God’s Judgment On His Blessing: How Genesis 1:28 Informs The Punishments On Adam And Eve -- By: Mitchell L. Chase

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 18:1 (Spring 2013)
Article: God’s Judgment On His Blessing: How Genesis 1:28 Informs The Punishments On Adam And Eve
Author: Mitchell L. Chase


God’s Judgment On His Blessing:
How Genesis 1:28 Informs The Punishments On Adam And Eve

Mitchell Chase

Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Preaching Pastor, Kosmosdale Baptist Church

Louisville, Kentucky

Introduction

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, their punishments brought disruption to manhood and womanhood. These punishments, recorded in Gen 3:16-19, were not randomly chosen but instead reflect and affect the blessing God declared in 1:28.1

This article will demonstrate that the creation commission in Gen 1:28 is the necessary backdrop to understand the nature of the judgments meted out to the man and woman after the Fall. When the first couple disobeyed, God did not rescind his blessing. He did not nullify the mandate to multiply and have dominion, but his punishments ensured that the mandate would manifest in pain, frustration, and difficulty.

After Gen 3:16-19 God’s blessing now also bears his judgment.

The Creation Commission

In the creation account of Gen 1:1-2:3 there are two statements of God’s blessing. On the fifth day he blesses animals (1:22), and on the sixth day he blesses his image-bearers (1:28). The latter blessing is the most important one because God’s commission (or mandate) is stated clearly for the first couple and helps explain what functioning as God’s image-bearers will involve: “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.”2

There are multiple actions commended in that blessing, and they can be divided into two large ideas. The verbs be fruitful, multiply, and fill denote population by procreation, and the verbs subdue and have dominion express the rule to be exercised by the image-bearers over what God has made. The creation commission, then, is twofold: have offspring and have dominion.3

With the pre-Fall mandate of Gen 1:28 now before us, we are ready to look at the judgments.

The Context Of The Jud...
You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()