Christ the Last Adam

It’s time to connect the dots for all the patterns and themes we’ve seen revealed in the Scriptures. They all coalesce at one point, Jesus Christ, who is the very Substance of Scripture. The Scriptures are about Jesus Christ and His works. The Old Testament points to Christ through types and shadows while the New Testament reveals Him in His glory. Every theme and story of the Bible finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ. Each of the human agents in Redemptive History failed to faithfully do what God required of them. Christ is the only One who would perfectly do what man could never do. Not only did Christ keep all the requirements of the Father, He is the One who redeems His people from the yoke of Satan and the false gods to whom they willingly sold themselves.

Eden and the Fall of the Material Order

A high level overview of the creation of the material and celestial order provides a foundation to understand the garden of Eden, man’s role in it, the covenant God established with him, his failure to keep that covenant, his fall, the curse that entered the material order as a consequence of that fall and ultimately God’s promised redemption of His people from that fall. Understanding the themes drawn out in the garden of Eden is critical to understand the narrative of redemption and the Kingdom of God. It also establishes a foundation of God’s dealings with mankind, through covenants. These covenants are a framework through which God reveals and accomplishes the redemption of His people.

The Material Order: It’s Original Purpose

Every good book has an introduction that draws the reader into the narrative presented in the book. Genesis provides this introduction in the Word of God. While the Bible is a collection of sixty-six different Books, written by a variety of different authors over millennia. However, it presents to us one single narrative of the work of God in history, from creation to the ultimate end of the created order in the fires of the Lord’s coming. Therefore, to understand the Bible we need to understand where the narrative begins and how it progresses from Genesis to our place in the New Testament.

The Dominion Mandate Examined Through the Lens of Scripture and Church History

The problem with the Dominionist view of the Cultural Mandate is that the natural reading of the Text doesn't allow for the added assumptions, either that of Kuyper or of the later Reconstructionists. This verse is specifically dealing with the means of sustenance in a primordial agrarian system established at Eden and has nothing to do with the notions of utilizing the full "God-given" human potential through the subduing of nature and an emphasis on civilization building, politics and arts. These are assumptions being added to the Text. Its a textbook example of eisegesis. The Dominionist is reading his preconceived notions into the Text to make way for something that the Text doesn't allow for. The natural reading utilizes an action "have" or "take" dominion and an object(s) "fish of the sea, fowl of the air, every living thing". The Dominionist expands this set of objects to include civilization, politics and culture.

The Dominion Mandate After the Fall and Noah

God's people do not have a command to take Dominion of the physical world and/or to mix with the heathen nations of this world to engage in temporal cultural experiments. This goes back to understanding the very purpose of the command to take Dominion. Its not restated because it is impossible for those who engage in the command to fulfil its original purpose in the present state of the world.