Human Response 1: Have Dominion

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God created man and woman in His own image, and he blessed them. The human response to Creation and Blessing was to reproduce humans, fill the earth, and have dominion over every thing. This Adam did when he named the animals, thus keeping God’s command and fulfilling His promise. But then he failed in his role as vice-regent when he surrendered dominion over the created world to Satan, “the creeping thing.” Adam (and we) disobeyed the Lord, gave over the right to rule. and plunged the world (and all subsequent human beings) into sin and evil, darkness and death. Man’s response to God’s blessing brought terrible consequences on all.

Adam did not did not have dominion over the Serpent, over Sin, and all Evil. And now Death reigns, Sin rules, and Satan legally has dominion over the world. But the Second Adam came and took back the Kingdom and rules in the hearts. He did it by sacrificial love and perfect obedience, by taking dominion.

The human response to the blessing of God is to take it for granted and to surrender dominion to Sin, Death and Satan. But the divine response to our human surrender was to take back the dominion over evil and restore it to us in Christ, partially in this life by faith and completely in the next life by sight.