Theodrama: Act I, Scene 3 – God Invests Humanity with Dignity and Mission
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Genesis 1:28
The Lord God took the adam and rested adam in the Garden of Eden to serve and protect it.
Genesis 2:15 (my translation)
These texts identify humanity’s vocation. They invite humanity into God’s goal for the creation. God invites humanity to flourish, fill the whole earth, subdue the cosmos, and protect the divine sanctuary. God intends for Eden to expand and fill the earth as humanity faithfully participates in God’s mission. We are God’s junior partners in that mission.
God created us as God’s own images in distinction from all other life. Humanity has a special role within the creation as the image of God within the cosmic temple, God’s house. As the living images of God within the creation, humanity represents God in the world, mediates God’s presence as priests, and reigns over the creation as royalty. When God finished the temple, God placed images within it. Human beings (both male and female) are those images.
Multiply and Fill
This is humanity’s expansionistic function.
God “rested” humanity in the Garden. The Hebrew Bible uses this word to describe divine and human rest on the seventh day (Exodus 20:11; 23:12; cf. Deuteronomy 5:14), God’s gift of rest to Israel in the land (Deuteronomy 25:19; Josh. 1:13, 15; 1 Chronicles 23:25; 2 Chronicles 14:6), and God’s habitation of the temple (2 Chronicles 6:41). God created adam (the human being) from the adamah (ground) and rested adam in the Garden to rest with God as a royal priest in Eden.
Eden, however, was not a static reality. God intended humanity to multiply and fill the whole earth, to expand Eden until it filled the earth, until everything was “Holy to the Lord” (Zechariah 14:20). Humanity, as well as animal life, is to populate the earth, and God “formed” the earth “to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18). God multiplies and fills the earth with glory through the praise of God’s creatures (cf. Genesis 1:22; 8:17; 9:1, 7). God multiplied Israel (Genesis 47:27; Exodus 1:7; Leviticus 26:9; Jeremiah 3:16) and later multiplied the church (Acts 6:1, 7; 9:31; 12:24) as an embodiment of this original vision.
Nevertheless, when humanity failed to cooperate, God scattered them. Yahweh scattered humanity at Babel, Israel through exile, and the church through persecution. The divine mission is to fill everything—the heavens and the earth—and everyone with God’s glory.
Subdue
This is humanity’s creative function.
As Creator, God brought order out of chaos. Hovering over the waters enclosed in darkness, God brought order to an uninhabitable earth, a chaotic void. God subdued the earth to provide habitable space, and then God filled the space with life.
Unfortunately, some believe the call to “subdue” empowers humanity to exploit the earth and deplete its resources. On the contrary, “subdue” partners with God’s creative work to bring order out of chaos.
The seven days of creation did not rid the cosmos of chaos. Darkness still exists, the waters still exist, and a chaos figure—the serpent—entered Eden itself. God called the light good but not the darkness. God did not remove the waters but gave them boundaries. Outside of Eden, chaos exists within the creation.
Humanity partners with God to subdue the remaining chaos. This ordering includes things as diverse as domesticating a field for crops or goats for milk as well as developing software programs to bring order to a chaotic mass of data.
To subdue the earth means to partner in God’s creative work; it does not mean abusing or exploiting the creation. Whatever chaos remains in the creation, humanity is called to subdue it and order it for life in partnership with God.
Rule
This is humanity’s royal vocation.
Too often we hear “dominion” in tyrannical, oppressive, militaristic, or manipulative ways, but this is not how God rules. As images of God, we rule in the likeness of God.
For example, the kings of Israel, though they did not always effectively do so, represented God in the nation. God desired they rule with justice and mercy. Psalm 72 reminds Israel what “dominion” means, the humble exercise of power in the service of mercy (cf. Leviticus 25:43, 46, 53). Their rule was supposed to be more like how a shepherd “rules” (cf. Ezekiel 34:4) rather than how a dictator “rules.” Far from exploitation and abuse, God’s imagers rule as servants who give life. They benevolently care for the creation.
This gains greater clarity when we recognize we are co-rulers with God. God shares dominion with us. We are co-workers, junior partners. This is our identity, and it is part of our mission to develop the full potential of creation as we lovingly care for it and gratefully enjoy it. We pursue familial, social, and communal shalom as we embody the justice and mercy of God within creation.
This vocation involves every aspect of human life. The arts (music, literature, fine art) are expressions of human creativity. Technology manages resources; medicine serves wholeness; and social structures shape community. These are part of the human vocation, our partnership with God, as co-rulers and co-creators within the creation.
This means no work is “secular” as if it is disconnected from our missional identity. Every good work—no matter how “secular”—participates in the mission of God.
Human beings are called into multiple kinds of works or different vocational careers. As participants in community, we choose particular careers. We choose these careers as means to love God and serve our neighbors. Through these careers, we participate in the mission of God. Medical professionals partner with God in healing. Financial counselors partner with God as they mediate justice for creditors and mercy for debtors. Professionals in the legal community partner with God as they pursue justice. Environmental biologists partner with God as they preserve and care for the creation.
Partnering with God toward the fulfillment of the mission of God is ministry in the kingdom of God. Nurses, counselors, biologists, and lawyers co-rule with God. Through their careers, they are ministers and royal priests in God’s kingdom.
Serve and Protect
This is humanity’s priestly vocation.
We are priests in the temple of God. Though English translations often given an agricultural feel to these Hebrew verbs, such as “till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15), Ellen Davis (among others) has demonstrated this is priestly language (Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, 192-194). Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible when these two words occur to together, they describe the Levitical service of God’s appointed servants in the tabernacle (Numbers 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:7).
The first verb normally describes ministering or serving the ground (Genesis 2:5; 3:23; 4:2, 12) or the garden (Genesis 2:15). The second verb is normally translated “keep,” “guard,” or “protect.” Priests protect or guard the holiness of the sanctuary. This may include agricultural dimensions, but given the temple and sanctuary language in Genesis 1-2, it stresses humanity’s priestly role within the creation. Like priests in the temple, we serve God’s creation and protect it from anything unclean.
As priests, we mediate the praise of creation to the Creator, and we mediate God’s rule over the world in the creation. We represent the creation in our praise of God, and we fill the material world with thanksgiving as we receive the creation from God with gratitude. As priests, we bless the creation and lead the creation in blessing God.
Priests are deeply connected with the parties they mediate. As images of God, we represent God to the creation. As part of creation, we represent creation to God. We are spiritual-material beings who participate in both the spiritual reality of God and the material reality of the creation. This is part of our human identity.
Conclusion
God placed humanity in the Garden of Eden as divine images in the cosmic temple of God to serve in God’s sanctuary. As living, breathing images of the living God, humanity was tasked to partner with God in ruling over life upon the earth, subduing the remaining chaos, filling the earth with God’s living glory through human flourishing, and serving and protecting God’s sanctuary.
Humanity is gifted to co-rule, co-create, and co-subdue in partnership with God. This is, at least in part, what it means to live as the image of God within God’s cosmic temple.
November 4th, 2015 at 7:34 am
Very well said John Mark thanks so much
October 14th, 2019 at 8:02 pm
Great work bro.
We need theology based on the story of the Bible, or what we call Narrative Theology and not just theology based on collection of verses to persuade people that our church is unique and different to other churches.
My only observation, how about the “Kingdom of God fits” into this Theodrama?
Isn’t “dominion” is also another image of God given to man to reflect God’s reign through their way of managing the creation? (Psalm 8)
October 15th, 2019 at 4:30 pm
Yes, the creation itself is the realm or kingdom of God, and God shares dominion (reign) with us. This dominion is presently inhabited by the principalities and powers of evil, and therefore we must confront the powers. The resurrection of Jesus defeats these powers and the cross triumphs over them, and that is the inauguration of the kingdom of God that will fill the earth and regain the creation as the dominion of God.