Glorious and Depraved (5): The Creation/Cultural Mandate (Part Two)

Be fruitful and multiply! (Genesis 1:28)

Bearing children, reproducing, seems, in a way, something that happens without consciously obeying the command. Men and women are drawn together in love and to sexual intercourse and children are conceived. Why does God make it a command? Why give it to us as a mandate?

Not everyone is going to reproduce sexually. Jesus did not, and he indicated that there were some people who were not meant to be married and have children, but were to serve the Lord as singles (Matthew 19:10-12, see also 1 Corinthians 7:1-9). It is not required for everyone to reproduce in this way.

Some people are not able to reproduce. The history of Scripture is the history of women in the line of Shem who were not initially able to bear children until God “opened their womb” (Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth, etc.). Infertility prevents some couples from having children.

Some people don’t want to reproduce. And given their circumstances we might agree that it is best for them not to reproduce. There may be dangers in reproducing. Some, of course, don’t want to reproduce for selfish reasons, or because of emotional wounding, and perhaps the mandate is for them.

Have we overpopulated the earth and need to stop reproducing, or reproducing so much? Sources differ, but it is clear that we have “undergone a population explosion, colonising nearly every habitat on the planet and exerting our influence on even the remotest corners” (BBC.com). If we define overpopulation as exceeding the current capacity of our ecosystem (Heather Alberro), some would argue that we have, and that we are consuming 1.6 planet earths a day.

Here is where, though the cultural mandate from God is still in place, our sinful failure to properly steward the earth, to fill and subdue it (expand and control), has led to this problem. We are only obeying part of the mandate.