God's Plan and Purpose for Man - Part 4

At this moment in His Story, we are sensing the deep and resonating rumblings arising out of the realm of the Spirit that seem to be telling us to "Be still and know (fully and well) that He is God." It seems as if God is pulling out all the stops to bring forth a company of sons and daughters who will once again champion His purposes in the earth. The result will ultimately be that Jesus, the risen Son of God, will be glorified in the Church  to the end that the groaning earth will take hope and the "...trees of the fields will clap their hands" once again.
 
Until this time over the past several decades we have seen only small glimpses and brief flashes of the mighty power of God working among us. But in modern times there has not been seen a sustained and history-changing demonstration of the glorious power of God. We have lived in the very presence of God with His grace being extended in a thousand ways everyday all around us without detecting it or tapping into it. But God created man to exercise power and authority in the earth and designed him to be able to manage it.
 
Note with me, Genesis 1: 26 - 28: "And 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 fowl of the air and over all the earth...and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him: male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the see, over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'"
 
This statement is the first declaration of God's eternal intention for man. It encompasses the full purpose, commission and design for man as an entity. There are a number of critical principles embedded in these words that we must note:
 
 Man was both created and made. "Created" comes from the word "bara" meaning to create or form from nothing tangible; thus, man is a spirit being. The word "made" is "asah" meaning to form from something already existing. So God created man by breathing into him the breath of life (the spirit aspect of man); and made him (physically) by using the substance of the earth.
 
As a spirit-being, man is created in God's class having the essential nature and essence of God. He is, thusly, to exercise the essential qualities of God as His agent in the earth. The physical aspect comes into the likeness of God as man trains and subdues all the natural tendencies to the glory of God.
 
"Man" does not refer to gender as male; it refers to the species of being that came forth out of the Spirit of God...mankind.
 
"Let them have dominion over the...earth." This is a most significant statement. Here is the unmitigated delegation or responsibility for man's management and governorship over the earth.
 
God's nature and integrity does not permit Him to violate His own words. So here we see His relationship to the earth established through His relationship to mankind. Note that He did not say, "Let us rule over the earth," but "Let them rule over the earth." He established man as the legal authority in the earth and gave him power of attorney to act on His behalf in the earth.
 
Therefore, God does nothing in the earth apart from the cooperation of human entity. That is reason that Jesus had to come in the flesh. It was only as a legal man in the earth that Jesus would be able to exercise authority here.
 
"Let them have dominion..." Here God demonstrates why He created mankind and delineates what His expectation of man would be. Man was authorized to bring the reality of the Kingdom of God into the earth. Thus man's commission and basis for existence is established.
 
It is interesting to notice that man had authority and dominion over every living thing in the earth except other human beings. God never meant for man to rule or dominate his own kind...only the resources of the earth.
 
The word "dominion" means "to establish as sovereign...responsible for reigning over a designated territory with the inherent authority to represent and embody that territory, resources and all that constitutes that kingdom or domain.
 
The result is that man is Heaven's earthly agency for kingdom rulership and influence in the earth. Man is intended to embody and to reflect the nature, the character, the power and the purpose of God...serving as His divine representative in the physical world.
 
Genesis 1: 26 - 28 was the introduction and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It was given to the entire species of Spirit-Off Spring...male and female. It reveals that God's original intention and plan for mankind was that all  men and women should serve as governors or kings in a corporate kingship...that mankind should master, govern, control and manage the earth and its resources with Jesus, the Son of the Most High God serving as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.