Viceroys of Creation

God made man in His image to glorify Him, we do this by ruling over and caring for all of God’s creation.

We are God’s royal representatives

Throughout the world at the time how did people view kings or pharaohs? Were they just people? No, they were those who were the “image of God”. They had a divine image and with that the authority of a god in the way that the ruled over their kingdom.

Now in Genesis we see God who is the ruler over all creation, He makes the heavens and the earth and everything in it. He makes it and then He brings order to the chaos of creation and gives it purpose. Then He puts man in the Garden and says they are made “in His image”.

-God tells man that they are to “rule” over creation. Over all the animals that are in creation.

-They are to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it”. They are called to expand God’s reign over creation over all the earth. That Eden was to expand over creation.

What we will see is God call His people to exercise their authority over creation.

-Noah will be called to do this. What does God tell Noah to do?

-In doing this he will exercise authority over all creation again as he brings them back to the Ark.

Genesis 9:1–7 “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and terror of you will be in every living creature on the earth, every bird of the sky, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are placed under your authority. Every creature that lives and moves will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything. However, you must not eat meat with its lifeblood in it. And I will require a penalty for your lifeblood; I will require it from any animal and from any human; if someone murders a fellow human, I will require that person’s life. Whoever sheds human blood, by humans his blood will be shed, for God made humans in his image. But you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out over the earth and multiply on it.””

What promise will God give Abraham?

-That his descendents will be as numerous as the stars. That they are to “be fruitful and multiply” over all the earth. His descendents will be as numerous as the stars.

Exodus 1:7 “But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them.”

The promise God makes to His people is that if they obey Him they can take their place again next to Him.

Exodus 19:3–6 “Moses went up the mountain to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain: “This is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.””

-God’s desired for them to enter the promised land, to fill it, to subdue it, and rule over it. And there His people may expand so that all the nations will know how great the Lord is. There God’s presence will be with His people.

Now if we read Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.””

Matthew 28:18–20 “Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

-What do you hear in these?

This shows that community is part of being representatives. We weren’t meant to do it on our own, but with others.

This is why God gave Adam a “helpmate”, because he couldn’t do the work on his own. The purpose of marriage is to magnify the worship of creation to God and to show God’s blessing on creation to restore order to creation.

We were made to rule over creation, not for creation to rule over us

Why does God give Adam this task? God already gave names in creation. To the sky and the land, to the sun and moon, to the birds and the fish. So why didn’t God just give a name to the animals?

This isn’t just labeling things, it isn’t a menial task.

-To give a name to something is to express authority over that thing.

-But it is also to give identity to that things, to give it dignity and value. It isn’t just a “thing”.

When Adam and Eve listen to the serpent they aren’t just seeking the authority of God, they are in fact failing to exercise their role to have dominion over all the animals, including this serpent.

-They also forfeit the throne that God has given them. They had certain responsibilities given to them by God, but instead of performing them they choose to give their worship and obedience to the Serpent instead.

-Then what we will see is that instead of them subduing and ruling over the earth, the earth will subdue them instead. The earth will rule over them.

-Instead of having peace and harmony with creation, it goes back to the chaos.

We will always be cultivating something

A. Worship and Obey

1. “Cultivate and keep” (2:15)

a. God had breathed life into Adam and God planted a garden in Eden and placed Adam there and he placed him “at rest” or shalom with God. There they will “cultivate and keep” the Garden.

b. This rest included the activity of cultivating and keeping it.

c. This shows us that work isn’t something that is a result of the curse (what we will see later is that sin means this good work will come with pain). It was in fact something that we are created for.

2. Worship and Obey (2:15) (Abad and Shamar)

a. In most [English versions] man is ‘put’ in the garden ‘to work it and take care of it.’” “a more suitable translation of the Hebrew… would be ‘to worship and obey.’” That is, “Man is put in the garden to worship God and to obey him.

-These words are also used for the tabernacle as they have their duties in order to enter the presence of God.

-It means “faithfully carrying out God’s instructions”.

b. The point?

That these acts of caring for the creation isn’t just listening to God, it is to glorify Him with our actions.

The highest honor given to mankind was to serve God in activity in the Garden.

i. Our loves become what we want.

Stated belief

+actual practice

=Actual belief

Faith is necessary in restoring God’s created order

Just like Noah, Abraham, David, and the many others who came before us show, just because we have sinned doesn’t mean there is no hope for us. But it means we need to trust God in order to restore it.

Jesus says that through Him the Kingdom will be at hand. Jesus does what Adam and Eve could not, He has victory over the serpent. He is obedient to the Father and He takes over the role as ruler over all creation. He will restore God’s glory to all the earth. And in doing that God’s people can take their place as those who reveal God’s glory.

-We are called to “fill the earth and subdue it” by sharing the Gospel with others, by telling others about the good news that God will come again.

Romans 8:15–23 “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”

Colossians 3:23–24 “Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.”

-This means that our actions of creating things. Whether we work with our hands, paint, woodworking, make food, work on our house or car, whatever it is, we are to imagine this as a way of living out God’s plans.

-To live in society is to live in a way that seeks the good of God’s created world.

-To see something that is worthless, that has no value, means that we haven’t considered its part of God’s creation and assigned it purpose.

-We aren’t to exploit the creation, use it for all its worth and discard it. Neither should we see it as something so sacred that we shouldn’t show any “control” over it. God gives mankind authority over creation, to be creative with it in the way that God is creative, to value it.

-Creation doesn’t have the same dignity as humanity but we are to value it the way that God values it, as “good”