God Wants You to Understand Your Dominion
Let them have dominion…” is God’s own sovereign delegation of governmental authority for man at creation. To man has been given the stewardship of the universe. Man’s right to rulership of the earth and the cosmos above the earth is built into the constitution which God framed for creation. It would therefore be unconstitutional for God as Deity, to do the job of rulership over the earth. He designed that all ruling and exercising of dominion over the earth, should go through man whom He has set over it.
“The heaven, and the heaven of heavens belong to God, the earth He has given to the children of men” And even now, there is a perfect Man seated on the Throne of God, reigning over the whole of creation.
Yes, the Lord reigns. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. It is the Lamb of God that’s seated upon the throne. And He is the Son of man. He is there as man’s Mediator, Advocate and Intercessor. He is our High Priest after the order of Melchisedek(King-Priest). “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Ti 2:5).
After God created man, He blessed them, and gave them some important instructions. He told them to go forth and bear fruit and to fill the earth with the image of God after his kind. This mandate was given with the three words: “fruitful, multiply, and replenish”. These was to emphasize His plan for man—filling the earth with the image of God. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary renders the meaning of this word replenish as “to fill up again, to fill with persons or animals, to supply fully, to fill with inspiration or power, or to make good.”
The second portion of the command given to man in the second half of the 28th verse of Genesis chapter 1, is even stronger. “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). God told him to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. He told man to exercise dominion and authority over the things in the sea, over the living things in the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. This portion of the mandate from God requires a little attention.
The word subdue used here, according to Strong Dictionary, is the Hebrew word “kaw-bash”, meaning “to tread down, to conquer, to subjugate, to bring into bondage, to bring into subjection, and to keep under.”
Now, wait a minute! Man just appeared on the scene. He’d just been created. Everything in the Garden of God was still perfect and in harmony with the Creator. Sin had not yet entered into man’s experience, nor any of sin’s consequences. There was no sin, no sickness, no sorrow. There was no death. The Holy One, the Creator Himself, looking at the works of His hands after the fifth day of creation, was satisfied. He blessed His creatures and saw that everything He had made was good.
“And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:23-25).
If everything in the Garden of God was good when man was brought onto the scene, what then was there in the earth that needed to be treaded down, conquered, subjugated, brought into subjection, and kept under, by man? What was there for Adam to subdue?
We also notice further responsibility given to Adam in the second chapter of Genesis in the 15th verse: “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen 2:15).
Strong tells us that the word keep used here is the Hebrew word shaw-mar, which means “to guard it, to hedge it, and to protect it.” After cross-checking the meaning of this word “keep”, used here, we discover that it’s the same Hebrew word used in the third chapter (Gen 3:24): “So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” God placed a flaming sword at the east gate of the Garden of Eden to keep, or guard, the tree of life. It was the same word “shaw-mar”, which means to guard, hedge, and protect, that is used in all these passages. We must ask again: To protect it from whom?
If Adam was to guard the garden, then surely there must have been “something”, with malicious intent, lurking around that he needs to guard it from. If Adam was to tread down and conquer “some things” upon earth, it is self-evident that there were things hostile to God and to man around there somewhere. Who or what was this “thing or being” that existed at this time and was an enemy of God?
Who or what was this potential intruder or burglar that Adam was to keep, protect, and guard the Garden from?
Of course, we know what or who it was! It was that ancient serpent, that liar, that deceiver, that thief, that burglar, that murderer, called the devil and Satan, who was already around in the beginning, of whom the Lord Jesus said:
“He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (1 Jn 3:8, Joh 8:44).
God committed to Adam the wisdom, power, dominion and authority necessary to rule the entire universe. Before him lay the whole earth, the seas, the heavens, all filled and swarming with creatures, and a plethora of life forms.
It is important to note that God did not say to man, “Just hang in there, be humble, and let the circumstances of life roll over you. Don’t ever do anything about it. Que sera, sera; whatever will be, will be!”
No! a thousand times no! God didn’t say that.
He said, subdue it! If anything gets out of line, you force it back in line. Man is the crown of God’s creation. He was made to be the god over the earth. God created the earth, the cosmos, and the millions of billions of galaxies and put him in charge. He was to rule over all within the guidelines given by God.
God gave him a royal mandate to dominate the earth and to put all God’s enemies where they belong, under His feet. Man was created to bear the image of God. He was given the mandate and the authority to subdue every spirit contrary to God. His failure to exercise dominion over the old serpent was the beginning of his downfall.
Today, God has given you and me dominion through Christ’s work of redemption. He has given us an abundance of grace and gift of righteousness to enable us to reign in this life. “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ”. We have received tremendous grace and an immeasurable investment of God’s power at our disposal in Christ;
Are we going to fail Him like Adam did? God forbid.
Will you start exercising the dominion given to you today? You are new to this, you say? That’s okay, start from seeking God to give you spiritual understanding, and make a quality decision to find out what Christ did for you in the package of redemption, the authority He has bestowed on you, and who you are in Christ Jesus.
Power, Authority, and Dominion
For those who have been redeemed and translated into the Kingdom, the Devil is no longer the intimidator. In the mind of God the devil has been defeated, and you and I are the overcomers. In the mind of God, anyone who is born again in Christ Jesus has the dominion, stolen by the devil, restored back to him or her.
This has been part of God’s grand design all along. You remember the blessings of the Blood Covenant that God pronounced on Abraham His blood covenant friend includes dominion over the gates of his enemies.
“And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore;” (Gen 22:16,17).
This promise of “dominion”, which is the subjugation of the enemies thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies and exercising sovereignty over them is part of the Covenant of Promise made to Abraham and his seed. And, this seed refers to Christ and His body.
In addition to this, the Lord Jesus transferred the Name and the Keys acquired by Him through the victory of the cross and over the grave unto us, the Church. After He overcame and became Lord of all. He was given the Name above every name. And became Lord in heaven, Lord over all on earth, and lord over all things underneath the earth. He then turned to us His Body and said:
“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Mat 28:18-20).
The word used by our Lord in the 18th verse of Scripture above translated in the King James as “power’ is actually the Greek word “exousia”(ἐξουσία), and not “dunamis” (δύναμις). This word, “exousia”, specifically more accurately means authority rather than power.
The Amplified Bible translates this verse as saying “All authority (all power of rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” The American Standard Version renders the verse as saying, “All authority hath been given unto Me”, and the New English Bible (NEB) also renders it correctly as saying, “Full authority ….has been committed to Me”
After the Lord has made this statement, He then turned to His disciples and said, “Go therefore….” In essence He’s turning the “absolute authority” that has been given unto Him over to His Body, His Ambassadors, to go and use to accomplish the task He’s giving them to do. And the task is, “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:”
He has given us, the corporate body of Christ, all the authority that has been given to Him to use in the ministry for which He has called us. We are His delegates, His messengers, His servants, sent to accomplish a task, and given the necessary authority to get that job done. He has given us the power, delegated power, to continue His mission.
Before we continue, let’s include another passage of Scripture in this meditation. In the gospel of Luke, the tenth chapter and nineteenth verse, the Lord Jesus said:
“I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luk 10:18,19).
The word “power” is used twice in the nineteenth verse of Luke, the tenth chapter quoted above. The first is the “power” that the Lord Jesus gave to us, and the second is all the other form of “power” that belong to the enemy. However, the translator of the King James version mixed things up here again for us, for the words used here are different.
The first word translated “power” in the verse above is from the Greek word “exousia” which we discussed above which was used in Matt 28:18. This first word should be translated, authority. The second word in Luke:10:19 above came from the Greek word “dunamis” (δύναμις) and this means ability, power or strength. This one is correctly rendered. So what the Lord Jesus Christ was saying is this: That He has given unto us authority(exousia) to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power(dunamis) of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt us”. Strong’s dictionary of the original Greek words used in these passages, and a couple of other translations including the Amplified Bible confirms this.
But why does it matter if these words are rendered power or authority? What is authority? And what is power?
Authority is delegated power. And the value of an authority a person has is determined by the sum total of the powers of the kingdom that is backing or behind him or her. The value of the authority that the President of United States has, is the sum total of the United States’ military resources, plus the sum total of her human resources, plus the sum total of her economic resources, plus the sum total of her natural resources, plus the sum total of her wealth, plus the sum total of her political resources and influence around the world, etc. This is what is back of the word of a United State President when he open his mouth to speaks or perform an action as President.
Power is great. Samson had some super-power. But there is a limit to the amount of power that can reside in a mortal man. However, authority can be limitless. We can define “authority” mathematically as “power” raised to “power n”, where the magnitude of ‘n’ depends on the power of the entity behind that person wielding the authority. The value of ’n’ will be ‘1’ if that person is relying on just his or her own inherent power alone, and ‘n’ will be ‘infinity’ if GOD ALMIGHTY is the entity behind him or her.
Yes, authority is delegated power. It is that power that the Traffic officer uses to stop moving traffic. Heavy buses, 18-wheeler trucks, heavy equipment trailers, all heading towards her with significant momentum enough to crush her, all 5ft and 110-Ibs of her, as a car would crush a fly; But what happens when this traffic officer steps into the middle of the intersection and raises up her hand? They all STOP.
That’s not power. This traffic police doesn’t even have as much power to stop a little child riding a tricycle if he were to decide to run her over. Yet they all stop. That’s authority. The traffic police has “delegated power” vested in her by the nation’s Department of Transportation. The power of the government is behind those hands that she raised. The traffic police is the master, and all traffic must swiftly obey her command, and only go when she says so. That is authority.
Dominion is the power to rule. It is having sovereignty over something or an entire domain. It is having supremacy and power, and ruling over a subject. Like a rulers over a territory. The opposite of dominion in this case will be subjugation or servitude.
God gave man dominion over the animal kingdom. Therefore man rules over and controls them. Man even chooses which one of them to kill for his food and which one to domesticate as pets. An average elephant for example has more physical power than any man or even a dozen of us, but the dominion God gave man enable us to control even the largest of them and make them work for us.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:” (Psa 8:4-6).
This is the eternal purpose of God. Though the first Adam sinned and interrupted his own estate in the kingdom; Praise God! the last Adam has come and has completed the work of redemption. When the first Adam’s lease is done, man will be back to his original estate. The work of restoration that Christ Jesus, the last Adam did, is so perfect that when all is said and done, it will be as if the fall never happened.
