When Humanity is in Charge of the Earth

info All commentaries are written by volunteers, readers, or supporters of our Bible translation project. These are not official views of our project; we are not a religious denomination and we do not establish doctrine. These commentaries reflect a variety of views and some disagree with each other.

At Genesis 1:28, God gave mankind the following commission:

‘Reproduce, multiply, fill the earth and control it. Rule over the fish of the seas, the winged creatures of the skies, all the herding animals of the ground, all the slithering animals that crawl on the ground, and the whole earth.’

However, it appears as though the first humans (Adam and Eve) relinquished their rights to this commission when they sinned and submitted their lives to the Slanderer. For notice what the Slanderer later said to Jesus (as recorded at Luke 4:6):

‘I will give you power over all of these [worldly governments] and the glory of them, because they have been given to me and I can give them to whomever I wish.’

So it appears as though our forefathers gave away our commission to rule over the earth and its creatures when they followed the directions of the evil one.

However, the Bible also tells us that after the Slanderer loses a future great war;
Jesus and his ‘chosen ones’ will become kings on the earth. And then the power that the wicked one has over this earth and its creatures will no longer be his, for it will fall back into the hands of faithful mankind.

After that, we can scarcely imagine what powers will be returned to humans when the full commission that God gave to us over this earth and its creatures is restored. With no opposition, and with each man and woman endowed with a full measure of the power of God’s Holy Breath, the blessings to this earth and its creatures could be virtually limitless.

For a poetic look at what that might mean for all of earth's creatures, please see the contributed poem, Animal Our Wards.