Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (5/50) – The First Great Commission

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the fifth of the fifty emails…

Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’
Genesis 1:26-28

What is to be the role of human beings in the story about to unfold?

It’s the sixth day, and the author of Genesis 1 makes it clear – through devoting more space to it, through repetition, through the divine ‘let us’ which first plans and then executes the plan – that something even more significant is about to happen. Now the Creator forms a creature – unlike any of the others – who bears his image…

We give thanks that we have been created with the capacity for emotion, the ability to think and communicate – like God himself – although it’s not apparent that his ‘image’ should be identified with these things. It is clear that man and woman together constitute the image of God, that humans are made for relationship with each other as well as with God. Even so, sexual differentiation extends to dolphins, chickens, and elephants as well – making it an integral part of his design for the world, but not necessarily the most significant point about being made in his image.

More notable is the connection of the image with the vocation of men and women to rule creation, as representatives of God on earth, charged with the task of ‘dominion’ over other creatures. Cultures surrounding Israel told stories of people being made as slaves of the gods, with the language of ‘image’ applied only to kings. In Genesis, however, all human beings are created in the image of God, giving men and women a status and responsibility not found in other worldviews.

And Genesis 1 continues to shape our views of humanity – and our lifestyles too – since the tasks of ‘filling’ and ‘subduing’ and ‘ruling’ have not been taken away. In the first place, of course, this refers to the building of families, the growing of crops and breeding of animals, the tending of the garden to which Adam is called. Creation requires cultivation.

But such cultivation provides the basis of the organisation of society, and includes by extension the development of culture and civilisation – building houses, designing clothes, writing poetry, playing chess. These are the ‘mundane’ ways in which we – this very day – exercise our creation mandate, as we represent God’s rule over every type of cultural activity, in relationship with others, and in a way that reflects God’s own nurturing, creative hand. May it be so.

For further reflection and action:

1. What is it that occupies the bulk of your waking hours – work, education, home, hospitality, childcare…? How is the image of God demonstrated in these things?

2. Read and reflect on Psalm 8. In what ways does its portrayal of human beings as ‘crowned with glory and honour’ shape our perceptions of ourselves and others?

3. Try to spend some time this week reflecting on the fact that the first purpose of humanity is not ‘spiritual’ (in terms of how that word is commonly understood), but the somewhat ordinary category of exercising stewardship over our earthly environment as God’s representatives. What difference might this make to your week?

4. If our fellow human beings share the mandate to ‘cultivate’ the earth, what are the implications of this for how we treat their work, art, products, etc.? And are there any areas of cultural ‘cultivation’ that are inherently suspect – advertising, cosmetics, fashion, interior design, contemporary art, weapons manufacturing?