Creation Care

Creation Care - Man’s Dominion, Fallen Care, and Restoration Care of God’s Creation

Genesis 1: 26 - 28
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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 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.

Man has dominion over creation. Many people would like to think that this means that man can do with creation as he desires. They would like to believe that it can be exploited or destroyed, all at the whim of mankind. But this is not at all the intent behind this dominion given to man.

Everything has its proper place. Mankind tends to get this wrong on both sides of the aisle. Either they think or believe that creation is somehow equal to man and raise it up above man, or they believe that they have the right to do whatever they want with creation because they are ruling over it. Both of these assumptions are very wrong. The people that believe that plants and/or animals are on the same level as humanity have a misunderstanding of the created order. We see here in Genesis that man was in fact placed and created higher than plants or animals. Then those on the other side of the side miss the point as well. God placed everything in an order. Plants and animals are lower creation. Man is a higher creation. Then God reigns above all. Just because man has dominion does not mean that they can exploit nature. They are not the owners of it, just stewards.

What does dominion mean? We must be clear in understanding that this is not in any way a kind of exploitation of nature, it is a caring guarding of nature. We see an example of this kind of stewardship in Matthew 25: 14 - 30, when Jesus tells the parable of the talents, where a man gives his servants talents while he is gone on a journey. He leaves them as stewards of his talents, which he receives back later. They are his, and never his servants. They were only left in charge of them to very carefully care for them and give them back in great and better condition. This is how God has placed us as stewards of His creation. We are to care greatly for it as we guard it.

Man has abused creation since the fall. With the fall came a false understanding of ownership by humanity. Pride was a large part of the fall, as mankind desired the ability to have the knowledge of God, being able to discern good from evil (Genesis 3). With that prideful desire came another desire of man to be like God. Man also wanted to be like God in the view of ruling over creation, but with a false sense of ownership. Sin made man prideful, which made man abuse the creation that is rightfully owned by God and was simply left to him to rule as a steward.

Creation itself was corrupted in the fall. We find out in Romans 8 that creation itself is in bondage to the corruption that was experienced in the fall. The original creation was perfect and beautiful, but now is experiencing the effects of the fall itself and is waiting to one day be restored and freed from those effects of sin.

Creation will be restored. When man is restored, so will creation. Romans 8 teaches us that creation will be restored when man is restored. Creation will be made perfect again and freed from the bonds of sin that surround it. We must view creation as God does. Just as God looks at those of us that have been redeemed and sees us as holy and restored, we must have that kind of view of creation. We must treat it as holy and restored, and do our best to ensure that it is well taken care of. Creation should cause man to worship, but not to worship the creation. Creation should cause man to worship the Creator of that creation.