Setting Creation Free is Man’s Duty and Right

When God created man, God blessed and commanded him,

…Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. [Gen 1:28 KJV]

This command and blessing has not been revoked and will never be revoked for God never goes back on his word.

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do  it?  or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? [Num 23:19 KJV]

Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. [Luk 21:33 KJV]

What we should realize is that by this blessing and command, man has both the right and indeed the duty to destroy the curse on the ground and indeed upon all creation. In this regard however, man has two basic challenges:

1. Having the right to do a thing is not sufficient all by itself to accomplishing it. Wisdom and power are required. This is the first challenge man is faced with. He does not have the power (and wisdom)  to fulfill this duty and to exercise his right to free the earth from the curse and thus replenish the earth. Therefore, to set creation free from the curse, man has to be sufficiently empowered.
2. The other challenge man has to fulfilling this duty and right are the sins that are upon the earth. These bring the earth under God’s judgment and wrath for sin always incurs God’s judgment and punishment. Now, if the earth is under God’s judgment, it means in a very real sense that God is against us and surely, no matter how much power God gives us, we can never have enough to overcome him.

There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD. [Pro 21:30]

No amount of power or depth and breadth of wisdom will ever be sufficient to set the creation free from death and Hades if God himself is against us. Therefore, to free creation from the curse, the sins of the (inhabitants of the) earth must be removed.

So for creation to be set free from the curse, sins of the world have to be atoned for and man has to be empowered to set creation free. Of the two basic requirements to setting creation free from corruption, empowering man will be the first.

Empowering Man

Empowering man does not mean that every single descendant of Adam will be empowered but that mankind as a unit will be empowered. This requires only that the leaders, those heaven recognizes as the heads of the human race be empowered.

The present heads of the human race (generally speaking)  are corrupt and sinful and are living in rebellion against God. Therefore, God will not and has no intention of empowering them. God’s plan is to replace the existing headship of the human race with a new order of leaders who will love righteousness and be loyal to him. This is God’s plan for the Church of Christ—the church will be the head of the human race in the age to come. Therefore, since the church is the one God has ordained to head the human race, it is just the church that needs to be empowered for mankind to be empowered.

God will empower the church at the First Resurrection when he glorifies us with his glory.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. [Php 3:20-21]

Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. [Rev 20:6]

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. [1Co 15:51-53]

Once we are glorified, we will be like the angels and second in rank and order only to God. This will make it easy for us to set the creation free from the curse effected by death, hades, Satan and all his demonic horde for we will be far greater and more powerful than them all.

Another effect of our glorification is that it will automatically set us free from the corruption in nature. By our glory, we will be possessing a new nature, one that is not subject to the curse. You see, what God cursed was the dust of the ground, but the new nature we will be given will not be of the dust of the ground but of heaven.

The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. ^₄₈As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ^₄₉And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. ^₅₀I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. [1Co 15:47-50]

By this glory the church will be set free from the curse upon the earth, the rest of creation, however, will still be subject to the curse. Though the world will still at this time be under the curse, we who belong to Christ would have been freed from it by our resurrection and glorification. Once empowered, we will be ready to set creation free but first, the sins of our world have to be taken care of.

Establish A Righteous and Eternal Government

All of this requires a righteous [Exo 18:21; Isa 32:1] and legitimate government, one that actively promotes good and zealously opposes evil [Isa 42:3-4]. This government will be one of the most visible and defining features of the Kingdom of God. It will have the Lord Jesus Christ and his saints as kings forever and ever.

…you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. ^₁₀You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” [Rev 5:9-10]

To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—‘He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give him the morning star. [Rev 2:26-28]

Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. [Rev 20:6]

…The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him …And they will reign for ever and ever. [Rev 22:3-5]

This government will possess a glory far higher than that of men and even of angels [1Cor 6:3]. This higher glory means that the church alone is fit to rule over all others.

The Glory of the Resurrected Church

All who have overcome in the church will be raised to life in glorious new bodies at the First Resurrection when the Lord Jesus Christ comes in his glory [1Cor 15:51-53; 1Th 4:16]. Now, the glory of these new bodies will be like the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ [1Joh 3:2] whose glory is that of God the Father himself [Joh 17:5; Php 2:5-6; Heb 1:3]. This then means that the church, in glorified bodies, sharing the same glory as the Lord Jesus Christ will be higher than all men and angels alike. Only God and the Lord Jesus Christ will be higher than the Church.

The church as a government will however not rule simply because it has the power to, God has so ensured that the rule of the church will be accepted by all.

Every Tribe and Language and People and Nation

An important fact about this government, a fact that gives it legitimacy and acceptability, is that it will be made up of men from “every tribe and language and people and nation.” [Rev 5:9] The reason why this is God’s design may not be immediately apparent but when one understands God’s model for government, it becomes clear.

Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother… [Deut 17:15b]

This is God’s design for the government of his eternal kingdom. In other words, no people group will be ruled by a foreigner. This is to say that every people will be ruled by glorified sons of God from her own people group. A tribe will be ruled by glorified saints from that tribe. A language group will be ruled by glorified saints from its own language. So also with people and nations.

This is the reason why God by covenant made Abraham, whose seed was to rule the nations [Gen 22:17; 17:6], the father of many nations [Gen 17:4-5]. In other words, Abraham will have children from every nation and these children will rule over their respective nations. This is why the gospel has to be preached to all nations before the end can come [Mat 24:14]. This is why men have to be bought, not from some but from, “every tribe and language and people and nation” by the blood of the Lamb before he is given the scroll with seven seals.

A Righteous Government

This government, the glorified Church, will be righteous because it will be made up of men who have been tested and proven [1Sam 13:14] and who were chosen by God himself [Deut 17:15a]. These glorified men, having been glorified will be citizens of heaven where God’s will is done. As righteous rulers, they will promote the righteous ways of God and the culture of heaven in all their dominion. As righteous rulers, who love righteousness, they will ensure justice, punishing and discouraging sin and ensuring that there is a sure reward for righteousness and labor.

These are all members of one family [Joh 20:17] whose love for God and for their brothers has been tested and proven [Gen 22:1-2,12-17]. They are all brothers and servants of one master, the Lord Jesus Christ, and their submission and absolute devotion to him has been tested and proven. Therefore, there will be peace among them and they will promote peace among all their subjects.

When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy. Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed. [Pro 11:10-11].