The Dominion Mandate

"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion..."

“Consummation” the third painting from Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire

Over the last decade or so I’ve spent a good amount of time pondering what it means for man to be made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). Theologians have discussed various possibilities, including the rationality of humanity, or our ability to love, or our ability to exercise volition. In these ways we resemble God (bear his image), for we alone in creation share these types of qualities with God. Yet I’ve become convinced that there is something more foundational than merely resembling God’s characteristics. I would suggest that bearing God’s image is fundamentally about representing God, like a vice-regent represents his king. Yes, this would include resembling the characteristics of the king. But it would also include acting on behalf of the king and in accord with the king’s purposes.

What is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet.

Psalm 8:4-6

King David also spent a good amount of time pondering what it meant to have been made in God’s image. Psalm 8 was penned, no doubt, as David meditated on the opening verses of the Torah:

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.”

Genesis 1:26

On the first page of Scripture man’s raison d'être is given: bear the image of God. But this is immediately followed not with a list of divine characteristics to emulate, but rather a vocation, a mission, a mandate.

In a word? Dominion.

Take dominion over the fish, over the birds, over the livestock, over all the earth. Bearing God’s image is about exercising dominion. It’s first about what a person does before it’s about what a person is. Form follows function. Our purpose is dominion on behalf of God as his representatives (function). Therefore, our rational, spiritual, and relational characteristics resemble those of God (form). We are vice-regents, and as such we are to act on behalf of God (function) in a manner that is like God (form).

Lessons from Narnia

C.S. Lewis was very attuned to the human vocation to rule on behalf of God. In Prince Caspian, the badger Trufflehunter rejoices when Caspian discovers Old Narnia (the talking beasts who had been in hiding every since Caspian’s ancestors conquered the country), and in his exuberance he proclaims:

This is the true King of Narnia we’ve got here: a true King, coming back to true Narnia. And we beasts remember, even if Dwarfs forget, that Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was King.

The centaur Glenstorm also comments:

Tarva and Alambil have met in the halls of high heaven, and on earth a son of Adam has once more arisen to rule and name the creatures.

The allusions to Genesis are not so subtle. Only a son of Adam, a human, is fit to rule over all the other creatures of Narnia. Only a son of Adam has the authority to “name the creatures.” And, as the story goes, Aslan establishes Caspian as the king over all Narnia. Yet it is plain to any reader that the true king of Narnia is Aslan himself. Thus Caspian is a king under the King, and his rule is an extension or representation of the rule of Aslan.

To the Ends of the Earth

In the ancient world it was common for kings to set up statues of themselves throughout their kingdoms to remind their subjects who was in charge. The Greeks called them eikons, or icons. The pagan nations were full of icons, but not Israel (except for when Israel was apostate, which was most of the time, but I digress).

Israel was forbidden to make icons, graven images, and to worship them (Ex. 20:4-6). They were forbidden to make icons of God not only because doing so would inevitably cause them to stumble into the errors of pagan religions, but because God had already made icons of himself. They were the icons of God. We are the icons of God.

The original dominion mandate from Genesis 1 included the command to subdue all the earth. In Genesis 2, God planted a garden—a safe, manicured, abundant home for humanity. But we weren’t supposed to stay there. We were supposed to expand the garden, to push its borders outward until every part of the earth was filled with the icons of God (thus the command to be fruitful and multiply). As mankind subdued the wilderness outside the garden, his very act of dominion would be representative of the God who holds dominion over heaven and earth. The earth would be filled with the icons of God, and so be covered with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).

Mission in Process

This original dominion mandate has not been lifted, voided, or altered in any way. Our vocation was not changed just because we failed to abide by God’s word and represent him faithfully. Though sin and death make the mission that much more difficult, our purpose remains the same. We are to glorify God by faithfully representing him and extending his rule and reign over every square inch of his creation. And this is precisely what Jesus came to enable us to do.

He is the image of the invisible God.

Colossians 1:15

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

Hebrews 1:3

Adam failed. And in him, so did all of humanity. But it was to humans that God gave the mission to have dominion over the earth. And for this reason, the Son of God became human—to be the man we could not be and bear in himself the consequences of our failure. It was humans who broke the world. Therefore, it was a human who had to fix it.

And he does so by fixing us.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Colossians 3:10

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:20-24

What does it mean to be a disciple? It means you are being restored into the image and likeness of God, which is to say, you are learning to subdue and have dominion over the earth on behalf of the high King. The old self, inherited from Adam, has been crucified with Christ, and now the resurrected Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20), transforming us into his likeness from one degree of glory to the next (2 Cor. 3:18).

Christianity is a religion of world conquest. Not by means of the sword, but by means of the restoration of broken image-bearers who bring everything in their lives under submission to the King. And what will be the result?

The next Christendom.

Until next time,

Lance

p.s. My firstborn’s middle name is… Caspian.