Partnering with the Creator

The Garden of Eden story in Genesis 2:5-15 illustrates how we human beings were created to serve our Creator as partners-in residence.

The narrator notes two critical agents necessary for sustaining a fruitful landscape – the human and the divine, the gift of rain and the effort of grounds-keepers. Ecology is a partnership in which the Creator initiates and the human creature responds and both depend on the other. The Creator won’t initiate the process until his partner is ready.

This piece of the Judeao-Christian world-view fosters human progress and prosperity. God has created an orderly universe that can be explored and understood. And we are God’s co-creators, endowed us with dignity and reason, with language and skill. Civilization and culture, science and technology and commerce flow from these gifts. And through our use of them the resources of the world can benefit all humanity as well as the rest of creation. This enormous privilege brings with it a great responsibility.

In Genesis 1:28 God’s charge to humanity was “fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature” The word ‘subdue’ in this mandate means ‘to make to serve, by force if necessary.’ This keeps us from being too romantic about Nature and our relationship with it. Make no mistake, the world will resist. Creation will not do our bidding easily. Our mandate is to bring creation into submission.

But we must ask, submission to what or to whom? Before we are given this mandate of dominion, we are given a model for that work. We are fashioned in the image of God, in order to reflect and reveal God’s character and purpose on the earth. We are God’s partners; our mandate of dominion is not a license to dominate or domineer. Theologian Marva Dawn suggests that the Hebrew “to rule over” could better be rendered “to rule with”, i.e. to rule in creation in a way that is consistent with the needs of every creature and the earth.

Our calling is to exercise mastery within the created world, not a ferocious self-serving mastery, but a reflection of a self-giving God, a mastery that will culminate in the crucifixion of Christ. That is the high privilege and deep purpose of our calling and task in the world.

An essential component of this task is to subdue the beast within, our vanity and warped pride and lust for dominance, to learn God’s mastery over us and extend that gracious love out into his world. Failure to do this has resulted in all kinds of grief, including massive degradation of the environment seen all over the world. No wonder Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” Matthew 11:29.

Image Sources:
Farmer - Ludhiana Tribune
Sand-bagging - Diverse Specialties
Yoked Oxen - Tom