The Development Of Culture

The Development of Culture

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. . . . [Jabal] was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. Zillah also had a son . . . who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.

— Genesis 2:15; 4:20-22

The happiness of heaven is not like the steady, placid state of a mountain lake where barely a ripple disturbs the tranquility of its water. Heaven is more akin to the surging, swelling waves of the Mississippi at flood stage.^a

— SAM STORMS

Art, music, literature, crafts, technology, clothing, jewelry, education, food preparation—all are part of society or culture, the creative accomplishments of God’s image-bearers. Human creations are an extension of God’s own creative works, because he created us to reflect him by being creators.

As humans, we glorify God by taking what he created from nothing and shaping it into things for our own good and for his glory. The entire universe—including angels and living creatures in Heaven—should look at our creative ingenuity, our artistic accomplishments, and see God in us, his image-bearers. If that’s true now, how much more will it be true when there’s nothing in us to dishonor him?

We should expect the social dynamics from Earth to carry over to the New Earth, except when they’re a product of our fallenness or when God reveals otherwise. It’s true that with engines have come pollution and fatalities, with printing and publishing have come godless books and magazines, and with television has come the glorification of immorality and materialism. Computers have opened up access to incredibly destructive Internet pornography. The splitting of the atom spawned a destructive bomb and the loss of human life. With medical advances have come abortion and euthanasia. Yet none of these negative by-products are intrinsic to the cultural advances themselves. Imagine those advances used purely for righteous purposes, without sin to taint them.

Anthony Hoekema writes, “In the beginning man was given the so-called cultural mandate—the command to rule over the earth and to develop a God-glorifying culture. Because of man’s fall into sin, that cultural mandate has never been carried out in the way God intended. Only on the new earth will it be perfectly and sinlessly fulfilled. Only then shall we be able to rule the earth properly.”^b Would there have been culture without the Fall? Of course.

Culture is the inevitable result of mankind using God’s gifting, equipping, and calling to rule over creation. After the Fall, Scripture describes developments in farming, the crafting of musical instruments, and metallurgy (Genesis 4:20-22). If God had no interest in those cultural improvements, Scripture wouldn’t refer to them. God created his image-bearers to glorify him in creative accomplishments, and he’s pleased by them. God is pro-culture; he is the creative artist behind and over human culture.

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15). In human history, only two people, Adam and Eve, even began to taste what it was like to fulfill God’s command to subdue the earth, and they didn’t get far. Was God shortsighted? Did he not anticipate this? Has he given up on his original idea? No. He had a plan that would fulfill his original design in greater ways. Resurrected culture will reach ever-expanding heights that no culture has yet seen.

Just as God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to rule the earth, he will put redeemed mankind in the New Jerusalem to rule the New Earth. Just as he designed Adam and Eve to develop their environment and culture, won’t he expect us to use our enhanced skills to develop the New Earth? Rather than start over in an undeveloped garden, God will start us on the New Earth in a well-developed city. But surely he expects us, as his redeemed image-bearers, to develop it further. Indeed, that’s how he has made us.

In The Promise of the Future, Cornelius Venema writes, “Every legitimate and excellent fruit of human culture will be carried into and contribute to the splendour of life in the new creation. Rather than the new creation being a radically new beginning, in which the excellent and noble fruits of humankind’s fulfillment of the cultural mandate are wholly discarded—the new creation will benefit from, and be immensely enriched by, its receiving of these fruits.”^c

Paul Marshall speaks of the prevalent but misguided notion that “we’ve wrecked the world: what’s important now is simply that we rescue people from the wreckage.”^d He calls this lifeboat theology: “It is as if the creation were the Titanic, and now that we’ve hit the iceberg of sin, there’s nothing left for us to do but get ourselves into lifeboats. The ship is sinking rapidly, God has given up on it and is concerned only with the survival of his people. Any effort we make to salvage God’s creation amounts to rearranging the deck chairs. Instead, some say, our sole task is to get into the lifeboats, to keep them afloat, to pluck drowning victims out of the water, and to sail on until we get to heaven where all will be well.”^e

Marshall says this is the assumption and perspective that drives many evangelical Christians. He proposes an alternative to lifeboat theology, which he calls ark theology: “Noah’s ark saved not only people, but it preserved God’s other creatures as well. The ark looked not to flee but to return to the land and begin again. Once the flood subsided, everyone and everything was intended to return again to restore the earth” (emphasis added).^f

God’s preservation of mankind, the earth, and animals demonstrates that he hasn’t given up on his creation. In fact, he commanded Noah after the Flood to do exactly what he commanded Adam and Eve before the Fall: “Be fruitful and increase in number [and] fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28; 9:1). Noah went out to plant a vineyard (Genesis 9:20), and mankind was back to work again on the earth.

Arthur Roberts writes,

The rise of human civilization hints at a coming splendor. Civilization has brought health and safety. It has brought freedom from toil and has provided creative enjoyment to millions of people. How much more will civilization flourish when freed from the curse of sin! Already, we are probing the galaxies. Already, we have catalogued the human genome. When the curse of sin is forever removed, surely human beings in Heaven will become active stewards in completing or extending the universe of things and ideas. The whole creation groans, awaiting human redemption. Civilization is not old; it has barely begun!^g

Does the prospect of renewed and expanded culture on the New Earth excite you? What do you look forward to? How might redeemed human culture glorify God in the ages to come?

Father, thank you that our gifts and passions and special interests are not an accident but are part of the way you have wired us. Thank you that you have intricately designed each one of us to uniquely express your glory. And surely this will be even more true on the New Earth, where we will be forever delivered from everything that hinders us and drags us down. Father, how wonderful it will be to invent, design, and make things to enhance our redeemed culture and to further your glory to the ends of the universe. May our work today be enriched and motivated by this destiny you’ve set before us.