The Assignment

Read: Genesis 1:27-31

Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Genesis 1:28

IN WORD

We had it all. A beautiful garden, a sweet assignment, innocent relationships, and a tangible connection with God Himself. Then we lost it all.

That’s the story of the human race and, more specifically, of our first parents. We like to think we might have handled things differently, but we know it isn’t true. Sooner or later, we would have made the same mistake and squandered the privilege we had been given.

Part of that privilege was ruling the earth in partnership with God. It was His, to be sure, but He gave humanity stewardship over it. We were responsible. In this original commission, not only were we placed at the top of the created order, but we were also given mastery over wildlife and agriculture. The implication is that we were to spread God’s order and government in all the places that were still untamed. We were Kingdom representatives even when there was no anti-Kingdom on this planet in rebellion against Him. We were divinely appointed agents of His will.

Something terrible happened in the Fall. In some mysterious sense, we handed some aspect of our God-given authority over to His vicious enemy. The world was still His, and we were still His agents. But we partnered with the “unKingdom,” the hostile uprising against Him. We recklessly pointed our responsibilities in the wrong direction.

IN DEED

Jesus won the keys of the Kingdom back and gave them to His followers. We haven’t used them nearly as often as we could or should, but we still have them. By faith, we can implement the divine will in chaotic and forbidding surroundings. That’s our Kingdom calling, whether we realize it or not. It isn’t simply to hang on until He comes. It’s to be agents of His government even now. We tell the good news of the coming King, we demonstrate His nature, and we become good news to a ravaged, alienated world.

ADDITIONAL READING: Matthew 16:19

God is able to recover this image through grace as we are conformed to Christ.

ALISTER MCGRATH