There are two aspects to the cultural mandate in the state of innocence: the task of begetting and the organic multiplication of people and the task of forming a diversity of cultures. Embedded in the creation of humanity is a teleological (purpose) orientation – humanity was meant to spread and cultivate creation in obedience to their God, and no one community can possibly reflect the richness of His image. In his book “The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at it’s Best,” Irwin Ince, observes, “the image of God is much too rich for it to be realized in a single race, ethnic group, or culture.”
The call of the cultural mandate fittingly corresponds to the proper dominion image bearers of God are supposed to have over creation and is recognized by more contemporary thinkers as the “vocational” aspect of the image of God.
God gave the tasks of work and cultivation before the fall, showing the inherent goodness of human labor and culture – making. To be fruitful and multiply refers to the natural multiplication of human beings and the work that cultivates nature for their own good, in accordance with God’s command.
As image-bearers labor in obedience to the mandate, William Edgar describes this work as an exercise of “analogous power” that was given to human beings from God: “Embedded in this human activity is (at least in germ form) the development of agriculture, the arts, economics, family dynamics, and everything that contributes to human flourishing, to the glory of God. This management is of course in imitation of God’s greater stewardship over his creation. The so-called nature psalms attest to the overarching sovereignty of God over His creation and yet to His delegating analogous power to human beings.” Herman Bavinck says it this way, “And this dominion of the earth includes not only the most ancient callings of men, such as hunting and fishing, agriculture and stock raising, but also the trade and commerce, finance and credit, the exploitation of mines and mountains, science and art.”
Nature Psalms like Psalm 104.14-15 situate human work in parallel with and yet dependent on God’s work. God causes the livestock and plants to grow, so that humanity might make “wine” and “bread” to gladden his heart. To put it in theological terms: God creates ex nihilo (out of nothing) while humans create ex naturam (out of nature, i.e. something). God speaks and nature comes to be, but humanity, in an analogous fashion, creates out of the pre-existing natural material that God creates. Dominion, therefore, refers to this human cultivation of the natural world, going with the grain of God’s design. Human dominion is one of stewardship, displaying simultaneously both humanity’s dignity and servitude before God
We the human race, are predestined to fulfill the distinctive calling in that history; As humanity, we are assigned an exceptional place in the greater context of the Kingdom from the very first. We are simultaneously subjects and to some extent co-rulers over certain regions. Not everything is subjected to us: we are not given authority over the course of the stars and the plants or the tides of the never-resting seas. But the earth and its plants and animals have been assigned to us, given for us to rule over and to use for God’s service, to fathom and understand creation’s hidden powers, and so to bring to full development the innate possibilities of creation. That is the meaning of the cultural calling allotted to us immediately after creation (Ge.1.28-29).
To cultivate creation well involves discerning God’s design for creation – culture-making can easily deform into hubris and abuse when we determine for ourselves what we ought to make out of the natural world. Any fulfilling of the earthly vocation should be situated within the context of obedience to the Word of God. Cultivating earth is a great good, but without obedience to God’s Word, humans would not only abuse their proper viceregency, but they will also lose the highest good, which is God Himself.
Proper earthly dominion requires and presupposes true religion. Earthly and heavenly vocations comprise a singular holistic calling.
But in order to rule, man must serve; he must serve God who is his Creator and Lawgiver. All culture, that is, all work which man undertakes in order to subdue the earth, whether agriculture, stock breeding, commerce, industry, science, or the rest, is all the fulfillment of a single Divine calling. But if man is really to be and remain such he must proceed in dependence on and in obedience to the Word of God. Religion must be the principle which animates the whole of life and which sanctifies it into a service of God.
The cultural mandate is a heavenly mandate, as that vertical relation with God determines how humans represent God on earth. The obedience to the Word of God and Adam’s responsibility to convey that Word to Eve and his progeny testifies to humanity’s prophetic role – i.e. man’s purpose.
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)
Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org