Theological Term of the Week

cultural mandate
God’s command for the human race to fill the earth and rule over it; also called creation mandate, dominion mandate, or stewardship mandate.

• From scripture:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

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 1:26-28, ESV)

• From ESV Bible study notes on Genesis 1:26-28:

[T]he idea is that the man and woman are to make the earth’s resources beneficial for themselves, which implies that they would investigate and develop the earth’s resources to make them useful for human beings generally. This command provides a foundation for wise scientific and technological development; the evil uses to which people have put their dominion come as a result of Genesis 3. … As God’s representatives, human beings are to rule over every living thing on the earth. These commands are not, however, a mandate to exploit the earth and its creatures to satisfy human greed, for the fact that Adam and Eve were “in the image of God” implies God’s expectation that human beings will use the earth wisely and govern it with the same sense of responsibility and care that God has toward the whole of his creation. 

• From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton:

All human beings, even as fallen, remain God’s image-bearers—with the original commission to rule, guard, and keep, and to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” extending God’s reign with Eden as the capital (Ge 1:26-28, cf. 2:15). Often referred to as the cultural mandate, this original vocation given to humanity remains the source of that indefatigable impulse to build cities and civilizations, farms and vineyards, houses and empires. Every person, believer and unbeliever alike, receives a distinct vocation for his or her calling in the world, and the Spirit equips each person for these distinct callings in common grace. However, God’s Word in the cultural mandate is “law”: the command to subdue, rule, fill, and expand.

Learn more:

1. 9Marks: What is the cultural mandate? Who is it given to?
2. Aaron Armstrong: How Should We Exercise Dominion?
3. Cornerstone Presbyterian Church: What is the Cultural Mandate? and How the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission Complement Each Other
4. Greg Johnson: Why the Mona Lisa is going to Heaven
5. John MacArthur: We Must Rightly Understand the Creation Mandate

Related terms:

• creation ex nihilo
• Great Commission
• image of God
• vocation

Filed under Anthropology

Do you have a term you would like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

temptation of Jesus
Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness the beginning of his ministry.

• From scripture:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

 

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,’

and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’”




Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

These temptations were really a culmination of a lifelong process of moral strengthening and maturing that occurred throughout Jesus’ childhood and early adulthood, as he “increased in wisdom  . . and in fear with God” (Luke 2:52 and as he “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). In these temptations in the wilderness and in the various temptations that faced him through the thirty-three years of hislife, Christ obeyed God in our place and as our representative, thus succeeding where Adam had failed, where the people of Israel in the wilderness had failed, and where we had failed (see Rom. 5:18-19). 

As difficult as it may be for us to comprehend, Scripture affirms that in these temptations Jesus gained an ability to understand and help us in our temptations, “Because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:18). 

Learn more:

1. In the Bible: Matthew 4:1-11, see also Luke 4:1-13, Mark 1:12-13.
2. Got Questions.org: What is the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ temptations?
3. Bob Deffinbaugh: The Temptation of Jesus, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
4. D. A. Carson: The Temptation of Jesus (audio)

Related terms:

• active obedience of Christ
• federal head
• humanity of Christ
• impeccability
• incarnation

Filed under Person, Work, and Teaching of Christ

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

Great Commission
Christ’s command to “Go … and make disciples of all nations,” given to the apostles after his resurrection, summarizing what his followers are commissioned to do from the time of his ascension until he comes again.

• From scripture:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, ESV)

• From D. A. Carson’s Matthew Commentary (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary), on Christ’s command to “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”:

1. The focus is on Jesus’ commands, not OT law. Jesus’ words, like the words of Scripture, are more enduring than heaven and earth (24:35); and the peculiar expression “everything I have commanded you” is … reminiscent of the authority of Yahweh (Exod. 29:35; Deut 1:3, 41; 7:11; 12:11, 14)… . The revelation of Jesus Messiah at this Scriptures pointed and constitutes their valid continuity; but this means that the focus is necessarily on Jesus.
2. Remarkably, Jesus does not foresee a time when any part of his teaching will be rightly judged needless, outmoded, superseded, or untrue: everything he has commanded must be passed on “to the very end of the age.”
3. What the disciples teach is not mere dogma stepped in abstract theorizing but content to be obeyed.
4. It then follows that by carefully passing on everything Jesus taught, the first disciples—themselves eyewitnesses—call into being new generations of “earwitnesses”. These in turn pass on the truth they received. So a means is provided for successive generations to remain in contact with Jesus’ teachings (cf. 2 Tim. 2:2).
5. Christianity must spread by an internal necessity or it has already decayed; for one of Jesus’ commands is to teach all that he commands. Failure to disciple, baptize and teach the peoples of the world is already itself one of the failures or our own discipleship.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions.org: What is the Great Commission?
2. Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology: Great Commission 
3. 9Marks: Who is responsible to fulfill the Great Commission?; What does the Great Commission require of local churches?
4. Thabiti Anyabwile: 7 Reasons to Care About the Great Commission 
5. J. Ligon Duncan:  The Great Commission (audio)

Related terms:

• ascension of Jesus
• believer’s baptism
• gospel

Filed under Person, Work, and Teaching of Christ

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.