Let Them Have Dominion

Genesis 1:26-28

After last Sunday’s message, a visitor approached me to ask a question about the sermon. This visitor happened to be a seventeen year old young man. At that point, I didn’t really care about his question, I was just tickled that a teenager was listening to the sermon! Actually, he had a good question. He was thinking about the image of God in man and wondered if our conscience was also something that separated us from the animals. I’m not going to answer that question other than to say that I think he is right. I think that I may have slightly confused you last Sunday. I may have spent too much time defining the image of God as something that shows how we are different from the animals and lower life. To define the image of God in man is not so much to determine how we are different from the animals but rather to understand how similar we are to God. What does his special image in us look like? Even though we are similar to the animals in many respects, we are so much more like God than animals. If that wasn’t clear last week, I hope that it is now. I could spend a lot more time defining and exploring the image of God in man, but I want to focus on one prominent form of imago dei in our Scripture passage—the issue of dominion over creation. Let me read that section again.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷     So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

²⁸ And 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 heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (ESV)

I said last week that much of what it means to be created in the image of God is found throughout the Bible, but we don’t have to wait long to get to this aspect of dominion. Indeed—dominion is the very first thing that God says about the image of God.

It’s interesting because God mentions dominion twice in this short passage—in verse 26 and verse 28. They are nearly identical statements.

We are fairly used to the way this looks and sounds, so at first, we may not even realize that dominion is repeated. Now why would God say nearly the exact same thing in the space of three verses? Did he somehow forget that he had just mentioned dominion? Absent-minded people repeat things they have just said. People who are suffering early stages of dementia repeat things they have just said. I think we can confidently rule out the possibility that God is absent-minded or in the early stages of dementia, so there must be another explanation. I think it is mentioned twice because it is important. Not only is it mentioned twice, but it is the first thing that is said after being told that we have been created in the image of God.

The NIV says we are to “rule over” creation, but the more common translation, like the ESV I am using, is “have dominion over.” The first thing this statement does is to firmly establish the hierarchy that we have talked about before.

God

Man

Animals/things

We are part of God’s creation and therefore, under his authority, but God has determined that we should have authority over the rest of his creation. What I have been referring to the last few weeks as the “Biblical anthropic principle” is another way of saying the imago dei—the image of God in us. We have no intrinsic right to have dominion over creation. We do not deserve this authority and we did not earn this authority. It is given to us by divine fiat—through a direct command from God. We must also realize that we possess a derivative authority, that is, our authority is derived from God. This is plain from the text itself—“Let them have dominion.” God is “letting us” have dominion. He is allowing us to rule over his creation. It is his authority that he has given us to use both for our benefit and for his glory.

This is our first principle. Our dominion over creation is granted by God. We must never forget this because it will prevent us from abusing and misusing our authority. If we are ever tempted to exploit creation in any way, we are answerable to the Creator. Take a simple example like littering. If I am driving down Main Street and decide to throw my hamburger wrapper out the window, who am I accountable to at that point? If a police officer sees me, I am accountable to the local law enforcement. He has every right to write me a ticket for littering. But isn’t littering really a victimless crime? After all, who is really harmed by one measly hamburger wrapper? It’s not as if I tried to throw the wrapper at a small child or elderly person on the sidewalk, so what’s the harm?

The answer is obvious, isn’t it? If I was the only person on the planet to ever litter, then it would not be a big deal, but if we allow everyone to throw their garbage on the streets, then it immediately becomes an issue of public health. So a simple law like NO LITTERING is actually at the core of much bigger issues. I am accountable to local law enforcement. I am accountable to the whole town because my littering has an effect on public health. But much more than all of this, I am fundamentally accountable to God. Something as seemingly insignificant as throwing a wrapper out the window is a direct violation of our authority to have dominion over creation. A wrapper thrown on the ground is a violation of the imago dei. I don’t mean to get stuck on this one issue of littering, but we can quickly see the relevance of these three short verses in Genesis.

Especially given the environment in which we live, we really need to understand this issue of dominion over creation. We all know that our area is filled with tree-huggers. Some of them are average, run of the mill tree-huggers and some are extreme tree-huggers. To be fair, I should call them environmentalists and much of what they do is important work and fully in line with our responsibility of dominion. 

The example of the ash pits that Dairyland Power wanted to place in Vernon County is a fascinating and complicated example. You probably know that the whole problem started with radical environmentalists like the Sierra Club. They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for clean air laws which ultimately forced Dairyland Power to install the air scrubbers. But that created the problem of what to do with the massive tonnage of ash that is produced by the air scrubbers. Dairyland’s solution was to truck the ash to us and store it in giant pits, which was planned to be placed a mere two miles from my house. These pits would supposedly be able to withstand a hundred year flood, but as we all know, it just so happened that we experienced two “hundred year” floods within twelve months! So where was the Sierra Club when Dairyland was forcing the ash on us? They were completely silent on this environmental devastation because they knew full well that they had helped to create the problem in the first place. This is such a complex problem because we all want clean air, but we also want clean land, and in this case, clean air and clean land were in direct competition with each other. The people who came to the rescue were the local residents who gathered together and in the end, convinced Dairyland to relent. These were the true heroes in the story because they helped our community by exercising dominion over creation. Many of them may not even be believers and I am guessing that most of them didn’t have the slightest idea that they were fulfilling this part of their imago dei, but this is what they were in fact doing.

Even though we share this aspect of dominion with all humans, the first problem is that most of the world turns the God-ordained hierarchy upside down. They place animals and created things at the top and man at the bottom. Others claim that man, animals and created things are god—a type of animism where God is in all things and not the separate, perfect Creator.

The next problem is that many environmentalists believe that Christians are responsible for destroying the environment. They know that we have this belief in ruling over creation, but they would say that we have abused and exploited creation. Furthermore, others believe that we don’t care about the environment because we believe we will be raptured away from the earth at the end, so why worry if the earth is destroyed or not. I have heard both of these arguments many times and the problem is that some of it is based in truth. Some Christians, or at least people who call themselves Christians, have used the doctrine of dominion to abuse and exploit the environment. They have a massive misunderstanding of our Biblical doctrines, but so do we. Christians have not exactly been leaders in this arena.

If we really understood this doctrine of dominion over creation, we would know that dominion is a form of stewardship. By “letting us” have dominion over His creation, God was teaching us how to be wise stewards of his creation. Even the extreme environmentalists are right on this point—the earth does not belong to us. It has been entrusted to us to manage and steward with the utmost care and respect. But again, our respect is not for the earth per se, but for the Creator of this marvelous planet. Mother Earth and Gaia are popular names for god around here, but not in this church! Don’t ever forget the first recorded words of Jesus: “Let there be light.” All authority involves stewardship and responsibility. Do you recall the line from Spiderman, the last thing that Peter Parker’s uncle said to him? “With great power comes great responsibility.” To have dominion over the earth is to possess great power, but power in the absence of responsibility always leads to devastating consequences.

It is the same way in every arena of authority. We all have authority over our young children. Our children do not “belong” to us. They have been placed under our care to raise with principles of Godly stewardship. The moment we become abusive we have abandoned our high calling of stewardship and parenting. Similarly, elders have been granted authority over local congregations. You have seen this diagram many times. Elders have a delegated authority to lead and feed God’s flock. But Scripture is filled with specific commands about how to lead with authority. Leaders must love and care for their people. Leaders must sacrifice for their people. Leaders must never “lord over” their people. Scripture is filled with examples of abusive leaders—kings, prophets and priests—who have devastated their people by oppression, exploitation, cruelty and lack of concern. God always, always holds people in authority to a higher standard of accountability precisely because they have been given a higher  measure of authority. Authority in the absence of responsibility always leads to abuse. In the same way, dominion over creation without proper stewardship always leads to abuse.

A moment ago I said that the earth does not belong to us. It doesn’t belong to us in an absolute sense, but Psalm 115:16 says that the earth has been given to us. “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to man.” Dr. Beisner, founder of an evangelical organization for creation stewardship, calls this type of dominion “subordinate ownership.”[i] This type of stewardship is of a higher sort than basic stewardship. We are more than managers of God’s planet. We actually do own the planet, but in a subordinate kind of way. It is a kind of intensified stewardship—extremely high authority over the earth with a correspondingly high accountability for the earth and to the Creator.

We can and must agree on the core principles of dominion and stewardship, but how this works itself out in the real world can be a tricky thing. In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring, which many believe was largely responsible for the birth of the entire environmental movement. In her book, she claimed that the chemical DDT was responsible for weakening the shells of bird’s eggs, thereby killing untold populations of birds. All of the negative press on DDT eventually led to the Environmental Protection Agency banning all use of DDT in 1972. Eventually, other world governments completely banned DDT as well. The problem is that DDT is by far the cheapest and most effective pesticide which kills malaria carrying mosquitoes. Since the EPA banned DDT in 1972, malaria has killed 100 million people. The World Health Organization estimates that 90% of these deaths were pregnant women and children.

One could effectively argue that the lives of one hundred million people were of far greater worth than the lives of one hundred million birds, but it turns out that DDT wasn’t killing birds at all. So birds aren’t dying, but people are. This awful discrepancy in the use of DDT was so obvious that even the World Health Organization began actively promoting the widespread use of DDT three years ago, a full thirty five years after we banned its use.[ii] South Africa started using DDT in 2000 and has seen the death rate from malaria fall by 86%![iii] It’s not as if we just made a simple mistake that killed 100 million people. Forty years ago there was lots of evidence to show that DDT was basically safe when used properly. All of the evidence that contradicted Rachel Caron’s book was simply ignored. I am not laying the death of 100 million babies and pregnant women at the feet of Rachel Carson, but I am saying that ideas have consequences. We must practice stewardship and dominion over creation, but when it comes to science and the environment, we can’t afford to make any more mistakes like this one.

The environment has been the hot issue among evangelicals of late. But even here we should be discerning about whom to follow. One group called the Evangelical Environmental Network became infamous for the WWJD campaign—What Would Jesus Drive. This is a bumper sticker they were selling on their website. Does Jesus really care what kind of car you drive? On the one hand, if Jesus cares if you throw a hamburger wrapper out the window, we can’t say that Jesus doesn’t care if we are reckless and careless about wasting gas. Some people may spend $40,000 on a new car when God would want them to spend $20,000 on a car and give the rest to missions. So on one hand we could say that these kinds of decisions absolutely do enter into matters of stewardship, but if we reduce the issue of dominion and stewardship to a bumper sticker essentially promoting hybrid cars, I think we have gone too far and have missed the greater message.

There is another evangelical environmental organization that I greatly appreciate, called the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. Here is a brief summary of their purpose.

God calls us to steward creation, but presently much environmental advocacy and activism contradict sound theology and sound science. In response to this, a diverse task force representing a wide range of the theological, scientific and economic disciplines has been brought together to craft the Cornwall Stewardship Agenda.[iv]

If you want to think further about these issues, I highly recommend that you check out their website.

But dominion and stewardship is about far more than environmental issues. Part of ruling over and subduing the earth is the ability to make use of the earth for our benefit and God’s glory. Like the illustration from last week: The cell phone in the Garden of Eden.[v] While there was no cell phone in the Garden of Eden, the God-infused, creative potential to make a cell phone was present. A powerful example of this creative potential is the story of George Washington Carver.

Carver was born into slavery in 1864. He possessed a massive intellect and a deep faith which helped him become the most famous African-American scientist, developer of about 100 uses for the peanut and the man who single-handedly revolutionized agriculture in the southern states. In his own words, Carver explained the real reason for his success. “As I worked on projects which fulfilled a real human need, forces were working through me which amazed me. I would often go to sleep with an apparently insoluble problem. When I woke the answer was there. Why should we who believe in Christ be so surprised at what God can do with a willing man in a laboratory?”[vi]

In 1921 he was invited to Washington D.C. to speak to the House Ways and Means Committee as an expert on the peanut. They had planned to give him just ten minutes, but his presentation was so fascinating” that they decided to give him unlimited time. “At the end of his address, the committee chairman asked, ‘Dr. Carver, how did you learn all these things?’ carver answered, “From an old book.” “What book?” asked the chairman. Carver replied, “The Bible.” “Does the Bible tell about peanuts” was the follow up question. “No sir” Dr. Carver replied, but it tells about the God who made the peanut. I asked him to show me what to do with the peanut, and he did.”[vii]

This is what Biblical dominion and stewardship means—exercising dominion and stewardship over creation and making use of the God-infused, creative potential of his creation for our benefit and for his glory. This is what Gary Thompson does when he goes to work every day at the Valley Stewardship Network, testing water and educating the community about vital topics. This is what Dennis Hutchison does when he manages local forests. This is what Doug Aloisi does when he manages the fish hatchery. Though we are fortunate to have these people in our congregation, dominion and stewardship is not limited to those who work outside or directly with the environment. We have five pharmacists who attend our church. Pharmacy is an exercising dominion by understanding biochemistry and applying it to a useful end. The same could be said of nurses and doctors. Welders harness the power of heat to create things. You could take any occupation and show how it relates to dominion and stewardship of creation.

But all of our occupations and best attempts at ruling and subduing creation all remind us that we are not able to rule completely. Creation started as very good, perfect and without sin. But for the past 6,000 years or so, creation has been groaning under the weight of sin. Tornadoes and forest fires remind us that we can’t completely subdue or tame the environment. Killer viruses remind us that pharmacy can only go so far in helping people. Over time, rust will destroy even the strongest of welds. Creation is groaning under this weight of sin and all of it reminds that there must be a better way, that we need something more than our own futile efforts at dominion. We need someone who can redeem our lost souls. We need someone who can remove this weight of sin and futility. We need someone who will recreate the heavens and the earth. We need Jesus Christ, and if you are discerning, you can see your need for him in the most mundane parts of your day. Every prescription that is filled can point to Christ. Every math lesson that is taught in the home can point to Christ. If we can’t see the gospel of Christ in all of these things, then we need to ask the Holy Spirit to show us. If he can show George Washington Carver 100 uses for a peanut, he can show us himself in our daily routine of life.

Copyright by Rich Maurer, June 2009