of your life—in your role as husband, father/grandfather, employee/employer, neighbor, church member, citizen, steward of resources, ambassador of the kingdom. The common adage if you fail to plan, plan to fail rings especially true in fulfilling this responsibility assigned to you by God, himself. We need intentionality and a plan.
E. Your fruitfulness in every sphere depends upon your commitment to prayer for that sphere. Cornelius Plantinga, in his book, Engaging God’s World, writes,
“A Christian who goes to work for the kingdom (i.e. every Christian) simultaneously goes to war. What’s needed on God’s side are well-educated warriors (warriors who know what is going on). We are now fallen creatures in a fallen world. The Christian gospel tells us that all hell has broken loose in this sad world and that, in Christ, all heaven has come to do battle. Christ has come to defeat the powers and principalities, to move the world over onto a new foundation, and to equip a people—informed, devout, determined people—to lead the way in righting what is wrong, transforming what is corrupted, in doing things that make for peace.”
For Further Prayerful Thought
- How would you explain to someone the Genesis 1 teaching that God has delegated his royal rule over Kingdom Earth to mankind?
- In what sense would you say God has finished creation and in what sense would you say he has not finished his work of creating?
- When considering the Genesis 1:28 four-fold First Commission God gave to Adam and Eve, what is the significance of God starting out with the love-making process of husband and wife the first part of that commission? How can we uphold the value of the first human institution—the family—without demeaning those who are single, divorced, or childless?
- If the goal of both The First Commission and the Great Commission is to spread the righteous rule of Christ over every sphere of human life (beginning with surrender to King Jesus in the human heart) why do we Christians spend so little effort being intentional abut thinking through how to impact those spheres of human life where we have influence?
