In the sermon 'Plan, Pattern, And Purpose - Genesis 1:26-28' by Jason Dohm, the speaker explores the unique creation of humanity as the crowning act of God's creation. Unlike other creatures, humans are made in the image and likeness of God, indicating a special relationship with the divine. This concept is expanded upon through the idea of the Trinity, as seen in God's plural language, and the communicable attributes humans share with God, such as creativity, morality, and rationality. The sermon delves into gender roles, emphasizing that both male and female are equally made in God's image and possess significant dignity and capacity. Dohm argues that the roles assigned to women should fully engage their capabilities, rejecting societal underestimations of their potential. The Dominion Mandate is discussed as a joint mission for humanity to rule over creation, linking it to the Great Commission in the New Testament. This mandate is seen as a call for believers to honor God through their lives, striving for conformity to Jesus and the restoration of God's image through the gospel.

Title of the sermon this morning is a plan, pattern, and purpose. Plan, pattern, and purpose. I don't think I've ever begun a message with a quote before, so I'm breaking the record. I'm quoting from Alan Ross. I think I'll be quoting a lot from Alan Ross.

I'm finding this particular commentary very helpful. His commentary is entitled, Creation and Blessing. He says this, the crowning point of creation is human life. Like animals, humans were formed from the ground, given provision of food, and blessed with fruitfulness. But humans are far more than animals.

The text shows that human life was set apart in relation to God by the divine plan, let us make man by the divine pattern as our image and by the divine purpose let him have dominion." So I think this is just a really excellent summary and way for a framework for us to think about this. This is the divine plan. God said, let us make man. He planned with himself this creation in a special way that's not true of other creatures. And he imparted this divine pattern after the image and likeness of himself.

And it was for a divine purpose So that image bearers would have rule over the rest of his creation. That's what this text is about. Let's pray. God, thank you for the verses that are before us. It's sneaky in the sense that it's only, quote unquote, only three verses, but it's so expansive.

There's so much here. I pray that you would give me the ability to do it some level of justice, to unfold this in a way that's helpful. I pray in Jesus name, Amen. Alright, let's take it verse at a time. Verse 26.

Follow along as I reread verse 26. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So here in verse 26 we have God's crowning act of creation. So if creation week is a mountain range, then the highest peak of this mountain range is right here in this text.

It's the creation of mankind in the image and likeness of God. Human beings, mankind, we are the crowning act of creation. Day one, then God said, let there be. Day two, then God said, let there be. Day three, then God said, let there be.

Then God said, let there be. Then God said, let there be, second part of day six, then God said, let us make. So right off in the text, it's being offset as something different, something special. Let there be, let there be, Let there be, let us make. This is different.

We're having indicators in the text that something different is happening, something very special is happening. God is embarking on his crowning act of creation. So right from the opening words of our text, there's a difference. This creative act is set apart as different and special and beyond. This is beyond anything he's done in creation week up until now.

God Himself is focusing His creative activities on this one creation in a way that is different. Just think about that. God Himself is focusing his creative activities on this one creation, just one in a way that is different, distinct. He's making a special creation. That is what this text is communicating.

We have a strange plural. Strange plural. Let us make an hour image. Who is us? Who is the hour?

Well, as much as we would like it to, the text itself doesn't offer an explanation. But this much we know for sure. It isn't a stake or a typo. Again, Genesis 3 22, then the Lord God said, Behold the man has become one of us to no good and evil. So we're going to see this strange plural again in chapter 3.

Again, Genesis 11, 7. Come let us go down there and confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So in Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel text, God refers to himself there in the plural and says, let us go down and confuse their speech. So it's not a mistake and it's not a typo. We're going to be seeing it again.

God's speaking of himself in this strange plural. And actually, we have already seen a form of this. Where? In the Hebrew word for God itself, Elohim. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

That Hebrew word is the plural form. So it's a Hebrew word that has a singular form, L, but that's not the form that God has put in his inspired word. He's given us Elohim, which is the plural form of the word. Only that plural form is used and then paired with the singular form of the verbs that modify it. So do you understand what I'm saying?

You get this subject, the noun, and a plural form, Elohim, But then it's always matched when it's speaking of God with a singular form of the verb. So he's breaking all the rules of grammar. It is grammatically mismatched, the plural form of the noun, the object, God, but this plural form paired with the singular form of the verb. God, plural, Elohim, created the heavens and the earth. That verb created is the singular form.

He's breaking all the rules of grammar. This is the beginning of the self-revelation of God. We've been saying that, so it is. Not the comprehensive or even the full self-revelation of God, but the beginning of it, a plurality in one. So right here, the beginning of Genesis, we're getting God revealing Himself as a plurality in one.

Of course, now that 1, 500 years of progressive revelation has come and gone, we have this, not just this one page. We have Genesis to Revelation in our laps, and this becomes relatively simple for us. Because the New Testament reveals God in three persons, the triune God, three in one. Just one God, not polytheism, many gods, multiple gods. No, one God.

Monotheism, one God, but existing in three persons or three subsistences, the triune God, the Trinity, one God comprised of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and each are in the other." So I know that's hard to understand and I can't explain it, but this is the revelation of God of Himself to mankind. He's not like us. That's where we're learning that. He's not like us. The seeds of it, the doctrine of the Trinity, are right here in Genesis 1.

So God in progressive revelation is going to water that seed and weed around it. And in the end, Genesis through Revelation, it'll be really clear, God exists, The one true God exists as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The seeds of it are here, and He'll be watering it, and it'll be growing, and now we have the full revelation of it. Now, what did this special creative act entail? The triune God making mankind in his own image and likeness.

More than any other creature, mankind would be like the God who created us. So that's not nearly, nearly, nearly true of any of the other parts of creation, even the other living creatures that they're like the creator who created. We are like that more than any other creature. Previous days of creation week, other living creatures are created, and the text repeatedly says, according to their kind. Remember we saw that multiple times in last week's text.

According to their kind, according to their kind, according to their kind. And that means an orderly succession of like to like. So that azalea bushes produce azalea bushes, and this kind of a bluefish produces a bluefish, an orderly succession of like to like. Here God says mankind is in the likeness of me. So this according to their kind is true of mankind, but that's not what God says here.

The likeness in the instance of mankind is God. Not just an orally succession of men being like men, mankind being like mankind. No, mankind is specifically, explicitly like God. What does it mean that we are created in the image and likeness of God? First, let's make use of progressive revelation and hear Jesus in John 424.

In John 424, Jesus says to the woman at the well, God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. God is spirit. So we know because of the incarnation, because of Jesus Christ, that God the Son can take on flesh, but God in essence is Spirit. So we start with what it doesn't mean to be created in the image of God. It doesn't mean a physical image, a physical likeness.

That's not what is being taught here, because God is spirit. I'd also like to start by saying that even though we are members of mankind, So we don't come to this text as outsiders, thinking about this in the abstract, but not really having a frame of reference. We're part of mankind. We are mankind. So even though we are members of mankind and come to this text as insiders, as image bearers, our experiential understanding of this is clouded by what happens in Genesis 3, meaning sin is going to come to the world in Genesis 3, and it's going to corrupt what we're studying here.

So we have a frame of reference of being image bearers in a way as those that the text is talking about were part of mankind, but The experience for us isn't like it was for Adam and Eve before Genesis 3, because they understood what thinking was like before sin. They understood what loving was like before sin, showing mercy was like before sin, Being in relationship with God was like before sin. And we don't have a frame of reference for that. Because all of our experience has been after the corruption of human nature by the coming of sin into the world. So we are members of mankind, so we have some frame of reference for it, but our experiential understanding is clouded by the coming of sin into the world in Genesis chapter 3.

So There's more here than we've experienced. You got that? In this text, there's so much more here as image bearers. There's a lot more glory here than we actually have first-person experience in, and that's because of sin. So what can help us understand this, since it is clouded?

I think it helps us to look at the living creatures that aren't created in the image and likeness of God and observe how we're different. That should sort of help us get at what it means to be in the image and likeness of God. We can look at dogs and cats and say they're not in the image of likeness of God. We're very different from them in these ways and that will mark out in a sense what it means to be in the image and likeness of God. Here are some things.

I'm sure this list has some omissions. These are the ones that the commentators touched on and that I've thought of. I'm sure you can add to it. We create things. One thing we know about the beginning of God's self-revelation is that he is a creator.

That's all we've been studying so far. And we see a shadow of this in mankind, don't we? We can't say we made the stars also, like God says. But mankind is tremendously creative. Think of buildings and technology and music and art and organizations and products and and and and all the things that we create.

Recipes, cooking. So Creation Week puts creativity and capability on display. The creativity of God and the capability of God. And we should expect mankind to have some kind of similarity and likeness to this creativity and capability of God. Tremendous creativity, not God's level of course, and tremendous capability, not God's level of course, but still tremendous creativity and capability.

Here's another distinction between mankind and other living creatures. We are more, the other creatures don't have hands, but if they did they wouldn't ring them. We ring our hands over right and wrong, true and false. Animals don't wring their paws over right and wrong, true and false. Animals have instincts.

Somehow they know how to fly to certain destinations when the weather changes. So they have these tremendous instincts, but people have this very highly developed sense of right and wrong, true and false. Ecclesiastes 7.29 says this, listen to Ecclesiastes 7.29, truly this only I have found that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." So he's affirming two things that are absolutely true. God made man upright. Good.

Able to obey at every point. God made man that way, but we didn't continue that way. We're not that way now. So he's actually affirming both of those, those truths. God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

We're not like that anymore. Matthew Henry says this, he, mankind, was upright, Ecclesiastes 7.29. He had a habitual conformity of all his natural powers to the whole will of God. So mankind had his natural powers focused on doing the will of God all the time, habitually. He had habitually conformity of all his natural powers to the whole will of God.

His understanding saw divine things clearly and truly. And there were no errors nor mistakes in his knowledge. His will complied readily and universally with the will of God without reluctance or resistance. Now do you find reluctance and resistance to the will of God? I do every day, every hour of every day I find friction.

Not easy to do the will of God, but there's this something that's pulling in the other direction. But, but Matthew Henry is saying, not from the start. There wasn't that friction from the start. His thoughts were easily brought and fixed to the best subjects. And there was no vanity nor ungovernableness in them.

He didn't have a hard time training his thoughts on the things that we should. All that is good, all that is right, all that is pure. It was easy work for Adam before Genesis 3. Easy work for Eve before Genesis 3. Thus holy, thus happy were our first parents, in having the image of God upon them.

I think that's such a good description of what it means. That man was made up right. We were made moral. Another, God made people rational. We have the capability to think deeply about things, to reason through things, to problem solve.

Incomparable intelligence. Now there are other creatures who have A level of intelligence. The study of killer whales and dolphins is really interesting. Okay, but humans are orders of magnitude more. Orders of magnitude, incomparable intelligence, And language is a big part of this.

There are things, killer whales and dolphins, they say, they have language? Yeah, sort of. Not like we have language. Another, We have what are often called God's communicable attributes. This is what theologians call it.

Communicable attributes, what are those? Well, it might help to start by defining God's in communicable attributes, which are those things that make God God and keep us from being God in any way, shape, or form. God is almighty. He's omnipotent, omnipotent, almighty. He's, and we're not.

We're nothing close to almighty. There's so many things we can't do. We're powerless in so many ways. God never is. He's almighty.

God is all knowing. He's omniscient, knowing all things, omni knowing. There's an endless amount of things we don't know. In fact, we don't even know what we don't know. And God doesn't know what he doesn't know because there is nothing he doesn't know.

There's nothing to know that he doesn't know because he knows it all. He's omniscient. God is everywhere present every moment. We're only on this one little spot in one little tiny corner of the universe. But God is everywhere present, every moment.

He's omnipresent. He's all present. Every moment, He's present everywhere at the same time. I think I quoted this last week. I think it was Thomas Watson.

Everywhere center, nowhere peripheral. What does that mean? Well, think of your Wi-Fi network. You have your devices, and you get off to the edge of your Wi-Fi, the periphery, the outer boundary. And it works, and it doesn't work.

It works, and it doesn't work. God is not like that anywhere in the universe, where the signal is fading in and out. It's like the exact center of His being is at every pinpoint of the whole universe. He cannot and does not communicate that to his creatures. It's one of the things that makes him the creator, and one of the things that makes us the creature is that there are these incommunicable attributes, attributes that we can't have.

Okay, God does not communicate those attributes to mankind or bestow those attributes on us. But things like love, God is love, but he also makes us with the ability to love, calls us to love. God is full of mercy, full of compassion, and He makes us with the ability to be merciful and compassionate. God hates sin, and He makes us to take offense at wrong. Maybe not every wrong, maybe not like we should, but when we're wrong, do we take offense?

When we're lied to, we hate that. God is infinitely generous. He's made us with generosity. God is full of joy. He makes us able to experience joy.

God is the God of peace. He makes us to experience peace that passes understanding. God is infinitely kind. He makes us able to be kind. You can just go through the fruits of the Spirit.

That's why they're the fruits of the Spirit is God has these things in himself. He's the ultimate version of all of them. And to believers, to people who have new hearts and new affections, he begins to cultivate these attributes of himself in the life of the believer, the fruits of the spirit, and, and, and, and. We can make a really long list. Perhaps most importantly the image and likeness of God gives us the capability of being in relationship with the God who made us in his image.

More than anything else it makes us able to know him, like really know him. Not just like book study know him, but to experience fellowship with him. Having the image and likeness of God gives us that capability. Now, think of this. You can because you bear the image of God.

If I said this to your dog, think of this. He would just cock his head and wonder when he was going to get fed, right? We're different. What an honor and a privilege to be created in the image and likeness of this God. And if we come away from this text with anything, let it be this.

What an honor to bear the stamp of this God, of the God we've been studying in Creation Week, to bear his image and likeness to be image-bearers of this God. And because we are The subject of God's plan, let us make man and the subject of God's pattern, let us make man in our image. Therefore, we are the subject of this purpose. Let them have dominion. The NASB and the NIV render it rule.

All of those are fine. Dominion rule, having authority is what is being communicated here. He's given us authority. There is a straight line between our being made in the image and likeness of God and our being given authority to rule the rest of creation on earth. So more on that in a minute as Moses returns to this in verse 28.

But just know, these things are not separate and disconnected. They're absolutely straight line connected. We're made in the image of likeness of God. And that is why God has chosen us to be given authority to rule the rest of creation on Earth, because only we have the capacity for that. And it's only right that his image-bearers have rule of the Earth in his name.

One final point, and then we'll move on to the next verse. Bearing the image and likeness of this great God makes every human being incredibly valuable. Because now You have an image bearer reflecting the image of this great creator God. So this image bearer must be incredibly valuable. Human life is incredibly valuable.

Listen to Genesis 9 verse 6. This is post-flood. Genesis 9 verse 6. Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed. It's Capital punishment.

If you kill a man, human government is to kill you. What's the basis for that? Genesis 9, 6. For in the image of God, he made man. That's what makes murder a capital offense, is because you touch the image of God.

That life that you took bore the stamp and imprint and image and likeness of God, how dare you touch that? You forfeit your life. That's what makes babies in the womb so incredibly valuable, even though they're just developing, is they bear the image of God. Do not touch that life. All right, moving to verse 27.

Got to work on my transitions. That was so abrupt. Verse 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Here we have mankind created as male and female.

Both humans but very different. This verse repeats that God created mankind in his own image, so if you missed it in verse 26, no problem. He says it again in verse 27, created in the image of God, and then he says it again in verse 27. A second time, he's repeating it twice after saying it in verse 26, says it twice in Verse 27, created in the image of God, and then this is added, male and female. He created them.

Now We know from observing fish and birds and animals and insects, the other living creatures, so previous days of creation, other living creatures. We had fish. We had birds. We had animals. We had insects.

We know from observing them, not from the text, it's not in the text, but we know from watching them that God had already created male and female. But God didn't consider that to be worthy of mention until now. It's not a whiff of male and female. Up through the second half of the sixth day of creation, the creation of mankind, now God says it's time to introduce this concept of male and female now. Why didn't we do it before now?

Because in the other living creatures, procreation is at the heart of gender. It was just bound up and multiply according to your kind. But with mankind, male and female is so much more than just that. So it existed before, but it wasn't mentioned before, because before, really, there was nothing but procreation, but with mankind that's not true. There's so much more with mankind wrapped up in this.

Procreation is part of it, but just a part of it, I could even say a small part of it. So much more than just procreation. We know that from chapter 2, so I won't pre-preach that now, because we'll get there when we get there. But even more so, we know that from Ephesians 5, where the very mountain peak of progressive revelation, Paul reveals that the ultimate expression of gender is Christ and the church. So there's lots to be said about gender, especially in our day and age, but the ultimate thing to say about gender is it finds its ultimate expression in Christ and the church.

So Paul says this in Ephesians chapter 5. He says, I speak to you of a mystery, something that God has withheld, revealing until now. Now it's the right time to reveal this. I speak of a great mystery. I speak of Christ in the church.

So you've just been talking about husbands and how they should act as husbands like Christ acts towards his people and how a wife should act like the people of God act towards Christ and he says this is really about Christ in the church. This God bringing a man and a woman together, bringing the two members of each gender together and making them one, it has to do with Christ in the church. So the ultimate expression of gender is Christ in the Church. So there's way more here than just make more. With fish and birds and animals and insects, it's primarily Make more.

With human beings there's so much more there, and it culminates. The ultimate expression of it is Christ is this, and His people are this, and it glorifies God. That's at the heart of gender. Get this. The most fundamental thing about male and female is that we together comprise mankind made in the image and likeness of God.

The most fundamental thing about male and female is that together we're image bearers. So I will start there. Together we bear the stamp and image and likeness of God. That is equally true of both genders. True of male, equally true of female.

True of female, equally true of male. So every single thing said about the image and likeness of God is true of both male and female. Everything I've said up to this point in the sermon, we're 34 minutes in, everything I've said about the image and likeness of God on mankind is true equally of male and female. That's tremendously significant. Creativity and capability.

Tremendous creativity. Tremendous capability. True of male and female. Moral. Created upright.

Knowing good and evil. Truth and falsehood. True of male and female. Rational. Made with incomparable intelligence, true of male and female, having the communicable attributes of God like love and mercy and kindness and hating, injustice, true of male and female.

Having the capacity to be in intimate relationship with this God who created us, true of male and female. So yes, in time, scripture reveals headship and submission and gender roles. But there is not a hint of that here. Because those things are secondary. And you have to start with mankind as created in the image of God.

And then, headship and submission and gender roles have meaning. Then you don't scramble it up. When you start here, like image-bearers and all that that means, then you can graduate to this secondary thing that gets all jumbled up if you start here on the secondary thing. This is very important. What is primary is male and female, and the image and likeness of God, a shared honor and privilege.

We share it. Everybody in the room, we're sharing this honor and privilege made in the image of God. Peter says, heirs together of the grace of life. So that's how we should think about it. Everybody in the room, we're heirs together.

We're in the inheritance. We're heirs together of the grace of life. All men, all women equally sharing together in the grace of life. This is fundamental. Let's cheat and do a little application now instead of saving it all for the end.

The notion of women is nothing more than administrative assistance or worse yet as maids is beneath both the dignity and capacity of image bearers. So That might be the understatement of the year. The notion of women is nothing more than administrative assistance. I need a secretary. Or worse yet, as maids, I need somebody to cook and clean is beneath both the dignity and capacity of image bearers.

Females are created with more dignity than that, and females are created with infinitely more capacity than that. And shame on anyone who reduces it to that. May that notion be put to death every day in our homes. The rules and labors that God has allotted to women should strain their gifts and capabilities. Are you with me?

I'm going to say it again. This might be the line of the sermon. The roles and labors that God has allotted to women should strain their gifts and capabilities. Tremendous gifts, tremendous capabilities, and yet strained by the work that God has allotted to them. Yes, sometimes their days are mundane.

By the way, me too. I think I have as much mundane in my daily schedule as any stay-at-home mom ever created. But don't get it twisted. God has given you women roles and labors to strain every gift and capability. So if your life isn't straining all your gifts and capabilities, you're not doing it right.

I just want to say it with boldness from the pulpit. The unbelieving world views it like this. So here's how the unbelievers think and how they talk. Women are corvettes. High performance vehicles made for high performance lives.

Maybe goes 0 to 60 in a second and a half, and corner around the corner at high speeds. Tight turning radius. But conservative Christians, based on the Bible, sidelined them in a parking lot. Held in by these arbitrary curbs that relegate them to just endlessly putter around the parking lot. But, but, but, but, just imagine the sadness of a Corvette only ever putting around the parking lot by these curbs, arbitrary curbs, never able to do what they are capable of, never able to really use their gifts.

That's what the world thinks. But people who have given themselves over to the biblical vision, no better. They have found by experience that the rules and labors given to women strain their every gift and capability. Now, are there professing Christians who never give themselves to the biblical vision, who go outside the ways and labors God gives to women, and so never discover this? Yes, and it's tragic.

And are there professing Christians who stay at home but engage something that is far short of the biblical vision, serving as something more like an administrative assistant or a maid, and so never discover this. Yes, and it's tragic. So you can actually miss this whether you go out and fulfill the world's vision or stay at home. You can stay at home and miss this. If you engage a life that's short of the biblical vision, far short of the biblical vision.

Let me just say this. Proverbs 31 woman is the model for biblical femininity and that woman is a Corvette. And her life is centered in her home and it ain't no parking lot. Go study Proverbs 31. Tell me that's not a high-performance vehicle.

That's not a Corvette. 0 to 60 in a second and a half. And her life is centered in her home and that's no parking lot. The curbs that are there aren't the curbs of a parking lot just relegating her to put her around. I've watched a person who's tremendously capable, tremendously capable.

Strain every gift and every capability to do what God's given her to do in her home. She's more capable than you, and she's needed every gift and every capability to do what she's done in her home. Verse 28. Oh, no, not quite. So close.

God created us in his own image. God created us male and female. Gender is the design of God and not a human construct which can be cast aside. So what is being thrust upon us right now is a complete confrontation with what God has said in Genesis 1. Gender is God's design and anyone who thinks that it's a human construct is contradicting God.

Now, verse 28. Then God blessed them. God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Here we have the blessing and mandate of God. God blessing mankind and God commanding mankind, giving us a mandate.

Like the fish and birds on day five, God blessed them and gave them the ability to multiply. Unlike that, Here on day six, God speaks to mankind. So on day five, he spoke over the fish and the birds. And on day six, God speaks to mankind. This goes right to language and image-bearers.

This is known as the Dominion Mandate. Taught on this multiple times. And I've settled on summarizing it this way. God has given mankind a gigantic joint two-fold mission. That's my summary.

God has given mankind a gigantic joint two-fold mission. It is gigantic in that it is global and all-encompassing. It includes all of creation. The list here in verse 28 is just the list of all he created before mankind. So systematically hits everything he created up till now in creation week, and we're giving rule over all of it.

So it's gigantic in that it's global, and it's all encompassing. It includes all of creation. It is joint in that it includes mankind as both male and female. Either are inadequate. If men try to do this without women, it will be a fail.

If women try to do this without men, it will be a fail. They have to be joined together in this work to have any hope of advancing the cause. So it is a joint mission. It's too big because of the nature of it. It requires multiplication.

So, and God made it that to need male and female. And because of the scope of it, it's just too big without the breadth of humanity that you get from a man and a woman joined together. There's the scope of it needs the breadth, the nature of it needs the breadth of masculine and feminine, of male and female. It is two-fold in that there are two parts to it. Filling the earth and subduing the earth.

How does mankind fill the earth? By being fruitful and multiplying. God designed male and female to be able to do that. And it is a blessing. This is part of the blessing of God.

Malachi 2.15. Why does God join a male and a female together and make them one? Why marriage? He seeks godly offspring. Malachi 2.15.

God, what are you after? Thank you for telling us exactly what you're after. You seek godly offspring. Not just offspring. Not a multiplication of knuckleheads.

A multiplication of people who know God, who repent and walk with God. He seeks godly offspring. Have too much multiplication of knuckleheads in this world. Need more godly offspring. God give us grace.

Psalm 128, excuse me, Psalm 127 3 through 5. Psalm 127 3 through 5. Behold children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.

Happy is the man whose quiver is full of them. In fact, you won't find anything from Genesis to Revelation other than this. The whole thrust is in the same direction. Children are addressing, many children is good, not bad. You can't find anything else in the Bible.

Children are a blessing. Many children is good, not bad. I could say many more controversial things here. I'll leave it at that for now. How does mankind subdue the earth?

By tending and keeping it in order to bring order to it and increase from it. That's how we subdue the earth. We tend it and keep it in order to bring order to it. There's a lot that needs order brought to. And increase from it.

God has built riches into this earth. Forget which guy, I think it was Calvin, but I'm not, I don't have it here. He said we were born rich. You just have to get it out of the earth. He's made an earth of abundance and we're supposed to go get the increase out of it, get the gain from it.

In Genesis 2 15 we're going to read this, and the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to 10 and keep it. That's about having authority over and bringing order to it and increase from it. Maybe the other usages of this Hebrew word subdue in the Old Testament have to do with military conquest. One people's subduing another people or nation. The idea is conquering the earth for our king.

That's the idea wrapped up here. Go conquer the planet for your king. Go rule on behalf of your king. You bear his image, now go rule his world on behalf of your king. Conquer it.

Listen to this note from the Nelson Study Bible. By the way, if you want just a great solid Study Bible, the Nelson Study Bible is just so good. The notes are always right down the middle. I value it a lot. That's Nelson's study Bible has this note.

It means to act as managers who have the authority to run everything as God planned. So act as an image bearing manager who wanted just like he planned. How do we know how he planned? He gave us this revelation. He tells us what to do, how to do it.

I listened to this note from the MacArthur study Bible. It speaks of a productive ordering of the earth and its inhabitants to yield its riches and accomplish God's purposes. Yes! Go to work so that the earth will yield its riches and you accomplish God's purposes. Right on.

Right on. All of this is under the blessing of God. So God hasn't just said, shoo, go do this. I'll see you at the end of time. We're doing this under the pleasure of God, with the fellowship of God.

We're going to see this as we work through Genesis. Fellowship with God is part of this. We were made to live and work under God's blessing. Not a distant blessing, but close, close. Applications, I'll give you three.

One, The gospel restores this corrupted image of God. It's so corrupted. We don't think right, we don't act right, we don't speak right. The gospel restores this corrupted image of God. Not immediately.

I get saved, now I'm perfected, I'm just like Adam before sin. Nope. Not immediately, but progressively and ultimately comprehensively. So the day is coming where every little bit that was lost, even to the last little speck that was lost, will be all clawed back in the gospel. And will be fully image-bearers in the fullest sense that God ever envisioned Himself.

The gospel restores this corrupted image of God, not immediately, but progressively and ultimately comprehensively. Listen to Ephesians 424. Paul writes in Ephesians 424, put on the new man which was created according to God. So, this goes right back to getting the image bearing back. Put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

That all used to be easy. Our natures were corrupted and it became impossible. True righteousness and holiness became impossible. Now it's difficult. We have these remaining corruptions, but possible.

This can be reclaimed in our lives progressively, ultimately, comprehensively. If you aren't a believer, know this. You can never be what God meant you to be. The image of God is too twisted, corrupted, warped, damaged. You're going to have to have a reversal for you to be what God made you to be.

If you aren't a believer, You can never be an image bearer like God envisioned an image bearer. It's impossible. Repent and believe the gospel. If you're a believer, know this. You can honor God like no other creature.

We have this tremendous capacity to honor God. We should go for it. I hope the study of being image-bearers makes us want to go for it. Like this creator, God made us a little bit like Him with this capacity to live this life and bring Him honor. Be inspired by that.

Two. Conformity to Jesus is the target. So we don't have this first person experiential frame of reference for what it likes to be an image bearer before sin came into the world. But now we can look at the gospels and see Jesus. See how he talked, what he said, how he related with people, how he served people, how he was kind with people.

When he confronted people and we can say, oh This is what image bearing is supposed to look like. That's different. It's the great corrective to all our wrong notions. Looking at Jesus in the gospel corrects all that. Listen to Romans 8.29.

Romans 8.29, Paul says, For whom he foreknew, for whom God knew from eternity past, loved from eternity past. Love is bound up in this word, foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son. That he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brethren. This is what God has had in his mind.

Take all these people who the image of God was wrecked. But before time he said, I'm taking her out of the world to be my own and I'm going to conform her. I'm going to work on her to conform her to this image-bearing son of mine, the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the express image of God. He's the perfect image of God.

Hebrews 1 verse 3. Number 3, finally, the Great Commission is a focusing of the dominion mandate in the New Covenant. You should see the connection between the dominion mandate, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and the Great Commission. Go therefore, because Jesus has all the authority, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all the Christ's command. It is a focusing of conquering the world for our King.

It's just a narrowed down version of this. I missed this in my notes, so I'll say it here, it's out of place, but I want it to be said. Christians throughout the centuries have become scientists and mothers and workers and creators in industry and, and, and, with a compulsion to conquer the world for their king. And to bring good out of the world for the glory of God. So some of the greatest scientists in the world, some of the greatest businessmen in the world, some of the greatest home governors in the world did it because they understood this, that we're supposed to conquer the world in the name of our king, in fellowship with our king.

Let's pray. God, I thank you for bringing us to the Dominion mandate and now that we're in the new covenant and have this focusing of it in the Great Commission, but still fundamentally the same thing to go into every corner of the earth and take dominion, conquer it for our King, for the good of creation, especially the good of humanity and for your glory. I pray that this would be just a compulsion that drives us every day. May it be so in Jesus' name, Amen.