While I was going to bible college at Grace training center in Kansas City I formed my doctrinal opinions. My Father is a southern Baptist pastor. I had not given much care to cultivating a personal walk with God. I had excepted Jesus Christ as Lord and savior early in life but had turned my back on God and walked away. At 21 through a dramatic experience I turned back to the Lord.
At that point I began to look at what I believed. Things like Grace and how that related to Christian’s who I knew who were in adultery and others serious sins. Can a christian do what Lucifer did and rebel with no intent of returning to a relationship with God still go to heaven. I had always believed that the people who turn their back on God were never really saved to begin with. So here I am wrestling with Calvinism vs Armenianism. I had a professor named Sam Storm who was a full 5 point Calvinist and He shook what I believed to the core.
After I had returned to the Lord I had spent about 10 years in the Assemblies of God and had a theology somewhere in the middle of Calvinism and Armenianism. Sam had forced me to take a good hard look at what I believe and daily I wrestled through verses that seemed to imply both views how could both views be truth. I could laugh and say I am a two and half point Calvinist.
The relationship between what your view of God is will directly effect your end time view. Most Christians have no idea what they believe about the end time other than Jesus one day will come from the east. I have always held to the view my father has which is ”it will all pan out” and “Be ready”. Be ready to go if Jesus comes today and be ready to be killed if the Antichrist comes and has everyone taking his mark. Either way be ready is the key.
Just recently over the last several years have I watched a switch with the end time views of many Christian’s. The language is beginning to change. It is like a red flag is waving in front of me.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever
God does not change
Is 43:2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Historically God delivers through not out of. The three Hebrew children delivered through the fire yet those throwing them in were killed. The Children of Israel were delivered through the red sea yet the Egyptians were killed. Noah and His family were delivered through the flood yet the Waters that lifted Noah’s household up killed everyone else.
Recently the Dominion mandate doctrine has been spreading through the American charismatic church. Many in the faith movement have held the view that the church is to take up the mantle that Adam lost due to sin which is to have dominion over the whole earth. That does not sound so bad up front. Here’s the problem, in history a thing called the crusades. The crusades where expanding the kingdom of God by the sword making the Kingdom of God a natural Kingdom.
Dominion theology main proof text:
- Genesis 1:26-28
- 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all F2 the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Then Luke 19:10 is applied saying what was lost due to Adams sin was dominion and it is that thing in which we should seek.
Luke 19:10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Wow that seems like heresy to me it is the souls of precious men and women that are lost, please pray about these things if you hold to those thoughts.
Psalms 22:27-28, 27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.
It is not our mandate to dominate but the Lord’s
As we speak round tables are being formed to discuss how to strategically take the world for Jesus. That is great but there is also in the top circles of Christianity a merger with the privatized military. If your end time view is things get better and better until Jesus comes back to a kingdom made ready for Him then that all might sound good. But if the church is actually going through the great tribulation and there is coming a demonic mark, it could be seen as a seal of God and many buy into it thinking its all part of the kingdom of God with some super apostle leading it all.
Be warned be very careful if you hold to that view. Jesus said many terrible things would happen before He returned. He even raised the question would there even be faith when He returned.
Luke 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
Please don’t get me wrong I totally believe we take our faith into every aspect of life. That we should pray and be aggressive to see the kingdom of God break in against the kingdom of darkness. We need to be careful not to loose sight along the way that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. That Christianity does not over come Islam by the power of the sword or guns as the case may be but by prayer and fasting. The new Testament uses leaven or yeast to both describe sin “kingdom of darkness” and the kingdom of God. To me that makes it clear both kingdoms increase with time one become more dark the other more light.
Mat 16:11-12 11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? 12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Mat 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
Luke 13:20-21 20 And again he said, Where-unto shall I liken the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
I think we are under a salt and light mandate not a dominion mandate.
Mat 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Mat 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
We the children of God should be salt and light both a preserving agent and light bearer and leave the dominating to Jesus.
… I think you are completely right. good article!
Yes, a lot of New Age doctrine creeping in and so many who are “power-trippin’!! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and reminding that Jesus is still in control!!
In His Love.
My dear brothers and sisters,
Why must we have mentality that suggests we have to be one or the other? We are called to be Salt and Light, we are also called to have dominion. We are called the ministry of reconciliation of all things…. that means all, not some, not a portion but ALL. The dominion mandate does not exclude any “souls of men and women” it just adds another deminsion to the equation. The dominion mandate builds upon a foundation that has been laid by God Himself. Why must we inisist on excluding our right to rule? Jesus brought the Kingdom with Him when He came. If we believe the Bible and the words of Jesus, we have to believe that we will “rule” and “reign” with Him. Jesus said if we suffer with Him, we will reign with Him. The Apostle Paul said I am all things to all people in hope that I might win some. We are called to be ALL the things that Jesus said we could be, that means we are salt and light and to HAVE DOMINION!!!! Perahps it would be wise to investigate the subject for yourself, rather than taking another’s opinion. The Word of God says “it is the glory of God to conceal that matter: but it is the glory of kings to serach the matter out” We are also kings and priests, we must funciton in both of those offices! A king does not only concern himself with “salt and light” a king is concerned with his whole kingdom and his right to rule in that kingdom! Just some points to ponder, thank you for your article, though I do not agree with your comments. May God bless you and you seek first the KINGDOM and all these THINGS shall be added unto you!
Blessings
Leslie , There is a big difference between having dominion in the biblical idea and the “MANDATE” as is desribed in my blog having to do with real Christian militia killing real people. In uganda and kenya Christian owned companies taking young men by the thousands and contracting them out to the US GOV to fight in IRAQ “not just peace keepers” as we are told I have personally spoke to people in Africa it is true. The MANDATE is much more than you think. Do this pray and ask HOLY SPIRIT to show you what the real deception is. That is all I ask. Thanks for the comment
I know this post is really old, but… Leslie said: “…we are also called to have dominion. We are called [to] the ministry of [the] reconciliation of all things….
Your reference appears to be a combination of 2 Cor 5:18-19 “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…”) and Col 1:20 “…and through [Christ] to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven…”
You will notice that what we have been called to in 2 Cor 5 is proclaiming reconciliation, not the current agenda of dominion in any sense. In the next verse Paul even says, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
The Colossians passage (and the 2 Cor 5 one) says that it is GOD who has the agenda of reconciling all things to himself. The passages (such as Gen 1:28) that the people pushing for a dominoion/cultural mandate use simply cannot bear the weight of their agenda.
So let’s keep to the task of proclaiming “Be reconciled to God!” as Paul says and not presuming anything else as our divinely appointed mandate/agenda. It is through the lowly and despised folks of this world whom God has chosen to carry out his Divine Agenda for the world, not those who are eager to take charge of it in order to fix it. I think the Bible shows us that the Lord has an “upside-down” way of bringing about his own Agenda, which actually may involve a lot of suffering from what I read.
Thank you for this article.
CONTEXT IS KING
“When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other senses; therefore take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.” David Cooper
The plain sense of Genesis 1:26-28 in context is the dominion of men over the animals. The command to “be fruitful and multiply” is to Adam and Eve, the only two people on the earth at the time, to populate the unpopulated earth. I have found no such command to the Church anywhere in scripture that we are all to have many children.
The “dominion mandate” is an obvious error of misinterpretation. One in which verses are lifted out of their immediate context to prove a man-centered point of view, rather than a God-centered point of view.
A text without a context is a pretext.