The material creation is a fundamental of our work.
The first two chapters of the biblical Genesis outline the creation of the heavens, the earth, and all living things, they also outline the functions of the creation and, in particular, mankind’s role on the earth—dominion and stewardship:
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:26-29). “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).
These two verses are the heart of what has historically been called mankind’s “cultural mandate.” Examined in the light of other Scriptures, it’s clear that people are mandated by their Creator to develop the potentialities of the earth in such a way as to bring honor and glory to God and reflect His attributes: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
Andrew Linzey expressed it like this: “We need a concept of ourselves in the universe not as the master species but as the servant species—as the one given responsibility for the whole and for the good of the whole. We must move from the idea that animals were given to us and made for us, to the idea that we were made for creation, to serve it and ensure its continuance. This actually is little more than the theology of Genesis chapter two. The Garden is made beautiful and abounds with life: humans are created specifically to ‘take care of it’” (Genesis 2:15). [Photo: "The Angelus" by Jean-Francois Millet, 1857-59]
Francis Schaeffer indicated the same in slightly different terms: “Man has dominion over the ‘lower’ orders of creation, but he is not sovereign over them. Only God is the Sovereign Lord, and the lower orders are to be used with this truth in mind. Man is not using his own possessions. . . . When we have dominion over nature, it is not ours either. It belongs to God, and we are to exercise our dominion over these things not as though entitled to exploit them, but as things borrowed or held in trust which we are to use realizing that they are not ours intrinsically. Man's dominion is under God's dominion and in God's domain.” (From Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology).
Even more elegant are the words of Jean Mouroux in The Meaning of Man:
Man is linked with nature in the vital, moral, and religious orders; and with her he forms an organic whole which finds its meaning and definitive fulfilment in the glory of God. But man alone is conscious of it. He alone is able to present the world to God in thought and love and to glorify God through the world. Thus he is bound up with nature, but only to rule, complete, and achieve it: he is “the animal that commands,” but commands in order to serve and do homage; and thus he is truly creation’s priest. And fraternal nature, not unhelpful, but seeking, desiring, looks up to him who alone can fulfill her desire by giving her a soul and a voice wherewith to honor her God.
We sometimes make the mistaken assumption that work was the result of the Fall. But the truth is that God gave us our work well before the sin nature took us over. Now, under the Creator's curse, work is far more tedious and fraught with frustration. Nonetheless, though the material world was cursed in order to discipline mankind and keep him from pride and presumption, the Bible never says the material earth is sinful—fallen. From the Scriptures quoted above we can logically assume that God still treasures and has compassion on all He has made (Psalm 145:9). Therefore, as we do our work, we do it utilizing—and honoring—the material creation, and we love it as God loves it.
[Part 4 next week: "The Material Creation Is a Fundamental of Our Worldview"]
Dean Ohlman is the host of RBC Ministries website: "The Wonder of Creation." You can read more of Dean's writing at the RBC site: http://www.wonderofcreation.org/
