"Subdue and Have Dominion"

"And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" - Genesis 1:28 ESV

"Subdue it and have dominion." I have thought about this phrase since my post "Just Another Animal?" What does subdue mean here? Am I subduing creation when I attempt to dominate my backyard into submission with a lawn mower?

The Hebrew word for subdue is "kabash" meaning "bring into subjection, make subservient." Subdue as "make subservient" may be helpful for us in this context. God created this world as the living place for humans. And our world continues to serve us to this day; giving us the air we need to breathe, the food we need to eat, and providing the materials we need to create clothing and shelter. In that sense, creation is our servant - "subservient" to us. "Subdue" is used elsewhere in the Old and New Testaments 31 times. And every other time outside of Genesis chapter 1, it is used in a military or political context. So, those other uses are not much help. The use of "subdue" with regard to God's command of humans viz. the earth is never again addressed in Scripture beyond Genesis 1.

But I think it's important to remember that all the other times this word is used in Scripture are after man had sinned. And as the sinful children of Adam, both then and now, the full understanding of God's command to "subdue and have dominion" is elusive and difficult for us to wrap our minds around. Martin Luther has some insight into the problem in his Lectures on Genesis as he addressed Genesis 1:28:

"But Adam would not have used the creatures as we do today, except for food, which he would have derived from other, far more excellent fruits. For he under whose power everything had been placed did not lack clothing or money. Nor would there have been any greed among his descendants; but, apart from food, they would have made use of the creatures only for the admiration of God and for a holy joy which is unkown to us in this corrupt state of nature. By contrast, today and always the whole creation is hardly sufficient to feed and support the human race. Therefore what this dominion consisted of we cannot even imagine."

Adam and Eve were created in the image of God and had a perfect relationship with Him. Yet that perfect harmony with God and with the earth fell apart with the fall into sin. I tend to fall in line behind Luther here in saying we can't have a crystal clear understanding of how our first parents went about having dominion over the earth. Because of who we are as sinners, we have never enjoyed that perfect relationship. The earth is cursed and we eat our food by the sweat of our brow (Genesis 3:17-19). Yet now where in Scripture does it say that God's command to subdue the earth was ever revoked. And that command is still ours today.

So where do we go from here? How are we to understand and live out our role as humans subduing creation? And how do we understand that role in the light of Jesus Christ? How about your thoughts?