The Commands that God gave to Adam in the Garden Reveal that Man is Designed for Dominion.
The commands that Adam received from the Lord reveal our destiny, reveal our design and the way God created us to function as men in the earth. In Genesis 1:26 we read;
"Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
This is a revelation of the Trinity there, we see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, making man in the image of God.
The original intent was for man to first carry the image of the one, true God, we are made in His image and His likeness. When God creates man, He gives him five distinct commands.
#1 Be fruitful
#2 Multiply
#3 Replenish the earth
#4 Conquer, subdue and take dominion over the earth
#5 Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
Be Fruitful
The first command is to be fruitful. This is not just a command to procreate or repopulate the earth. This is a mindset, and when you see this, everything can shift for you because the Lord's commanding Adam and commanding all of us. He's commanding man to be fruitful. When you think about fruit, fruit within itself carries a seed. We see in Genesis chapter one that every fruit bearing plant carries a seed, this means it can augment, it can duplicate and it can start to replicate and grow within itself.
This is a picture of personal growth. It is a picture of expanding and enlarging within yourself. As a new creation being we believe and know that we carry the seed of God, we have DNA from heaven. We carry a unique, specific call and gift that's connected to our call, and that purpose is not just for us, it's for us to develop so we can bear fruit. When you think about bearing fruit, another word that we could use would be results.
There is a passage in the New Testament where Jesus walks up to the fig tree and He's looking for fruit. There was an expectation that this tree should be replicating after its own kind. It should be producing figs and it was not. Jesus proceeds to curse the tree because it was not bearing any fruit. Like the fig tree we are to be bearing fruit. We are to be producing results. All fruit carries its own DNA, it carries the seed to grow on the vine and it will expand and enlarge as it develops and grows to full maturity. This is a picture of personal growth in our lives as men in the pursuit and the fulfillment of our call. This is a command to be fruitful.
It requires us to focus, be intentional and purposeful in the pursuit of growth in all areas of our life.
Multiply
The command to multiply represents an increase. It's an addition, it's a duplication and it's a picture of accelerated increase. In command number one we observed the fruit, having seed within itself and growing and coming to a place of maturity where it's, self-sustaining it augments within itself. It is a picture of our personal journey of growth. With the command to multiply, we see an accelerated increase of that fruitfulness for the purpose of giving something away.
When we see the command to multiplication, it is important for us to understand that what we carry as men and what we have to offer is not just for us. Multiplication is part of your design as a man to multiply the things that you touch and to multiply the things that you put your hand to as someone who's managing and stewarding over resources, both spiritual or natural. We have the ability and are commanded to multiply. The whole point of accelerated growth is that we would have more to give away.
As we look at our purpose as men within the kingdom of God, it is never only about us. Our purpose is always connected to a people and a place. Your purpose is connected to a person, to a people, and it's also connected to a place. When I say place, I mean a specific sphere, it could be a geographical location and It could be where you find yourself in life right now. The question that all men want to know is; what’s my purpose? Who is it connected to and where is it? Your purpose is connected to where you are right now, and you are commanded to multiply where you are right now. You may be in a station of life that you've been waiting to get out of, you have been waiting for that promotion into the next season, to the next level of your life. Consider the command to be fruitful and to multiply where you are right now.
Let's just look in the mirror for a moment and think about “where am I right now?” Am I doing everything I'm called to do and everything I can do as a steward where I'm placed. Think about your job, ask yourself, are you doing the things that are required of you and not just required, but going above and beyond? Completing the requirements are just the minimum. If you want to be an excellent steward and you're looking for promotion, start to multiply what's in your hand, multiply where you are. This is not a suggestion. This is a command. This is the command to Adam. It's the command to us. Number one, be fruitful. Number two, multiply. And the whole purpose of multiplication is that it is connected to someone else. It's connected to a purpose that God has for you. So multiply right now where you're planted in this season of your life.
Replenish
When we examine this commandment to replenish we find some Bible translations phrase this as a commandment to fill. The Hebrew word carries the meaning; to ordain or consecrate for service to God. There is something holy about this replenishment. It is connected to a larger purpose and service. It is an act of service to God when He commands Adam to replenish. We have to recognize that there is an abundant supply of all things available to us, this is an abundance mindset. We have a new mindset when we're born from above, we are men in the kingdom serving God and we have access to abundance. In commandment one, we see fruitfulness as growing within yourself, that journey of growth in all areas of your life. In commandment two, we see the next stage is to multiply and duplicate what you're carrying, so you have for yourself, but you also have enough to give away. This is followed by a command to replenish.
It is a continual cycle of filling. It's a continual abundance mindset that never runs out. I have enough for myself. I have enough to give away in that sphere of influence that I'm called to, and I also have this ability and access to replenish.
In Ephesians 5:18 the apostle Paul tells the church at Ephesus to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a verb that implies a continuing infilling. It's not a one-time filling, it is something that we are to continually do. It's a replenishment, it's an abundance and it's an overflow that is available to us. Here are three points of application for us:
- Pursue personal growth, pursue growth in every area of your life and pursue it within you, be intentional about your spiritual development.
- Multiply, this is when we have enough to give away.
- Replenish, this is a continual cycle and access to abundance.
Level up your mindset right now, these are not just three commands, these are three mindsets. These are three patterns of thinking that we can take on as men to affect our life and those around us.
Subdue and Take Dominion
The fourth command was subdue the earth, the word subdue can be translated as dominion. The Lord commanded Adam to take dominion over the earth. Adam was appointed to this physical and spiritual sphere called the garden of Eden. He was to subdue the land. He was to take dominion over it, to subjugate it and rule over it as a ruler in the earth, as king of the earth under the headship of God.
Adam falls. He chooses to disobey God and as a result, he's expelled from the garden and he loses his dominion. He loses that place of influence that he was called to inhabit and walk in. He is no longer the ruler of the earth and he lost this place of influence. This is now part of the Adamic nature that we all inherit.
The natural man apart from God is not in alignment with the will of God. We now see a perversion of our call to take dominion. We move from dominion to domination, man, no longer wants to just take dominion, he now wants to dominate. He wants to dominate people. We move from expanding the kingdom of God as a steward, as a ruler under the headship of the Lord and we now move into building our own empire. So think about it guys. Why do you want it? Why do you want to expand? Why do you want to grow? Why are so many of us obsessed with conquering something? This is a trait in the human race. This is a trait that's left over from our DNA, where we have this charge to take dominion. When it's out of alignment and when it's part of our fallen nature, apart from Christ, we can see this drive manifest with these perverse desires to expand, to rule over people and to always conquer.
This perverse drive will never be satisfied apart from God. If you are pursuing money, you are never going to have enough. There is always more, there's another hill to conquer, there's another mountain to climb. This quest for dominion is going to show up in different ways, it is a residue leftover from our fallen nature. When we talk about dominion and what that means for us as modern kingdom men in today's world, dominion is your sphere of influence.
We're all called to be leaders. And the first thing we have to lead is ourselves. So if you want to talk about expanding and taking dominion, the first thing you must do is take dominion over yourself. After that, we can start to look at that sphere and that atmosphere that we are placed within, where we can expand, we can grow and we can take dominion and grow where we're planted and expand that by being good stewards and good rulers in the place where we are today.
