Men’s Summit

God created Adam and placed him in the garden. Adam was instructed to “cultivate it and keep it.” This instruction established the mode of Adam’s dominion rule. First, he is charged to build and construct upon God’s good creation. This means he was to exercise his powers of wit and handihood to develop various ways to enrich and beautify creation through diligent stewardship as an expression of imitation and recreation of God's creative act.

Second, in keeping the garden, Adam was to protect, defend, and extend it. Not only was his task one of maintaining what existed through safeguarding and buttressing the garden, but he was to arise, and extend the borders of Eden so that the outlying wilderness was subdued and brought under the righteous rule of God.

Adam’s task was hampered and frustrated by the fall. The effects of sin brought great struggle to the task of man. Instead of the creation willingly being subdued, now it fights man’s efforts and resists through the effects of sin in the world. But thanks be to God that Christ has dwelt among us and has resurrected as the firstborn from the dead. He has ushered in a new creation, and a new humanity as the last Adam. He calls redeemed men to work again. This time not in vain, but with the promise that faith is the victory that overcomes the world.