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When God commissioned Adam
to till and take dominion over the earth and all its creatures, He was
issuing an everlasting cultural mandate. Whenever the Eternal Lawgiver
speaks, His word becomes eternally unchangeable. Therefore, Adam's call
to dominion continued after his rebellion in the Garden of Eden. Regardless
of the fall, the dominion mandate remained in effect. In fact, since all
flesh was in the lions of Adam, the elect included, the commission to
till and take dominion is still in force today.
If ever there was a
practical doctrine of the Holy Scriptures that has been overlooked by
the modern church it is the doctrine of the "Cultural
Mandate" of Genesis 1:28.
The Church's
Ignorance
The church has regressed
into an arena of blatant ignorance concerning their place in society.
Like the Reformationalist monk, Martin Luther, the church embraces the
ideology that Christ and the Gospel has nothing to do with the natural
life. Luther's view was that the Scriptures, focused only upon the soul
and spirit, and omitted the things of the world. While Luther's
contribution to reformation Theology cannot go unnoticed, in Luther's view,
business, politics, government, science, law, the arts and literature
was not to be brought under the authority of the Scriptures. These
disciplines, Luther believed, were outside of the interest of the Holy
Spirit. With all Christian respect to Luther for his faithful
devotion to Christ and the Gospel, on this point he was very wrong.
The Church's Arrogance
The modern church has also
embraced the "escapism" mentality claiming that the saints are
to abandon the world since they are not called to "polish brass on
a sinking ship." What they have succumbed to is the notion that
there is exists dualistic existence; one of the natural and the other of
the spiritual. The natural is cursed and destined for the wrath of God,
while the spiritual is blessed, destined for the glory of heaven.
What the modern
religionist believes is that there is a secular world and a sacred world
- the natural and the spiritual. These are distinct and are not to be
confused or interwoven. The Christian, they believe, is only to be
interested in the sacred, denying entirely the secular. It is in this
way he makes the distinction, and hopes to remain unspotted by the
world. Yet, this is not a distinction made by the Scriptures.
Everything is Sacred
The European Reformation
of the 16th Century was special because it restored the original
Biblical Idea of Cultural Dominion over every sphere of life. The word
"secular" means "pertaining to this present world."
It is translated as "non-sacred" or "not holy". It
also is understood as meaning "not bound by any religious laws,
oaths or commands". To be secular therefore, would yield itself to
being anarchistic, not being bound by any Divine Law. Again this notion
flies in the face of Holy Scripture.
Yet, everything is bound
by Divine Law. All mankind is held completely accountable to the Law of
God, naturally and spiritually. God remains Sovereign in all
legislation, whether it is the Laws of Nature or the Laws of Heaven. God
is the God of nature as much as He is the God of Heaven. He is the God
of the seen as well as the unseen, and His Laws are structured to be
obeyed. This fundamental and essential fact is what the modern church
has forsaken to its own hurt.
The Cultural mandate,
renewed by the European Reformation rightly understood that Adam's
commission to "till" the ground was a commission to
"cultivate the earth". Societal cultivation is the focus of
the Gospel.
The New Birth and the
Restoration of the Society
The New Birth is only a
portion of the Gospel program. It stands alongside the restoration and reorganization
of the culture. It is the essential tool to bring about the
reconstruction of the culture in the age of Anno Domino, the New
Testament Dominion period of the New Covenant.
The Regeneration miracle
of the soul is the regeneration of the whole man. Upon the New Birth the
elect saints become the army of Christ, dispatched into the realm of the
"secular sin cursed world" in an effort to its restoration. As
John states by the Holy Ghost, "For God so loved the
World...", indicating that God loves His created Cosmos. This
cosmos is the natural world which was destroyed by Adam's disobedience.
Christ came both to restore His people and His World to Himself.
Biblically, there is no distinction between secular and sacred -
everything of God's creation is sacred.
This means that as a
result of the regeneration of the whole man, the restoration of every
sphere of life, in which man lives, must be undertaken. Thus the cultural
mandate. This "sphere sovereignty" is what every true
Christian labors to achieve. Wisdom compels the saint to bring every
aspect of his world under the righteous authority of Christ and His Law.
Not only must the Christian's own mind and will be subdued, but every
high arrogance of the entire rebellious human race as well.
Casting down imaginations,
and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ;
2 Cor 10:5 AV
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Rapture Fever
While some would argue
that the eschatology of the Christian has little bearing upon
"essential" life practices, nothing could be farther from the
truth. Eschatology, i.e. the study of the last things, has everything to
do with how one lives. The modern church has adopted a "pan-millennial
"view of the last things, which by definition means, that
everything will "pan out" in the end. In other words, the plan
of God for the culmination of history isn't very important.
Yet, eschatology is
extremely important for both the present and the future. Eschatology
provides a framework for the cultural mandate. If that eschatology is
perverted, the approach to the cultural mandate will also be
perverted.
To their own ruin, the modern church has
adopted the popular rapture fever philosophy, which states that Christ
can rapture the church at any moment since the end is at hand. This
doctrine also favors the notion that most of the New Testament prophesies,
particularly those in Revelation, are future events.
Since these conclusions
are based upon faulty exegesis and faulty preconceptions, the church
lies shipwrecked upon its own idea of eschatology. The problem with the
futurist view is not only that it has concluded erroneously, concerning
the last times, but the means by which those conclusions are reached
exhibit a gross misunderstanding of basis hermeneutics. The futurists
have not allowed God to define His own Word. They have defined it, or
rather re-defined it, according to their own idea of how things should
turn out.
If the
futurists would consider the Bible as its own commentary, letting God
speak for Himself, they would then note that most of the book of the
Revelation of Jesus Christ, is exactly that; the Revelation of Jesus
Christ.
The book of Revelation is primarily a re-capping of past events most of
which is written in allegorical language, but which can be traced back
to many Old Covenant passages.1
It has very little to do with the future. As a matter of fact,
Revelation 19:10 defines the spirit of prophesy. It is the testimony of
Jesus Christ revealed in the New Testament age, and not the testimony of
future events. Christ is the fulfillment of the Prophesy of God. While
He was the future event to Old testament prophets, He is also the fulfillment
of that event to the New Testament saints. This is called the Preterist view
of Scripture.
The Easy Fix
Futurists, and those with
rapture fever, see the end at hand. This view provides an escape route of
non-responsibility toward the society as a whole. Yet, the end of the
age initially was a term used to identify the end of the Old Testament age. This is what
Christ was primarily referring to in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13.
On the other hand the end
times, or the end and final age, is that time-period of the New
Testament era. There will be no other age after this age. Therefore, God
refers to it as the final or the end age. This period is the period of
dominion and Kingdom building which can, and must be fully accomplished as a
result of the Victory of the Cross.
To teach that there is yet
another age yet to come denies the clear teaching of Scripture. Thus,
the error of the Pre-millenialists, who teach that Christ will return to
earth to set up an earthly Kingdom apart from the final Judgment. What
they fail to see is that He has already set up an earthly Kingdom
in His saints to bring about a Golden age of subjection of all peoples.
Christ reigns from Jerusalem now! It is simply the New Jerusalem,
or the New Testament Jerusalem which are the saints of God. So then
Revelation 21, when compared to Hebrews 12, must be seen as past events.
| And I John saw
the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of
heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. v2 |
The New Jerusalem which
John saw is the New Testament Church. It is adorned beautifully and
married to Christ now! It is one with Him now! The consummation is now!
There is not to be a marriage supper in the future for the saints, it is
a supper of marriage at His resurrected Victory - a past realization.
Furthermore, the
resurrection Victory also ushered in the New Age of the New heaven and
New earth. All things were made new by the restoration work of the Lord.
That includes the new relationship which mankind has with God and which His creation has with Him also. This New heaven and New earth will
continue after judgment day, but like the resurrected soul it begins in
time and history, after the cross, in the age of His Dominion.
Conclusion
The futurists want an easy
fix. If they can manufacture a doctrine that removes them from all
cultural responsibility, they have little confrontational work to do. Oh
, maybe convert some people here and there, but at least they do not
need to confront governments, and school systems, and economic
perversion, and so on. If the restoration of the earth is a time to
come, in the "by and by", they need not worry about the work involved in bringing it to
pass.
The doctrine of the
futurist is a doctrine of ignorance, arrogance, irresponsibility and
sloth. It is a doctrine of ease and not of Christian warfare. It the
perhaps the principle reason for the demise of our American culture
since it is the principle reason for apostasy.
Since the mantra of the
day is God's Rapture and not God's Sovereignty, those who are called to
dominion need to go it alone amidst great "Christian
opposition" as well as Humanistic opposition. May God help us in
our quest to fulfill His will on earth, as it is in Heaven.
Soli Deo Gloria
Dominion
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