The Transforming Vision: Image - Calling - Culture
The Transforming Vision: a biblical perspective for all of life
David R Hanson MA FRCS (WYSOCS) 2013 claims copyright over this material. It must not be used without permission.
Session 2: Image, Calling and Culture
Heavenly Father, your beloved Son, Jesus the Messiah, faithful to your calling, revealed you
to us as one who works. You made us to bear your image throughout this amazing cosmos.
Stir our hearts to wonder at your manifold works, to cherish and protect what you have
made and to please you by filling the earth only with what delights you. Bless the work of
our minds and hands, for Jesus’ sake.
Last week I asked: what is “salvation” for? What’s being rescued? why are we here at all?
Maybe you’ve thought more about that. For your eyes only, now – write down in one
sentence what you think we humans are here for. When we’re done, you can rewrite it!
I wonder if you used any of the categories Image, Calling and Culture.
The image of God
Why are we forbidden to make and worship images (Ex: 20)? Because God has already
chosen what physical image represents him and how its worth should be reckoned. Male
and female alike, we bear ruling appointment in the world. Like Caesar’s denarius “image
and superscription” we are the coinage that carries God’s authority, reflecting (mirroring)
God in the world – and the world to God. We make the invisible God visible.
Image comes by appointment, not capacity!
We shouldn’t look for it in rationality or other qualities. Sick or well, black or white, MENSA
members or dementia-victims, humans bear the image of God. The orphan, the neonate
and the paraplegic, crying for food, or clean nappies or to be turned are exercising
creational dominion on God’s behalf. “Inasmuch as you did it for one of these….!”
The image of God:
i) carries God’s care, presence & sovereignty into the world
ii) advances his programme in the world, promotes what he promotes (cultural mandate).
In an un-fallen world, Eden would have expanded globally as the earth was “filled”, not
merely by geometric extension, but culturally too (we’ll come back to cultural mandate)
But then, it’s the image of God that
iii) proclaims the Gospel to “every creature”, represents Christ to creation
iv) advances his programme in the world, promoting what he promotes (great commission).
1
Al Wolters points out here that in Creation, Cultural Mandate, Gospel and Great
Commission, God has one message: “Let there be…” and “be thus and so…”
2 Life is Religion
(not that it’s church, or prayer, or even consciously focused on God.) Creation sets not only
God’s image, but everything that exists in relationship with him for better or worse: it’s
“response” / “religion”. (Latin: religare -to attach. e.g. ligate, ligature) That’s not a lifestyle
choice for us oddballs: life itself is religion. We are responsive, religious creatures in prayer,
in total concentration on some surgical procedure, in bird-watching; even in proclaiming
that God does not exist!
3 All of Life is religion!
The primary human tasks were imagined into existence to delight the Creator. “For his
pleasure we exist and were created”. In a sinless world they would occupy us, hour by
glorious hour: our… Food and drink; Friendship, sexuality and procreation; Nurture and
education; Crop growing and stock-breeding; Manufacture and market; Travel, government,
art and music; Science and technology; Recreation and Worship; …even sleep – these
occupations, tasks, callings, are given to add value to the cosmos, to change a “very good”
world into a better!
Callings still fit for purpose:
Sin & salvation don’t displace these primary callings: the “Cultural Mandate”. Culture isn’t
good manners, flower-arranging and opera: it’s every way in which we, male and female,
rule creation: it’s what we value and want our children to inherit.
The foot-hold and leverage for our inventive moulding of creation is God’s cosmic law-order.
We stand there to bring the “new” into being, to correct our failures, to do good works that
bless God and neighbour, to live joyfully and securely, to add value to the creation, and in it
all, to be hands and feet to each other.
The primary tasks create forms, customs and artefacts that survive for generations in
distinct “Cultures”. Thence the treasure that is brought into the New Jerusalem, where Jesus
is heir of all things. But we tend to relegate them to a lower, “natural”, “unspiritual” life.
They aren’t preached about much. They sink to the bottom of that unspoken “hierarchy” of
Christian callings (overseas missionary service at the top). If we only know the secondary
(sin-and-salvation-related), “spiritual”, callings might we Christians finish by contributing
nothing to Christ’s inheritance?
2
History takes Time
Creation is “unfolded” or disclosed by culture. From machines to mortgages, Mondrian to
missions, all new things depend on what is given in creation. Even fantasy builds on
experience. We never create as God does but nevertheless, the “new” is the substance of
history. Historians are interested in free human formative activity (so: not the Lisbon
earthquake itself – but what people did in response to it.) We mustn’t resist new-ness out of
conservatism or nostalgia. Creatio prima and secunda equip us for creatio tertia (which is
our “rule over the works of God’s hands.”
Our image-bearing course in history is to be righteously discerned by “listening” to the
creation (not only as it “groans” now (Rom 8) but from the beginning.) God speaks there.
We need restraint in handling earth’s resources and our urge to produce the new should be
led by love for God, the neighbour (the unborn neighbour too) and our cosmos. We can’t
“not do culture or history” but we can make bad history.
5 “Creatures”
includes more than “Nature”: marriage (1Tim.4:3, 4); the state & other authorities
(Rom.13:1, 2) are creatures essential to pursuing the Cultural mandate. Many others
(school, orchestra, business etc.) now emerged. Culture shares creatureliness with nature.
The BCP mentions “these, thy creatures of bread and wine”. Aeroplanes and birds are
creatures. On aeroplanes, see the handout: “Impossible!”
6 Some “communities” caricature what ought to be, but, to exist at all, things are held
by God’s creation norms, either in obedience or rejection – an agricultural enterprise or
university, a Somali pirate crew, covens of witches or investment bankers. A brothel only
makes profit because sex is a good creational given and a gang of thieves holds together
because of a sense of honour. God reveals norms in creation, but also importantly in
prophecy (Scripture) and in Christ.
7 The (Kuyperian) Cultural Mandate in the Old Testament
a) Husbandry – livestock will be ruled (Gen.1:24,26)
b) “Earth” and its creatures are taken in hand (Gen.1:28). “Earth” here obviously means
land + sea + sky = the visible creation that we explore and investigate, because our parents
were told to “Fill and subdue (it); to rule over fish, and birds and every living creature.” The
narrator tells how land, sea and sky came to fill the “earth” and each was populated, the last
not only by birds, but also by sun, moon and stars. Although we’ll next look at c) agriculture,
d) craft and industry and e) civilisation, if our human destiny is to “fill” the visible creation, I
3
wonder whether an f) lies beyond this planet – and perhaps only powerfully at the
restitution of all things (Ac.3:21).
c) Agri-(Horti-) culture: God cares about more than humans. “There was no-one to
work the land” (Gen.2:5) so they were created to “care for and keep the Garden”(2:15). The
creation of the human race fulfils the garden’s need and saving God’s creation-project
means that humans too must be saved.
d) Craft and Industry: in the “land of Havilah”, (Gen.2:11-12) was “good gold, aromatic
resin and onyx too”. Human work isn’t just for food and utilities. There’s space for luxury!
This (bracketed) remark (“the gold is good”) presupposes much. Think: prospecting, mining,
smelting, casting, polishing, working into chains, brooches, pins. Think too: distillation of
essential oils and turning of soft stone. Think: trade and transport, barter, monetisation.
With historical development, work increasingly demands differing skills and guilds in which
knowledge is acquired, protected and passed on.
Nehemiah 3:8 records that adjacent sections of the Jerusalem wall were rebuilt by (one of
the) goldsmiths and (one of the) perfumers. Interesting!
e) Civilisation – develops creation socio-culturally. It is a dynamic field of potential for
communal human disclosure, not a static given. Marriages, families, clans, villages, towns
and cities, farm enterprises and craft workshops, musical performance and dance, teaching
organisations etc. are necessary to this disclosure in the florescence of creation. None is
“just there”; all are initiated historically.
Christian reflection on the culture we make or inherit is necessary in the myriad
communities that God’s Kingdom-rule establishes, such as family, school and church
congregation. The Kingdom doesn’t only establish one kind of community. We may learn
from others than Christians in reflecting on the culture we inhabit and build.
That reflection covers: care for what God has made; attention to all the forms of his word;
seeking his approval communally and individually with intelligent Bible reading and prayer
inside a real, energetic, cultural involvement. Living only as church will not please the
Creator of all things.
God has more interests than judgment and salvation. He isn’t bored with his project. So,
beware a two-dimensional, moralistic religion. It makes both God and us boring. Salvation
carries his creation project forward as blessing for all generations and peoples and for all
eternity.
As the people of God move from Eden to Canaan, they will discover (Dt. 8:7 ff.)
“good land, streams, pools, springs; wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates; olive oil,
honey; the rocks are iron and you can dig copper”. While Israel’s existence is born of God’s
purpose to set creation and humankind to rights, it’s a salvation history that includes the
primary tasks. She will have resources for her culture and will produce wealth to match her
4
multiplication – only if she “pays attention to (God’s) laws and is careful to follow them.”
(Dt. 7:12)
Israel as God’s people are to: “serve (obey) the Lord and keep (hearken unto) his
commandments” (Heb. – ‘abad; and shamar.) Those two verbs back in Gen. 2:15 relate not
to God but to his kingdom space, Eden: “dress it and keep it” = “serve it and hearken unto
it”. To “care for, dress, till or work” variously translate the Heb. ‘abad – but its primary
meaning is “to serve”. No exploitation there!
Creation talks…
God instructs our culture: “a farmer ploughs for planting…does he keep on breaking up and
harrowing the soil? When he has levelled the surface, doesn’t he sow caraway and scatter
cumin? Doesn’t he plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot and spelt in its field? His God
instructs him and teaches him the right way.” etc. etc. “this also comes from the LORD
almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom” (Isa. 28:24-29). The “way things
are” (even in a fallen world) reveals God’s law words for our good. It is folly to look into the
Bible for all God’s vital instruction.
and the Spirit gives gifts!
“to Bezalel, Oholiab and all the skilled workers” (Ex.31:2-5), men and women (Ex.35;36)
ordinary skills: teaching ability; craft; design for gold, silver and bronze work; cutting and
setting stones; woodwork. Pentecost shouldn’t let us see the Holy Spirit only in the extraordinary
or even only in believers. The pagan Cyrus was made wise to return Israel to its
land from captivity. Treasure from unbelieving nations will be tribute in the New Jerusalem.
8 The creation “Fiat!” sets up a law-order, of grace!
That manifold specified law-order for creatures says: “be thus and so!” Prophecy and
scripture republish that creation-word – but now (Gordon Spykman) with redemptive
intent. The great commission: “Go into all the world…” supersedes neither the cultural
mandate of Genesis nor the law-words written into creation; it reasserts them effectively
with the Spirit’s accompanying power: “This is how I want you to be” because the “King of
Creation” has come! It isn’t Plan B. It has productivity, health, invention, law, love and
beauty at its heart but recognises that the day for the restitution of all things has not yet
come. It calls all human gifts back into God’s service through our new Adam, Jesus the
Messiah. Jesus is the “Everlasting Father” (Isa.9:6) of a new humanity, the one who sets our
race on its feet again.
9 Law intended for life
5
The law-structure as a whole (I emphasised this last week) – not just the Decalogue or O.T. –
is an invitation to whole-hearted, single-minded love for God and service of neighbour. The
greatest commandment and the “one like it” summarise the intent of every law, ordinance,
statute, commandment, decree that God promulgates over his creation – “to bring life”
(Rom. 7:10), gravity, economy, logic & boiling point included. “Your laws endure to this day
for all things serve you.” (Ps. 119: 91.) The word revealed “to Jacob” is part and parcel of the
words by which God rules daily happenings in the cosmos (Ps. 148).
10 Calling and “office”
God orders society by granting “office”: a task or service (and the right to exercise it) in
preserving God’s order, in performing the Sovereign’s will, in nurturing what is administered
in the “fear of the Lord”. Office is delegated sovereignty, exercised by image-bearers in the
“station” or “sphere” where they are placed in creation or kingdom (creation restored).
Office is sphere-related. Lawful authority doesn’t leak into other spheres.
Office may also clothe those who reject Messiah’s gospel and have no “fear of the Lord”.
We all inhabit the one creation which God is restoring and we grow together in that
universal kingdom “until the harvest”. But being “children of the kingdom”, “possessing it”;
“entering” it is no guarantee of wise or fruitful office-bearing.
Office as service
Back to our old friend ‘abad”: “to work …the garden” Gen. 2:15: to “serve …Yahweh”
Josh.24:24. The cognate noun – “obed” Servant, qualifies par excellence Jesus himself,
working because his father works, doing his father’s will, destroying the works of the devil
and proclaiming creation’s renewal. All other office is borrowed from, patterned on, this
Office-bearer. Nothing is too humble to be honoured as office – washing the disciples’ feet
was royal, prophetic and priestly work.
Office as administration
Then again: “shamar”: “to… take care of the garden” Gen. 2:15 to “obey (or hearken to) the
LORD“ Josh. 24:24. Whenever we speak of image-bearing ‘dominion’ or ‘rule’, we should
remember and reflect God’s own solicitude for creatures. Initiative, imagination, even
ambition aren’t excluded in serving the one who grants office in his kingdom but they need
wrapping in loving solicitude.
David R Hanson MA FRCS (WYSOCS) 2013 claims copyright over this material. It must not be used without permission.
Session 2: Image, Calling and Culture
Heavenly Father, your beloved Son, Jesus the Messiah, faithful to your calling, revealed you
to us as one who works. You made us to bear your image throughout this amazing cosmos.
Stir our hearts to wonder at your manifold works, to cherish and protect what you have
made and to please you by filling the earth only with what delights you. Bless the work of
our minds and hands, for Jesus’ sake.
Last week I asked: what is “salvation” for? What’s being rescued? why are we here at all?
Maybe you’ve thought more about that. For your eyes only, now – write down in one
sentence what you think we humans are here for. When we’re done, you can rewrite it!
I wonder if you used any of the categories Image, Calling and Culture.
The image of God
Why are we forbidden to make and worship images (Ex: 20)? Because God has already
chosen what physical image represents him and how its worth should be reckoned. Male
and female alike, we bear ruling appointment in the world. Like Caesar’s denarius “image
and superscription” we are the coinage that carries God’s authority, reflecting (mirroring)
God in the world – and the world to God. We make the invisible God visible.
Image comes by appointment, not capacity!
We shouldn’t look for it in rationality or other qualities. Sick or well, black or white, MENSA
members or dementia-victims, humans bear the image of God. The orphan, the neonate
and the paraplegic, crying for food, or clean nappies or to be turned are exercising
creational dominion on God’s behalf. “Inasmuch as you did it for one of these….!”
The image of God:
i) carries God’s care, presence & sovereignty into the world
ii) advances his programme in the world, promotes what he promotes (cultural mandate).
In an un-fallen world, Eden would have expanded globally as the earth was “filled”, not
merely by geometric extension, but culturally too (we’ll come back to cultural mandate)
But then, it’s the image of God that
iii) proclaims the Gospel to “every creature”, represents Christ to creation
iv) advances his programme in the world, promoting what he promotes (great commission).
1
Al Wolters points out here that in Creation, Cultural Mandate, Gospel and Great
Commission, God has one message: “Let there be…” and “be thus and so…”
2 Life is Religion
(not that it’s church, or prayer, or even consciously focused on God.) Creation sets not only
God’s image, but everything that exists in relationship with him for better or worse: it’s
“response” / “religion”. (Latin: religare -to attach. e.g. ligate, ligature) That’s not a lifestyle
choice for us oddballs: life itself is religion. We are responsive, religious creatures in prayer,
in total concentration on some surgical procedure, in bird-watching; even in proclaiming
that God does not exist!
3 All of Life is religion!
The primary human tasks were imagined into existence to delight the Creator. “For his
pleasure we exist and were created”. In a sinless world they would occupy us, hour by
glorious hour: our… Food and drink; Friendship, sexuality and procreation; Nurture and
education; Crop growing and stock-breeding; Manufacture and market; Travel, government,
art and music; Science and technology; Recreation and Worship; …even sleep – these
occupations, tasks, callings, are given to add value to the cosmos, to change a “very good”
world into a better!
Callings still fit for purpose:
Sin & salvation don’t displace these primary callings: the “Cultural Mandate”. Culture isn’t
good manners, flower-arranging and opera: it’s every way in which we, male and female,
rule creation: it’s what we value and want our children to inherit.
The foot-hold and leverage for our inventive moulding of creation is God’s cosmic law-order.
We stand there to bring the “new” into being, to correct our failures, to do good works that
bless God and neighbour, to live joyfully and securely, to add value to the creation, and in it
all, to be hands and feet to each other.
The primary tasks create forms, customs and artefacts that survive for generations in
distinct “Cultures”. Thence the treasure that is brought into the New Jerusalem, where Jesus
is heir of all things. But we tend to relegate them to a lower, “natural”, “unspiritual” life.
They aren’t preached about much. They sink to the bottom of that unspoken “hierarchy” of
Christian callings (overseas missionary service at the top). If we only know the secondary
(sin-and-salvation-related), “spiritual”, callings might we Christians finish by contributing
nothing to Christ’s inheritance?
2
History takes Time
Creation is “unfolded” or disclosed by culture. From machines to mortgages, Mondrian to
missions, all new things depend on what is given in creation. Even fantasy builds on
experience. We never create as God does but nevertheless, the “new” is the substance of
history. Historians are interested in free human formative activity (so: not the Lisbon
earthquake itself – but what people did in response to it.) We mustn’t resist new-ness out of
conservatism or nostalgia. Creatio prima and secunda equip us for creatio tertia (which is
our “rule over the works of God’s hands.”
Our image-bearing course in history is to be righteously discerned by “listening” to the
creation (not only as it “groans” now (Rom 8) but from the beginning.) God speaks there.
We need restraint in handling earth’s resources and our urge to produce the new should be
led by love for God, the neighbour (the unborn neighbour too) and our cosmos. We can’t
“not do culture or history” but we can make bad history.
5 “Creatures”
includes more than “Nature”: marriage (1Tim.4:3, 4); the state & other authorities
(Rom.13:1, 2) are creatures essential to pursuing the Cultural mandate. Many others
(school, orchestra, business etc.) now emerged. Culture shares creatureliness with nature.
The BCP mentions “these, thy creatures of bread and wine”. Aeroplanes and birds are
creatures. On aeroplanes, see the handout: “Impossible!”
6 Some “communities” caricature what ought to be, but, to exist at all, things are held
by God’s creation norms, either in obedience or rejection – an agricultural enterprise or
university, a Somali pirate crew, covens of witches or investment bankers. A brothel only
makes profit because sex is a good creational given and a gang of thieves holds together
because of a sense of honour. God reveals norms in creation, but also importantly in
prophecy (Scripture) and in Christ.
7 The (Kuyperian) Cultural Mandate in the Old Testament
a) Husbandry – livestock will be ruled (Gen.1:24,26)
b) “Earth” and its creatures are taken in hand (Gen.1:28). “Earth” here obviously means
land + sea + sky = the visible creation that we explore and investigate, because our parents
were told to “Fill and subdue (it); to rule over fish, and birds and every living creature.” The
narrator tells how land, sea and sky came to fill the “earth” and each was populated, the last
not only by birds, but also by sun, moon and stars. Although we’ll next look at c) agriculture,
d) craft and industry and e) civilisation, if our human destiny is to “fill” the visible creation, I
3
wonder whether an f) lies beyond this planet – and perhaps only powerfully at the
restitution of all things (Ac.3:21).
c) Agri-(Horti-) culture: God cares about more than humans. “There was no-one to
work the land” (Gen.2:5) so they were created to “care for and keep the Garden”(2:15). The
creation of the human race fulfils the garden’s need and saving God’s creation-project
means that humans too must be saved.
d) Craft and Industry: in the “land of Havilah”, (Gen.2:11-12) was “good gold, aromatic
resin and onyx too”. Human work isn’t just for food and utilities. There’s space for luxury!
This (bracketed) remark (“the gold is good”) presupposes much. Think: prospecting, mining,
smelting, casting, polishing, working into chains, brooches, pins. Think too: distillation of
essential oils and turning of soft stone. Think: trade and transport, barter, monetisation.
With historical development, work increasingly demands differing skills and guilds in which
knowledge is acquired, protected and passed on.
Nehemiah 3:8 records that adjacent sections of the Jerusalem wall were rebuilt by (one of
the) goldsmiths and (one of the) perfumers. Interesting!
e) Civilisation – develops creation socio-culturally. It is a dynamic field of potential for
communal human disclosure, not a static given. Marriages, families, clans, villages, towns
and cities, farm enterprises and craft workshops, musical performance and dance, teaching
organisations etc. are necessary to this disclosure in the florescence of creation. None is
“just there”; all are initiated historically.
Christian reflection on the culture we make or inherit is necessary in the myriad
communities that God’s Kingdom-rule establishes, such as family, school and church
congregation. The Kingdom doesn’t only establish one kind of community. We may learn
from others than Christians in reflecting on the culture we inhabit and build.
That reflection covers: care for what God has made; attention to all the forms of his word;
seeking his approval communally and individually with intelligent Bible reading and prayer
inside a real, energetic, cultural involvement. Living only as church will not please the
Creator of all things.
God has more interests than judgment and salvation. He isn’t bored with his project. So,
beware a two-dimensional, moralistic religion. It makes both God and us boring. Salvation
carries his creation project forward as blessing for all generations and peoples and for all
eternity.
As the people of God move from Eden to Canaan, they will discover (Dt. 8:7 ff.)
“good land, streams, pools, springs; wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates; olive oil,
honey; the rocks are iron and you can dig copper”. While Israel’s existence is born of God’s
purpose to set creation and humankind to rights, it’s a salvation history that includes the
primary tasks. She will have resources for her culture and will produce wealth to match her
4
multiplication – only if she “pays attention to (God’s) laws and is careful to follow them.”
(Dt. 7:12)
Israel as God’s people are to: “serve (obey) the Lord and keep (hearken unto) his
commandments” (Heb. – ‘abad; and shamar.) Those two verbs back in Gen. 2:15 relate not
to God but to his kingdom space, Eden: “dress it and keep it” = “serve it and hearken unto
it”. To “care for, dress, till or work” variously translate the Heb. ‘abad – but its primary
meaning is “to serve”. No exploitation there!
Creation talks…
God instructs our culture: “a farmer ploughs for planting…does he keep on breaking up and
harrowing the soil? When he has levelled the surface, doesn’t he sow caraway and scatter
cumin? Doesn’t he plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot and spelt in its field? His God
instructs him and teaches him the right way.” etc. etc. “this also comes from the LORD
almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom” (Isa. 28:24-29). The “way things
are” (even in a fallen world) reveals God’s law words for our good. It is folly to look into the
Bible for all God’s vital instruction.
and the Spirit gives gifts!
“to Bezalel, Oholiab and all the skilled workers” (Ex.31:2-5), men and women (Ex.35;36)
ordinary skills: teaching ability; craft; design for gold, silver and bronze work; cutting and
setting stones; woodwork. Pentecost shouldn’t let us see the Holy Spirit only in the extraordinary
or even only in believers. The pagan Cyrus was made wise to return Israel to its
land from captivity. Treasure from unbelieving nations will be tribute in the New Jerusalem.
8 The creation “Fiat!” sets up a law-order, of grace!
That manifold specified law-order for creatures says: “be thus and so!” Prophecy and
scripture republish that creation-word – but now (Gordon Spykman) with redemptive
intent. The great commission: “Go into all the world…” supersedes neither the cultural
mandate of Genesis nor the law-words written into creation; it reasserts them effectively
with the Spirit’s accompanying power: “This is how I want you to be” because the “King of
Creation” has come! It isn’t Plan B. It has productivity, health, invention, law, love and
beauty at its heart but recognises that the day for the restitution of all things has not yet
come. It calls all human gifts back into God’s service through our new Adam, Jesus the
Messiah. Jesus is the “Everlasting Father” (Isa.9:6) of a new humanity, the one who sets our
race on its feet again.
9 Law intended for life
5
The law-structure as a whole (I emphasised this last week) – not just the Decalogue or O.T. –
is an invitation to whole-hearted, single-minded love for God and service of neighbour. The
greatest commandment and the “one like it” summarise the intent of every law, ordinance,
statute, commandment, decree that God promulgates over his creation – “to bring life”
(Rom. 7:10), gravity, economy, logic & boiling point included. “Your laws endure to this day
for all things serve you.” (Ps. 119: 91.) The word revealed “to Jacob” is part and parcel of the
words by which God rules daily happenings in the cosmos (Ps. 148).
10 Calling and “office”
God orders society by granting “office”: a task or service (and the right to exercise it) in
preserving God’s order, in performing the Sovereign’s will, in nurturing what is administered
in the “fear of the Lord”. Office is delegated sovereignty, exercised by image-bearers in the
“station” or “sphere” where they are placed in creation or kingdom (creation restored).
Office is sphere-related. Lawful authority doesn’t leak into other spheres.
Office may also clothe those who reject Messiah’s gospel and have no “fear of the Lord”.
We all inhabit the one creation which God is restoring and we grow together in that
universal kingdom “until the harvest”. But being “children of the kingdom”, “possessing it”;
“entering” it is no guarantee of wise or fruitful office-bearing.
Office as service
Back to our old friend ‘abad”: “to work …the garden” Gen. 2:15: to “serve …Yahweh”
Josh.24:24. The cognate noun – “obed” Servant, qualifies par excellence Jesus himself,
working because his father works, doing his father’s will, destroying the works of the devil
and proclaiming creation’s renewal. All other office is borrowed from, patterned on, this
Office-bearer. Nothing is too humble to be honoured as office – washing the disciples’ feet
was royal, prophetic and priestly work.
Office as administration
Then again: “shamar”: “to… take care of the garden” Gen. 2:15 to “obey (or hearken to) the
LORD“ Josh. 24:24. Whenever we speak of image-bearing ‘dominion’ or ‘rule’, we should
remember and reflect God’s own solicitude for creatures. Initiative, imagination, even
ambition aren’t excluded in serving the one who grants office in his kingdom but they need
wrapping in loving solicitude.
