Glorious and Depraved (4): The Creation/Cultural Mandate (Part One)

The “cultural mandate” this has been called, or some would prefer, “creation mandate.”

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

²⁷ God created humankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” ²⁹ Then God said, “I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has living breath in it—I give every green plant for food.” It was so. (Genesis 1:26-30, NET)

The mandate, or command (some have called it the first job description), has three main parts: 1) reproduce, 2) expand, and 3) control.

The command to reproduce was also given to the sea creatures and birds (v.22). God blesses them and tells them to multiply, telling the sea creatures to fill the waters. Humans have the same responsibility. Male and female, husband and wife, must have sexual intercourse to produce children. This is the fruitfulness God has endowed humans with, as well as animals. We often call this procreation. It is a creative act. It is not creating something from nothing, like God does, but it is nonetheless an aspect of us as image bearers that, like God, we create.

The command to fill the earth is a command to expand into all the habitable regions of the earth. To some degree the multiplication of humans would require expansion since we could not sustain ourselves in one place. But this is also a call to exploration of all of God’s world to discover new places to live and rule.

To subdue the earth or have dominion over it is to control the earth, to rule over it as God’s vice-regents. It is our call to learn our world and all its creatures and use these resources for civilization-building.

It is clear from the mandate that both men and women are to accomplish these requirements. This is not a man’s world, or wasn’t intended to be. It is also clear that there are limitations. God gave only plants for food to both mankind and the animals. This changes after the flood (Genesis 9:3). There are, of course, places on the earth that might not be habitable. And at this point human beings are not sinners who would abuse God’s earth. However, the mandate is repeated to Noah and his family after the flood, so it is not limited to unfallen human beings. We may characterize the mandate as a continuation of reversing the condition of 1:2, tohu vebohu (traditionally translated “formless and void”), the reversing of being unproductive and unpopulated.