In Genesis 1:26–28, God gives humanity a mission. Some have called this mission the “creation mandate” or the “cultural mandate”. The heart of this original mission was to proclaim God’s kingdom by filling creation with his image and reigning over creation as his royal children. Yet, Genesis 3 reveals that Adam failed to carry out this mission.
Now, no matter how fruitful we are, how well we care for creation, or how faithful we are in our vocation, we cannot overturn the curse or heal all the brokenness of this world. We are now broken images that proclaim ourselves and not God’s rule in our parenting, our work, and our attitude toward creation.
But this is not the end of the story. The rest of Scripture shows us that the creation mandate does not simply end with Adam or Eve. At the same time, it is not merely something we try to accomplish on our own. To fully understand how this original mission applies God’s people today, we need to trace how it is interpreted and applied throughout the Bible.
We need to remember that the Bible is one story, the true story of this world. And one of the storylines is about this original mission. When we trace this storyline, it leads us to Jesus.
But before we get there, we need to go back to Genesis and start with Noah and his sons.
Noah and His Sons
After the flood, God repeats a version of the creation mandate to Noah and his sons.
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. (Genesis 9:1–2)
God gives Noah a very similar mission to what he gave to Adam. He calls Noah and his sons to fill the earth. They also rule over the animals, but now God speaks of fear and dread. God goes on to declare that there will be reckoning for all who murder another human being (Gen 9:5–6). All is not right in God’s creation. Before the flood, the earth was filled, not with the proclamation of God’s gracious rule, but with violence (Genesis 6:11).
Noah and his sons also fail to carry out this mission faithfully. They are not the ones who bring restoration. The descendants of Noah do increase, but instead of filling the earth, they build a tower to proclaim their own name, their own kingdom—the kingdom of Babel (aka Babylon).
Like Adam, Noah and his family do not fulfill God’s original mission for humanity. In the end, Noah’s descendants disregard God’s Word and proclaim their own kingdom. We must keep looking for the fulfillment of this mission.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Following the Babel debacle, God chooses a man named Abraham and his sons to take up the mission. God chooses a man who has no children, and he blesses him and promises many descendants (Gen 12:1–3). In this case, however, God does not give Abraham the mission to “be fruitful and multiply.” Instead, he makes a covenant with Abraham and promises that God himself will multiply Abraham’s children.
God promises him both offspring and a land to fill:
“Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers. . . . I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. . . . The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:2, 6, 8)
God repeats this promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac, “I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” (Genesis 26:4).
Later, God also appears to Isaac’s son, Jacob and declares,
“I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”
Later in Genesis, we see how God keeps these promises, and creates his people, Israel: “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly,” (Genesis 47:27).
Exodus begins in a similar way: “But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them,” (Exodus 1:7).
God redeems his people from Egypt and brings them into the land where they subdue their enemies. Eventually, kings like David and Solomon have dominion in the land and promote the peace of God’s people all around them (1 Kings 4:24).
Israel
Thus, in the Old Testament, the original mission for humanity is passed down to a remnant God has chosen, his people Israel. God called and chose the people of Israel to be his children, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the land God would give them. In so doing, they were called to live under God’s rule and proclaim his Kingdom.
In the book of Isaiah, God likens his people Israel to a new Adam. He declares that God has created Israel, made him, formed him, and called him by name. In Isaiah 43:6-7, God declares, “I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
This is Genesis 1 language, used for the people of Israel, who were created for God’s glory, created to proclaim him to the nations. They were to be his sons and daughters—servants who bore witness to who God is (Isa 43:10). God declares to his people “I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.” (Isaiah 43:15).
But Israel too failed in this mission. They failed to proclaim God’s kingdom by keeping his Word and bearing witness to the nations. Like Adam and Eve, Israel was cast out of the land God had given them. They were exiled from God’s kingdom.
But even in the exile God gives a promise and grace. We see this promise in the text above in Isaiah 43. God also declares through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.” (Ezekiel 37:26).
God promises in the prophets that a remnant of his people will return to the land, and God will raise up a Servant, a Son, a King from among them. He will be the one to restore the Kingdom to God’s people—which leads us to Jesus, the Messiah.
Jesus, the Messiah
Jesus enters the scene of human history, and he is proclaiming the Kingdom of God. We read in Mark 1:14-15 “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”
Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum go as far as to say: “Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom is nothing less than the message we already find in Genesis 1:26–27.”[1] Jesus came as the perfect Son of God, the true and better Adam, the Image of the Invisible God. He proclaimed the Kingdom of God and called people to receive the kingdom, enter the kingdom, and seek first the kingdom. Doing that means turning our backs to our rebellion against God and submitting to his rule by trusting in his Son.
The New Testament declares that Jesus fulfills Adam’s original mission for us.
The creation mandate is cast down by Adam. Adam failed to proclaim God’s kingdom and rule creation as God called him to. None of us can pick up that mandate. Noah couldn’t. Abraham couldn’t. David couldn’t. Israel couldn’t. But Jesus, the Son of God, comes and he picks it up and keeps it himself for his people.
Jesus is the one who fulfills God’s mission and purpose for humanity. God has subjected the world to him. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18). According to Hebrews 2, he has been crowned with glory and honor through the suffering of death (Heb 2:9). Jesus proclaims God’s rule and receives all authority as the Suffering Servant, the Crucified King.
This world and all the world to come will be subject to him. One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10–11). The end of the story of the Bible is a new heavens and new earth where Jesus Christ will rule forever with his people. That is where all of history is headed.
History started with God’s creation of the heavens and the earth. History will end and eternity will begin with a new heavens and earth. It started with God creating man and woman in his image and giving them a mission. It will end with a new humanity renewed in God’s image, all because of the work of the Second Adam.
Applying the Creation Mandate in Light of Jesus
In light of the rest of Scripture, we cannot look at Genesis 1:26–28 and merely come away with some nice pointers about how to be better human beings. If we try to find our main purpose and identity in trying to carry out an aspect of the creation mandate, we will lose hope and become frustrated. None of us can carry out this original mission and get rid of the curse that now lies upon this world.
If we wrap our chief purpose and identity around having kids and parenting, we will run up against challenges and disappointments. If we wrap our chief purpose around vocation, work, recreation, we will run into bodies that will eventually quit on us, elements outside our control that discourage us. If we wrap our chief purpose and identity around caring for creation, we will constantly run into a creation that is groaning. You cannot overturn these things, no matter how hard you work at it.
But Jesus comes to this marred and broken world and he offers hope. He promises a Kingdom that cannot be shaken. He gives us good news that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give his people the kingdom (Luke 12:32). Restoration is coming—but not by any of us trying to do all that Adam failed to do. No, we look at our original mission, and we see how we have rebelled against it and failed to submit to God’s rule and proclaim his kingdom.
We must look to Jesus Christ and see that he is the one who did what Adam could not do. He is the King, and we owe everything to him. We should hear the song sung in heaven about Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb, our King:
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9–10)
Have you been ransomed by the blood of Jesus? Are you a part of his kingdom? Is your destiny to reign with him on the earth? That’s what God made us for. To proclaim his kingdom and participate in his kingdom. That was our calling.
But, in Adam, we rebelled against God’s rule and failed in this mission. But Jesus faithfully carried it out. Now all authority is his so that when we trust in Jesus, we can be forgiven, and healed, and restored in Christ to enter God’s kingdom. All who turn to Jesus Christ are heirs of his kingdom.
This helps us understand the church’s mission today. Our mission today as Christ’s people is to proclaim God’s kingdom in all creation by proclaiming the good news of Jesus and filling creation with disciples restored in his image. Jesus restores us as a renewed humanity with a renewed mission: fill the earth with more and more disciples of Jesus who are conformed to his Image. Let’s be busy about that mission for the glory of Christ our King.
This post was adapted from a recent sermon, which you can view below:
[1] Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 307
