In verse 28 we find God blessing the image of Himself that He had just created. As with the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air, God blesses them by giving them a command; “Be fruitful and multiply…” We find a great difference in how He continues that blessing beyond the shared basics of the creatures’ blessing. “…and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over…every living thing…”
The Bible in some ways defies the typical environmentalist arguments here. I’ve had discussions with “green”-minded individuals who love to use Genesis to support their views. While I happily admit that we do have a responsibility to tend the earth, to conserve, to treat our planet well, the Bible defies a couple of largely held views.
Firstly, our species is not a plague or a cancer on the planet. God’s stated goal here is for mankind to be fruitful and multiply even to filling the entire earth. Interestingly we can see that He didn’t even mean filling the Garden of Eden. It seems that the Garden of Eden was originally intended for just a time rather than forever. Humankind was always meant to be rising in numbers and filling the Earth to bless the Earth.
My initial reaction to this concept is to imagine that God’s intention was to expand Eden to cover the whole earth with mankind’s work and care as His vice-regents. This automatically causes me to consider Jesus’ commands to His disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes upon them that they will be His witnesses, “…in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and Samaria, and to the remotest parts of the Earth.” Eden was the epicenter of creation as Jerusalem was the epicenter of salvation/redemption/reclamation through Jesus Christ. As His people we are little outposts of Eden; God’s original intention for all creation.
Secondarily, we are too subdue the earth and have dominion over it. This, as we’ve already covered, means that the entirety of creation is here for our usage, for the improvement of our situation. Now, before we react with. “Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean we get to do this and that abuse…” rest here a moment and consider what this means. Every ounce of dirt, every tree, plant, and animal is here for us to use. By design. Even the rare earth minerals in the Gobi desert that have to be industrially strip mined so that we can have our daily technology and all the “green” tech options…was planted there on purpose by a God who told us to use such things. Personally I think it is foolish to cause such massive environmental damage and toxicity on the front end in the pursuit of ostensibly “green” technology that will…save…the earth (?), but that’s a discussion for my minds.com account rather than here. But the point is…all of the coal, all of the trees, all of the oil, all of the radioactive materials, everything were given to us by an all-knowing God for our benefit. What we do with them and how they affect those around us is always an effect of how perfectly or imperfectly we reflect Him. We are “idols” with a choice; to bless or to curse.
As we go on in this chapter we can see another little oddity; namely that all creation at this point was vegetarian. All plants were given to both humans and everything else that had the “breath of life” as food. I put that emphasis on there because back in the 90s a lot fo my pot head acquaintances asked me if it was true that the Bible said marijuana was ok to use in this verse. They were really excited when I pointed out the verse. Less so when I pointed out the “for food” part. Apparently this deviated from some “theology” that was espoused by a popular rap group at the time. Technically that means pot brownies are ok, but smoking it is a different story. (jk)
Finally, all of creation is in its place with mankind as the pinnacle. God observes everything He has made and declares that it is not just “good” but “very good”. How does it become “very good”? God sees that He has created an optimal system for good, for growth, for abundant life to be fruitful and maximize into perpetuity. Thus ends the sixth day.
Chapter two begins with confirmation that everything is as God intended it in both the Heavens and the Earth. As such, on this seventh day He “rests” from all the work that He had done. I remember as a child wondering why God needed to rest if He was all powerful. Here we have a word that is adequate as a translation, but not necessarily sufficient. A better translation is probably “ceased” or “put and end to”. Either way, God blesses that particular day and makes it holy.
What does that mean and why? I’ll get into that next time.
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Finding Narnia 
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